Skilled Trades Summer Camps: How Angie Simon is Creating Careers in the Trades for Youth
Skilled trades summer camps are transforming lives. Angie Simon joins Andrew Brown to talk trades careers, apprenticeships, and women in construction programs.
Host Andrew Brown speaks with Angie Simon, founder of the Heavy Metal Summer Experience, about how skilled trades summer camps are creating real careers in the trades for youth. From women in construction programs to sheet metal apprenticeship opportunities, this episode explores how hands-on camps are reshaping the future of the trades industry by giving teens, especially those from underserved communities, an exciting trade school alternative to college.
You’ll hear success stories, insider insights, and the practical tools these camps offer: free boots, tools, real trade skills (welding, plumbing, electrical), and mentorship from industry professionals.
Whether you're a parent, a contractor, or someone passionate about trades careers, this episode gives you a clear look at what’s working—and how you can be part of the change.
IN THIS EPISODE:
● (02:10) – How 65% of sheet metal contractors started in the trades
● (08:35) – What skilled trades summer camps look like day-to-day
● (14:20) – The growing impact of women in construction programs
● (20:05) – Trade school alternatives to college and why they matter
● (27:50) – Why sheet metal apprenticeship opportunities are booming
● (34:30) – How camps are changing the future of the skilled trades industry
Key Takeaways:
● Skilled trades summer camps are opening doors to high-paying, hands-on careers for teens.
● More women in construction programs are succeeding—especially in welding and fabrication.
● These camps are effective trade school alternatives to college for at-risk youth.
● Sheet metal apprenticeship opportunities are in demand and can lead to business ownership.
About the Guest:
Angie Simon is a pioneering figure in the trades industry and co-founder of the Heavy Metal Summer Experience. With over 35 years in construction, including 15 years as president of a major mechanical contracting firm, she launched this nonprofit to grow the next generation of tradespeople. Her summer camps introduce youth to carpentry, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and sheet metal trades, while also leading initiatives for women in construction programs and creating trade school alternatives to college for underserved communities.
Keywords
Skilled Trades Summer Camps, Careers in the Trades for Youth, Women in Construction Programs, Sheet Metal Apprenticeship Opportunities, Trade School Alternatives to College, Skilled Trades, Trades Industry, Trades Careers, Contractors, Industry Experts, Education, Advocacy, Tradespeople, Problem-solving, Creativity, Andrew Brown, Angie Simon, Heavy Metal Summer Experience, Toolfetch, Skilled Trades Advisory Council, Carpentry, HVAC, Electricians, Plumbers, Millwrights, Construction, Craftsmanship
Resource Links:
Website: https://www.hmse.org/
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angie-simon-pe-666744/
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Transcript
About 65% of the sheet metal contractors across the nation are
Speaker:owned by people that started in the trades. So they're not owned by
Speaker:engineers, they're not owned by contractors. They're people that started in their trades, their career
Speaker:in the trades, they worked their way up and now they own the company.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Andrew Brown. You're listening to the Lost, star of the Skilled Trades
Speaker:podcast, a show that shines the spotlight on
Speaker:careers in the skilled trades that are high paying, honorable,
Speaker:rewarding and fulfilling. The trades are the backbone of the
Speaker:economy that keep us running. And without them, our world
Speaker:would cease to exist.
Speaker:Today we have a special guest, Angie Simon of Heavy Metal
Speaker:Summer Experience. Welcome, Angie, to the show.
Speaker:Thank you very much, Andrew. I'm excited to be on the show. Yeah,
Speaker:likewise. You know, I am a big believer of
Speaker:starting kids early in the trades and that's to
Speaker:get them using their hands. And you can do that in many
Speaker:different ways. And obviously you can speak with them at the
Speaker:elementary level, the middle school level. But what I like to see
Speaker:is programs where kids get interested working with
Speaker:their hands. And I'm just thinking of a woman by the name of
Speaker:Mary Gaffney who is actually on my Stack
Speaker:foundation, the Skilled Trades Advisory Council. And she brings in about 80
Speaker:young women over the summer. And they get free
Speaker:work boots, they get free tools. Usually it's a tool company
Speaker:distributor who gives them free stuff. And I think it was Milwaukee Tools. And
Speaker:they learn a trade and they learn how to swing a hammer,
Speaker:read a tape measure, and by the end of the summer, they can do stuff
Speaker:with their hands. You know, I did some research on
Speaker:the Heavy Metal Summer Experience and it seems like you
Speaker:guys are doing very similar things. Tell me about sort of the day to
Speaker:day of the program and what kind of kids get
Speaker:interested in that. Yes, Heavy Metal Summer Experience. Our mission
Speaker:is really to get kids to know about what an amazing career they could have
Speaker:in the trades. And we do work with all high school kids,
Speaker:sometimes anywhere from 15 to 19, depending on the
Speaker:age range. And we offer free summer camps just
Speaker:similar to what you were just talking about. Usually a minimum of about 30
Speaker:hours. And they're at a host facility across the United
Speaker:States. So we actually this Summer have about 53 locations across
Speaker:the United States and Canada. We're going to have almost 900 kids on our
Speaker:campus this summer. We are only in our fifth summer. We just started
Speaker:not long ago, so we've really grown. They start this camp,
Speaker:they will get a set of red Wing boots. Day one and that's so they
Speaker:get their brand new set of boots because that's what we fundraise for the boots.
Speaker:And they start to learn about mechanical, electrical, plumbing and
Speaker:piping trades. So some camps will do primarily. Like, for example,
Speaker:we have our first all electrical camp this summer. We might have some all sheet
Speaker:metal camps, but we try to do all three MEP trades if possible. And
Speaker:I'll tell you, the kids, oftentimes we have to teach them to use a tape
Speaker:measure. They've never used even measured anything. Kids love
Speaker:fire. They seem to love to weld and to solder and anything
Speaker:with fire is exciting. They make their own projects. They actually get to take
Speaker:these projects home oftentimes make like lamps and toolboxes
Speaker:and different things out of sheet metal and piping and electrical. And they
Speaker:gain confidence in themselves. They're taught by union
Speaker:professionals, either sheet metal piping or electricians. And they
Speaker:have support of the either the contractor's shop or they might be in a
Speaker:union training center as well. So we've kind of got a number of different models
Speaker:across the United States. We really had no idea it was going
Speaker:to take off like this. When the kids graduate, they get a set of tools
Speaker:either from Milwaukee Tool or DeWalt. We have two amazing partners.
Speaker:And to think about it, my partners In Milwaukee and DeWalt are donating over
Speaker:900 tool bags to our kids this summer. They've been great partners for
Speaker:us and we have a lot of corporate sponsors and people that have been helping
Speaker:us with this camp. But we are seeing 20 to
Speaker:25% women in our campsite and we're seeing about
Speaker:65% in minorities in our camps. So we focus on
Speaker:underserved and at risk kids. It's so rewarding to see the
Speaker:parents come to you and say, I had no idea my son or daughter could
Speaker:have a career that can make so much money and that they don't have to
Speaker:pay for college and that they can learn things right away. Their kids come home
Speaker:from camp every day and they talk about what they've made and their confidence
Speaker:level goes up every time they do. So it's really something that
Speaker:I had no idea was going to grow this fast, but obviously is needed across
Speaker:our nation because it's really hitting a hotspot right now. I'm a big
Speaker:believer of letting your kids play with your tools under supervision
Speaker:and getting them interested. I did this with my son. He
Speaker:was making something for my daughter and he was out with a saw, a
Speaker:Milwaukee cordless saw. And I was Watching and making sure he had the goggles on,
Speaker:making sure he had gloves on, making sure he, you know, watched his, where
Speaker:he was cutting. But now he's interested, working
Speaker:with his hands. I don't push anything on him. We're in the tool business.
Speaker:I always have tools around in my house so he can
Speaker:pick and choose what he wants. But it's good to put this in front of
Speaker:kids at an early age, especially being at
Speaker:a camp. Do most of these individuals,
Speaker:the younger kids, are they coming from parents who
Speaker:worked in the trades or a lot of them have not worked in the trades?
Speaker:There might be a couple in the camp that have their parents have worked in
Speaker:the trades, but a lot of them, we really focus on working with the
Speaker:underserved areas, the continuation schools, the career tech
Speaker:schools, where it's kids that probably don't have a lot of options.
Speaker:And so we're trying to encourage the at risk kids, the ones that really don't
Speaker:have the opportunity to go to college and that we're encouraging
Speaker:them. I mean, I think one of the things about our trades is, and I
Speaker:being a woman, I was the president of a large mechanical contracting firm.
Speaker:I was there for 35 years as president of about 15 of those. And I
Speaker:was kind of a unicorn in that. President of a large, you know, a million
Speaker:plus mechanical in the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay area. You didn't see a
Speaker:lot of women in that position. Our trades, our construction is a
Speaker:fairly white male industry overall. So I think this,
Speaker:we're trying to make this. We encourage our camps to
Speaker:make the demographic of their camp look like the demographics of their cities.
Speaker:You know, some camps, definitely a couple kids from every company is typically a
Speaker:kid from, you know, one of the people in the company. But we really do
Speaker:encourage them to go out and go help the areas that really need help.
Speaker:Our very first camp was at my old company and we worked with East Palo
Speaker:Alto, which was in Northern California area and a really underserved area
Speaker:that just really could use help. And these kids
Speaker:were very appreciative, as were the parents. So it's really neat to see
Speaker:you. Said that it was 25% women or
Speaker:girls going through this, which is unbelievable because there's only about 3 or 4% of
Speaker:women really in the trades. I mean, plus or minus whatever statistic you
Speaker:see out there. But the interesting thing is that
Speaker:there's that amount of women who come in through your camps
Speaker:and that maybe, just maybe they might be
Speaker:interested in working in a trade. Are there any
Speaker:success stories that you can share that.
Speaker:Really just stand out there that someone who started in
Speaker:your program and maybe went into the trades. I have a
Speaker:great one. I mean from our very first summer. So what happened was our very
Speaker:first summer it was my company, Western Allied in the Bay Area and my friend
Speaker:Rick Hermanson and Hermanson company up in Seattle. We together
Speaker:decided let's run a summer camp. Just because we were and we didn't. We
Speaker:picked a name and we named a heavy metal summer experience. We prepped it and
Speaker:we made up a plan and we both, we ran camps up in Seattle and
Speaker:in the Bay Area. So in the Seattle camp at graduation a mom
Speaker:pulled us aside and asked if she could speak with us. We said sure. She
Speaker:says, I'm a housekeeper and my husband's a framer. My
Speaker:daughter was in a very dark place. Her last semester of senior year. She
Speaker:didn't know what she wanted to do, but she knew she didn't want to go
Speaker:to college. And she really got depressed and the mom started
Speaker:crying. She said, I lost my daughter and I didn't know what to do. And
Speaker:she says now six weeks later, after your camp, I have my daughter
Speaker:back. And this young lady now is in her fourth year of her
Speaker:apprenticeship and is just killing it. She was a pre apprentice for
Speaker:about eight months. Got into the apprenticeship and she's almost done
Speaker:with her apprenticeship and she's killing it. Everybody fight over her. They had to
Speaker:rotate her away from Hermanson for two years because of the requirements.
Speaker:And Hermanson sure hopes they can get her back because she's amazing.
Speaker:They actually have her work for them in the afternoons. After
Speaker:she's done working. They bring her back to help at the camp because she's a
Speaker:great story about the camp but she loves what she does and
Speaker:she's great at it. So that was a story where a young woman just didn't
Speaker:know what she wanted to do. And she had never experienced something like that and
Speaker:she fell in love with it. That's an interesting story that someone was
Speaker:in a dark place and decided to go down this path. And it turned out
Speaker:to be a win win. And now people are fighting for her in an
Speaker:apprenticeship. Did you say what she wants to be? What trade? She's in the
Speaker:sheet metals union. And so she's going to be a sheet metal worker. Currently, I
Speaker:think she's working for McKinstry which is a big company up there in the Seattle
Speaker:area. We also have. There's a young woman who was interviewed
Speaker:and went to our camp in Boston at Canastraro and
Speaker:she's been working for Canastraro for a while. And actually she was just interviewed by
Speaker:the Wall Street Journal. They're gonna have an article a little bit about it, but
Speaker:her story is gonna be in there too, about what she did after she got
Speaker:out of camp and how she's been working in. The Wall Street Journal has been
Speaker:putting out some pretty stellar stuff. I think it's
Speaker:Taiping Chen. I've spoken with her too. She's. She's put out some
Speaker:really good articles of the last year or so. That's pretty amazing that
Speaker:it's being put out there. I'm excited. She interviewed me too as well, a
Speaker:couple weeks ago. So I'm thinking of women who've come out of different programs.
Speaker:I'm thinking of this woman that I met about a year ago. She was
Speaker:graduating out of high school, thinking about college, but she went through
Speaker:this program with Mary Gaffney called mywic, Women in
Speaker:Construction. I don't think she really swung a hammer or really did
Speaker:anything in the trades. I think that she had blue collar in
Speaker:her sort of like family life. Somebody was in blue collar, but
Speaker:I don't think there was an interest there until she went through this camp and
Speaker:really just got supercharged working with her hands and then came back
Speaker:as a teacher. Now maybe wants to own a construction company one day.
Speaker:So the power of these camps, mind boggling what you
Speaker:can accomplish. You will find that they say the girls and women, I guess
Speaker:women as high schoolers, but they're the best welders in the camps typically. And I
Speaker:think the attention to detail is a little bit more there for the. On the
Speaker:women's side. So all the camps are like, oh, my gosh, the girls are knocking
Speaker:the boys out of the picture when it comes to welding. So they're finding that
Speaker:the things that they do in these camps that they can do. And the other
Speaker:thing is, there was a young woman at graduation I was talking to one time
Speaker:in Kansas City and she said, well, she really wants to be involved in robotics.
Speaker:And I said, do you realize construction has a lot of robotics? She goes, really?
Speaker:I really like what we do here, but I want to do robotics. I said,
Speaker:you could be doing robotics. You could be running the robots that are out in
Speaker:the job sites. And so she was pretty excited about it. The technology in
Speaker:construction today excites me because I think it's what we need to attract the next
Speaker:generation. I see it firsthand too, and being in the tool business, being up and
Speaker:up on the latest and greatest tools and the technology and everything that
Speaker:how far it's come and the safety aspect when it comes
Speaker:to trades, because that's numero uno when it comes to working on site.
Speaker:You want to make sure that you get home to your loved ones. But I've
Speaker:seen that the technology jump is just unreal. To make
Speaker:life easier for people in the trades. And also from a safety
Speaker:perspective, it's great to have these young kids
Speaker:in these programs. It's great to have women or young girls in the program
Speaker:who we desperately need to get into the trades.
Speaker:Did you come from a trades background? What
Speaker:was the backstory for you? How did you get into all
Speaker:this? Were you exposed to it or. Oftentimes you fee a woman that was
Speaker:owning a company or involved in a company. They usually assume it's my dad. My
Speaker:dad was an electrical engineer, but he worked for Point Magoo. He worked for the
Speaker:government at a missile center for the Navy. So you didn't take your
Speaker:daughter to work when you worked in the missile center? So I did get maybe
Speaker:some of. My dad made his own TV with the Heath kit. He made shelves.
Speaker:I mean, I did get some of that from my dad in that he liked
Speaker:to make stuff around the house. But part of it is I am a mechanical
Speaker:engineer. I went to school for that. But I was very interested
Speaker:in the solar and H Vac side of things at the time
Speaker:energy crisis. When I was in high school, we were waiting in line at gas
Speaker:stations. So I thought, well, we could do something with energy. And I kind of
Speaker:fell in love with that. But I ended up loving the H vac side and
Speaker:I went to work for a contractor. I also played softball in college. So I
Speaker:really not somebody who wanted to sit at a desk. So I wanted to go
Speaker:somewhere where I could at least be. I didn't want to work for a consultant.
Speaker:I wanted to work for a contractor where I could go out to a job
Speaker:site and I could see what they're doing. But I had a lot to learn.
Speaker:I still don't do well super well with a lot of the different tools.
Speaker:I can make a few things. I mean, I did take welding in college. I
Speaker:was terrible at it. So I have an appreciation of it
Speaker:anyhow, but so I just fell in love with it. And team is a big
Speaker:aspect for me because of the sports that I've played. And team
Speaker:is important part of construction. I learned that right away as a project manager.
Speaker:Your team was really important for you to do well. And the team on the
Speaker:job site, not just your company, but the entire team, the general contractor and the
Speaker:subs. So that to me was what I. How I fell in love with
Speaker:construction was we built a team, we built a project, we built a
Speaker:building, we did a lot of life sciences and biotech where we
Speaker:built buildings that helped research, that helped solve world's issues.
Speaker:So I really fell in love with that. And that's just how it came.
Speaker:I stayed at one company for 35 years, so started
Speaker:as one year out of college as a young project manager and just kind of
Speaker:grew up in the company. So many parents, and I see this
Speaker:too, some of them push back in the trades. It could just be
Speaker:misinformation or old adages of what they think the
Speaker:trades is all about, and some of them think that the
Speaker:wages are not there. Did you get pushback when you
Speaker:went into this side of, you know, the trades? Did
Speaker:your family push back and say, hey, look, maybe you should try something else? Or
Speaker:are they very supportive of your journey?
Speaker:My family was very supportive, but partially. I was the mechanical engineer, so I was
Speaker:on the office side of it. But my dad was very interested in.
Speaker:He understood that what we do is very important. But it is interesting
Speaker:because I remember even talking to my dad recently and he was talking about
Speaker:putting money aside for his grandkids for them to go to college. And
Speaker:I said, well, dad, you know, is it fair that one grandkid decides to go
Speaker:into the trades and not go to college and that he doesn't get any of
Speaker:your money? And he said, oh, you got a real good point there. He said,
Speaker:maybe I should just put aside money to help them and let them choose
Speaker:what they want to do with it. And I said, I think you should, because
Speaker:maybe somebody chooses to go. I mean, I was amazed that all of our plumbers
Speaker:in the Bay Area, they owned houses by the time they were 27.
Speaker:And most of us that were getting out of college had enough debt that we
Speaker:were not even done with our debt by the time we're 27. And these guys
Speaker:are starting to buy houses in the Bay Area. So I have two sons and
Speaker:one's a journalist and a sports editor, so he's not in the trades. But the
Speaker:other one actually worked at Western Allied, where I worked for a while. But he
Speaker:even said to me, he went to college as a industrial technology. He was a
Speaker:manufacturing kind of guy. But he said, why didn't you have me go to college?
Speaker:I could have done the trades. And I said, well, you could have, but you
Speaker:would have missed your college experience. He goes, I would have. But he's very supportive
Speaker:of my camps and he loves this idea. He actually was doing some
Speaker:tutoring with the East Palo Alto kids to try to help them with passing that
Speaker:union test to get them into the apprenticeship. So it's not for
Speaker:everybody. And college is for a lot of people. There's such an opportunity
Speaker:for people in the trades, in the apprenticeships. Currently, their
Speaker:average age of somebody entering our apprenticeships is 27 years old.
Speaker:So that means they've roamed around, they went to junior
Speaker:college. They might have worked at In N Out. They might have gone, you know,
Speaker:I'm not sure what they're doing. But they finally get into the trades at 27.
Speaker:My goal is to get those kids into the trades at 19 years old. What
Speaker:a great career they'll have. They'll be getting journeyperson wages by the time they are
Speaker:24 years old. And that's the sweet spot. I'm just thinking of
Speaker:my extended family member who wants to be an
Speaker:electrician. Now he is 36, so he's on the
Speaker:slightly older side, but he was in corporate world and he
Speaker:just didn't like it. It's not for me. He felt a burning desire working
Speaker:with his hands. And just the electrical side is really what
Speaker:gives him, you know, juices start flowing when you start talking about electricity
Speaker:with him. But he's got a family, he's got two small kids,
Speaker:and literally he's starting over and trying to get into the union.
Speaker:So it's difficult when you're a little bit older and
Speaker:you're a little bit further ahead in life versus somebody who's younger, who's just
Speaker:starting out. And you were talking about the college versus sort of
Speaker:the trades path. And I. I light up every time I hear this argument back
Speaker:and forth because I went to college for four years to the University of
Speaker:Rhode island and came out more confused out of school than I was in school.
Speaker:And I wasn't given a choice. I was just told to go
Speaker:to school because people would ask me all the time, well, what college are you
Speaker:going to? The guidance counselor say, what college are you going to? So every time
Speaker:that a young individual is going through high school,
Speaker:a lot of times when they're sitting down with the guidance counselor, it's just college,
Speaker:college, college, college. Where is the trades path for
Speaker:somebody who's got that technical spark or that mechanical
Speaker:ability? And a lot of times I feel that person gets passed over
Speaker:and somehow gets pushed into college and then takes on all this
Speaker:debt, like you said, and it's just constantly not
Speaker:getting the return that they should really get. And maybe should have thought about
Speaker:a trades path, but it wasn't really discussed with them. And I think we
Speaker:need to do a better job at that. And I can tell you a story,
Speaker:actually. Year two of our camps, we had a summer camp in
Speaker:Pomona, California, and there happened to be three kids from
Speaker:what they call the La Verne School district, which was an adjacent school district that
Speaker:had gotten into the camp. How they found out about it was probably just through
Speaker:the recruiting that the contractor did. Well, that summer, of those three
Speaker:kids, I think one of them was a superintendent of school's daughter
Speaker:and she loved the camp. So then the superintendent of schools, as she was
Speaker:superintendent of schools for La Verne School District. So she called one of her counselors
Speaker:at La Verne School District and said, listen, this camp was amazing. We need to
Speaker:get more kids into this camp. So the counselor called me and
Speaker:asked me more about the camp. We started talking about it. I said to her,
Speaker:I mean, you guys as counselors are sometimes my problem. You guys
Speaker:are the ones who are pushing every kid to college, and not every kid's meant
Speaker:to go to college. And she said, you know, you're right. And so we started
Speaker:talking a bit. She started educating herself. The next thing you know, she set
Speaker:up what they call SoCal Trades Day. She organized a group
Speaker:to go around to all the high schools to talk about the trades. She's bringing
Speaker:the trades in. Superintendent of schools then made her a new
Speaker:position. She does no longer counsels for college. She's a
Speaker:counselor for those that. I don't know if they call it. I don't think they
Speaker:call it alternate careers. But she's a counselor that's not counseling for college.
Speaker:She's counselor counseling for other careers. I mean, just a little step.
Speaker:Luckily, that daughter liked it so much, the superintendent told her about it. And then
Speaker:the next thing you know, this counselor did a great job and started realizing that
Speaker:maybe I'm helping the world a bit by showing kids another alternate
Speaker:to what they can do. I wish we had more counselors and more school districts
Speaker:that would look at that. I was thinking about a story too. Somebody who was
Speaker:on the podcast, Angela, I think it was Caldwell up
Speaker:in Canada, and she was a teacher. And I think
Speaker:one of the students came up to her and mentioned that I believe it
Speaker:was an electrician. And she looked at him sideways like she wasn't
Speaker:informed at that time. But after that conversation, she Went
Speaker:sort of down the whole path of what the possibilities are with working their
Speaker:hands. Changed everything that she did. She's no longer working at the school, but
Speaker:she formed a program to give back to kids in the
Speaker:trades and teach. Like she wasn't informed about it. It was
Speaker:interesting. Like just thinking about how many times that happens when
Speaker:somebody is in school and a kid who's interested working with their
Speaker:hands. How many times a teacher says, are you sure
Speaker:maybe you want to go to college? I think it's better today.
Speaker:I think it's gotten better with all the information out there on social media
Speaker:and all the people in welding, people electrical, like they're showing
Speaker:A Day in the Life. So kids are more exposed to it and teachers are
Speaker:more exposed to sort of what the trades are all about. But that conversation
Speaker:seems to come up quite often. So I
Speaker:think we all have a story surrounding something like that. Like you said,
Speaker:they had that Million Dollar plumber article about how the plumbers are making a million
Speaker:dollars a year. And I think that got some people's attention, which is great. And
Speaker:they need to do that more often if they can. So that would be to
Speaker:be able to share that. I think that's great and I'm thrilled when you hear
Speaker:those kind of stories. I joke about it and I say we
Speaker:need to change a perception of what construction's like. People think back and
Speaker:they think of it as a butt crack industry. I hope I can say that.
Speaker:But that's what they think of it. They think of the plumber with his pants
Speaker:half down and they're digging a ditch or doing something like that. And there's so
Speaker:much more to the construction industry and the skilled trades are
Speaker:so important and there's so much technology being used nowadays that
Speaker:you very well could end up being the BIM designer for the project. And you're
Speaker:working at a computer all day. You're making great money and you're doing all kinds
Speaker:of technology. You're not even outside digging a ditch at all. So again,
Speaker:there's so many options of where you can go with what you do in construction
Speaker:and that's. We try to tell the kids in our camps. We just try to
Speaker:give them a little taste of everything. We hope that we can get them interested.
Speaker:We're finding it's hard to track them if they haven't graduated. Each
Speaker:camp probably has. About a quarter of the kids have graduated high school. Like that
Speaker:was their senior year and they just did the camp right afterwards. And. And we're
Speaker:finding of those kids that we're getting close to 70% of
Speaker:them are getting jobs in construction of the ones that have graduated high school.
Speaker:That's how much they enjoyed it, and they really are trying it.
Speaker:Are they retaining in there? I hope so, but that's the challenge also. There's a
Speaker:little bit of a retention challenge in construction as well, and that's where we need
Speaker:to work on that as well. I like that you can start off in the
Speaker:field and then work your way up and then maybe
Speaker:own your own business if you're entrepreneur. Obviously, that's a different skill set.
Speaker:Some of people who start off in the trades, that's what they want at the
Speaker:end of the day. And I've spoken to many people who have sort of made
Speaker:that journey, and some of them are extremely,
Speaker:extremely successful. I mean, Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs kind of put
Speaker:it on the map years ago with his show to show blue
Speaker:collar and, you know, all these different industries that people just
Speaker:never really heard of in blue collar. And they do extremely, extremely well.
Speaker:I remember a friend came up to me, I think, earlier this year and
Speaker:said something about, like, he grew up with somebody who was in the plumbing
Speaker:world and he had a really big house. He's like, do they do well?
Speaker:I'm like, dude, they do do well. They
Speaker:do well. Because he's in finance in a whole different world. But
Speaker:people just don't realize. And I get this too, especially
Speaker:on social media, because I'm heavily active on TikTok and I put out a lot
Speaker:of content, so I get a lot of feedback from people. But a
Speaker:lot of kids do say, I don't make any money.
Speaker:At first. I'm looking at apprentice wages
Speaker:and I'm making 18 to $20 an hour. But I'm also looking
Speaker:at working at McDonald's or Chipotle, and it's 22, $23
Speaker:an hour. I don't have to be in the field, and then I have
Speaker:all these individuals push back who are in the trades and
Speaker:saying, you level up. You don't just stay at 18 to
Speaker:$20. You're working way up, and they're getting. Trained
Speaker:in the same time and they're getting education. So in the long
Speaker:run, when you graduate, I mean, in the Bay Area particularly, I think we are
Speaker:the highest unions in the Bay Area. But when you graduate your apprenticeship, when you're
Speaker:done with four or five years of apprenticeship, you're making six figures with no
Speaker:hesitation at all. And with construction the way it is, sometimes you're working a lot
Speaker:of overtime. So you're making really good money if you're willing to work the overtime.
Speaker:Yeah. Some of the numbers that people come back with on social media
Speaker:and the people that they include overtime, I'm like, that's a lot of money. Yes,
Speaker:it's a lot of work, but it's also a lot of money. It's what you
Speaker:put in is what you get out. I just want to swing back to your
Speaker:camp for a second. What is the number one trade that kids
Speaker:want to get into that you've seen? We focus on
Speaker:mep, so mechanical electrical, plumbing trades. We haven't had
Speaker:as much electrical lately. I mean, we're finally going to have our first all electrical
Speaker:camp this summer. I have a feeling when our union electrical contractors get involved in
Speaker:this and we start getting more of that, we might find that being very popular.
Speaker:But I think piping and plumbing, they seem to be very interested
Speaker:in the welding and the fire side of that. We teach all three of them
Speaker:and they seem to be. We kind of have a mix. You know, some will
Speaker:go into the sheet metal side. I think it just kind of depends. Now, I
Speaker:know in sheet metal, I was a SMACNA as a sheet metal contractors and air
Speaker:conditioning national association and I was national president of
Speaker:SMACNA about the time I started the camp because I started finding out how
Speaker:every contractor across the country is sheet metal contractor. Was complaining about
Speaker:not having enough people. And that's when I said, you know what we need to
Speaker:figure out? We need to stop complaining and get some skin in the game and
Speaker:do something about it. So when I had this camp, we wrote a
Speaker:playbook after we did the first camp, and I basically started sharing it across
Speaker:the nations and kind of holding contractors accountable, saying,
Speaker:stop complaining about it. Do something about it. Host a camp. Because we
Speaker:rely on hosts. We need to find a host to host a camp. We will
Speaker:help them host a camp. We give them tons of resources, but I've got
Speaker:to have somebody step up. About 65% of the sheet metal contractors
Speaker:across the nation are owned by people that started in the trades.
Speaker:So they're not owned by engineers, they're not owned by contractors. They're people that
Speaker:started their trades, their career in the trades, they worked their way up and now
Speaker:they own the company. So we tell these kids, you can do what you
Speaker:want to do. And I was a young man in one of our videos is
Speaker:online. He's like, no, I think I'm interested in plumbing. Yeah, I like plumbing.
Speaker:He goes, I want to own my own plumbing company. And I'm like, well, good.
Speaker:You go through the trades and you're going to. You're going to be able to
Speaker:own your own plumbing company. So I think it's awesome. I love it when they
Speaker:have that desire, because get a base in the trades, you know, five,
Speaker:six, seven years, and then work on owning your own company. That's sort of the
Speaker:goal, to showcase what the possibilities are
Speaker:and what that ladder of success looks like for kids. And
Speaker:these individuals who own their own company are the ones that
Speaker:you can say, oh, yeah, in a handful of years, it's possible that I can
Speaker:get there. It's interesting, you bring them up that the ones that are complaining that
Speaker:they can't find enough people, is there pushback
Speaker:on why they won't do a camp? Is it an investment
Speaker:thing? Like, is it time? Probably more time than money. I mean, I.
Speaker:It does cost them a little money, too, but it's really probably more time. And
Speaker:what we try to say to them is, listen, we're making it as easy as
Speaker:possible. We're giving you the recipe, we're giving you. We call it the easy button.
Speaker:We're giving you everything you need, forms and suggestions. You just
Speaker:need to be able to give us the time. Because they have to recruit for
Speaker:the kids in their areas. I mean, I mean, I can't because they're all over
Speaker:the nation and we have four in Canada as well. They have to go recruit
Speaker:the kids in their area. But I have a camp this summer, and he's brand
Speaker:new camp. Never run a camp before. And usually the first summer is a challenge
Speaker:to recruit the kids. And he's in DeKalb, Illinois. I'm not sure I'm saying that
Speaker:right, but it's a relatively small town. He's working with the Chamber of
Speaker:Commerce. He had 120 kids apply. He wanted
Speaker:25 kids. Now he's going to do 31 kids. But the Chamber of commerce
Speaker:in that town got very involved and started putting it out there and helped him
Speaker:with recruiting and really need to involve the city like he did and
Speaker:involve some nonprofits and encourage the kids. So it'll be interesting
Speaker:to see how his camp goes. But this guy went all in. He said, you
Speaker:know what? I'm going to run a camp. And you know what? He's probably going
Speaker:to have more kids than he can hire. So he's going to have to bring
Speaker:in other contractors to say, hey, or hire these kids. They're really good. So I
Speaker:keep challenging these guys and saying, listen, it's your turn to step up and do
Speaker:something about it. You can't just. And I will tell them, their
Speaker:employees that work for them now, they love it. I mean, that
Speaker:generation of employees that are working for most of these contractors now want to give
Speaker:back, and they love giving back. And I think sometimes they
Speaker:don't realize that side benefit that the companies that are running these, that the
Speaker:employees love it and they share it. The ones that are teaching, I mean, the
Speaker:union folks that are teaching the classes just love it because they're
Speaker:sharing their knowledge with the next generation. And you can't sit on the
Speaker:sidelines if there's a shortage out there. You're not getting the right people.
Speaker:This is a good way to get them in. And I assume it creates
Speaker:stickiness for the kids that go through because they get to
Speaker:witness firsthand. And working with that particular
Speaker:company, seeing the culture and seeing what the possibilities
Speaker:are, I would assume there's a good percentage of kids
Speaker:that are the right fit for that organization, as opposed to
Speaker:somebody who's not doing anything and just complaining and sitting on the sidelines saying,
Speaker:there's a short. And that's what it is. There's a couple things we have. Some
Speaker:of the kids are going back to high school, right? Because they're not out of
Speaker:high school yet. So they're telling their friends about what they did this past summer
Speaker:and how great it was. So that's awesome. The other thing we're finding is that
Speaker:even the kids that are applying and graduated and trying to get into the
Speaker:apprenticeship, they're enjoying it so much that the next thing you know,
Speaker:because what we're hearing is to get in the apprenticeship, it's a lot of word
Speaker:of mouth. Well, word of mouth. When you now are in an
Speaker:underserved area and an area hadn't been before, all of a sudden
Speaker:there's the brother, older brother and the neighbor are also applying
Speaker:because their friend has told them or their brother has told them what a great
Speaker:situation this is. So we're finding that we're getting more kids into the
Speaker:trades than we even planned on that didn't even go to our camp. But because
Speaker:of word of mouth and the kids or the neighborhood and that type of thing,
Speaker:which is what we want. Because if we can work with areas,
Speaker:underserved, areas like that, then we can change the look of construction a little bit
Speaker:too. So if I am a company who wants to get
Speaker:involved in the camp, walk us through what that looks like.
Speaker:So if somebody's listening right now and says, wow, this is a really Good idea.
Speaker:What do they need to do and what's given to them so they're set up
Speaker:for success. Yeah. So they would reach out to us at Heavy Metal Summer
Speaker:experience, which we're hmse.org
Speaker:or just Google Heavy Metal Summer Experience and you'll find us and reach out to
Speaker:us and we would work with you to explain to you. You are going to
Speaker:have some costs to run the camp. Every kid gets to go for free and
Speaker:it costs about $2,000 per kid to put them through the camp.
Speaker:But about half of that is my costs. The Heavy Metal Summer, meaning the
Speaker:boots, the tools, which again are kind of costs. They're in kind
Speaker:costs. We get donated. But there's many things like that. But part of that costs
Speaker:are you. Cause you're going to. You as the host camp are going to have
Speaker:graduation and you're going to host their. You might have to pay your instructors depending
Speaker:on the timeframe that you're running it. Some of the camps are run in the
Speaker:afternoons after work is done and they get volunteers. So it just depends on your
Speaker:situation. Reach out to us and we will provide you if you
Speaker:want to run a camp. We have a huge amount of resources. We'll give you
Speaker:a login to those and you'll be able to go in there. You'll have permission
Speaker:slips and marketing material to help you recruit the kids. We give
Speaker:you release forms. We share all of those with them.
Speaker:We share graduation certificates and just pretty much try to make
Speaker:it, like I said, the easy button. So I usually assign a liaison.
Speaker:We have a couple guys that are retired and volunteering to be my
Speaker:liaisons. And so either myself or a couple of these guys will volunteer
Speaker:and I'll call them up during the time that they're setting. Like, how you doing?
Speaker:Have you made your schedule yet? How's recruiting going? And I have a
Speaker:social media group that like a couple areas right now are struggling to find kids
Speaker:right now. In a few areas, I mean we're. We're struggling, we're a little low
Speaker:on kids. So we're going to start a social media blast in those areas and
Speaker:see if we can get kids to go. And again, a lot of it depends
Speaker:on the person out there recruiting the kids. So I mean, that's a good blueprint
Speaker:for somebody who's thinking about doing this. It's not just like go start a camp.
Speaker:There's an actual blueprint that you've put together from the beginning to
Speaker:the end. And there is an investment in of course. But think about it.
Speaker:You know, long term of if you invite X
Speaker:amount of kids but you get a good percentage of them or they tell somebody
Speaker:else about your company, you're going to be leaps and
Speaker:bounds past some of the other local companies that are not
Speaker:doing that. And you get to the shining stars as well. I mean, there might
Speaker:be a couple gems in that group of kids and, and if they're graduated, they
Speaker:want to work. You're the one who hosted the camp, so you're going to say,
Speaker:I definitely going to offer this one and this one a job. You know, if
Speaker:you don't have enough jobs for everybody, then you can say, oh, there's a few
Speaker:other kids for the other contractors. But you get the gems in the room because
Speaker:you're the one who put the time into it. And I tell the story about
Speaker:my purchasing lady at Western Allied when the first year she worked there, she
Speaker:didn't think she was qualified to help. We get volunteers for the camp, project
Speaker:managers, purchasing engineers to kind of more
Speaker:eyes on the kids. But the third year of our camp and her second year
Speaker:there, the young man running the camp kind of for us encouraged her and said,
Speaker:come on, Justine, you can do this, you can do this. Just come volunteer. And
Speaker:she said, okay, fine, I'll just volunteer. She called me that night on her way
Speaker:home and she said, angie, today was the best day of work I've ever had
Speaker:in my life. She goes, it was so much fun volunteering and watching these kids
Speaker:and seeing the light in their eyes. She goes, I just had a great time.
Speaker:It's not just good for the kids, it's good for the employees as well. So
Speaker:it really made me realize that there's more benefits than just helping the kids
Speaker:and you're helping our industry, but you're helping your employees as well and. Building
Speaker:a culture and just making an impact overall.
Speaker:Do these camps, is it a one time thing or they
Speaker:do it every single year? Some of these companies, Every time we've. Had
Speaker:companies run a camp, they do it again the next year. We pretty much, other
Speaker:than we have two companies this year that are remodeling their shops. So they took
Speaker:the summer off because they don't have a shop to do it in the summer,
Speaker:but everyone else is 100% return. That's why we've grown so much. I
Speaker:mean, literally we went from two camps to 11 camps to
Speaker:32 camps to now 50 camps. I mean, something like that. I
Speaker:think I missed one in there, but we really went from 28 kids to 125
Speaker:kids to 325 kids to 500 kids to this summer, 900
Speaker:kids. So I'm a little scared where we're going next summer. So
Speaker:I knew how to run a for profit company when I worked as a mechanical
Speaker:contractor and now I got to learn how to run a nonprofit company. So yeah,
Speaker:a little bit different, but super exciting what you're
Speaker:doing. And you know, just going back to anybody who's listening, you know,
Speaker:definitely reach out to Angie. You guys are doing some amazing stuff and
Speaker:that's really how you curb this shortage is being the forefront of
Speaker:like doing these camps and showcasing what you can
Speaker:do with your hands that, you know, the shortage of
Speaker:40% of men and women that are retiring over the next five or ten years,
Speaker:maybe we can start to pull that number down with these type of
Speaker:camps and you know, these type of opportunities
Speaker:now. The tools of the trade. Angie,
Speaker:this has been an amazing conversation, but in every episode
Speaker:we always ask our guests a tools of
Speaker:the trade. What's one lesson,
Speaker:mindset or piece of advice you can give a young person
Speaker:stepping into the trades for the first time? The number one for
Speaker:me is you can do anything you want to do. And to see
Speaker:like me talking about the young women that are great welders, if you
Speaker:want to do something and you enjoy it, go for it. You can do anything
Speaker:you want to do. And I think don't be afraid of it. And I never
Speaker:minded being a woman. If you think about it. I've been in the construction industry
Speaker:for over 40 years, so I've seen a lot in the construction industry over 40
Speaker:years and I love the industry. So I would tell them, you can do
Speaker:anything you want to do. Just don't let anybody say you can't. And that's important,
Speaker:particularly for those of us that are not the majority in the
Speaker:construction industry. Don't be afraid. Just do what you need to do. That's great
Speaker:advice and it's just, you gotta just start especially you know, women
Speaker:with 25% who are coming through your camps. It's just
Speaker:amazing to hear that, to see that, that they're
Speaker:interested in working with their hands. Cause we desperately need women. We deem people in
Speaker:the trades and these camps are doing some amazing things. So keep up the great
Speaker:work. If people want to go down the rabbit hole and find out more, where
Speaker:do they find you? Yeah, we are on social media, LinkedIn, Facebook,
Speaker:Instagram. Check out our website, which has a ton of great videos
Speaker:and a lot of information on our website. So that's
Speaker:www.hmse.org
Speaker:that stands for heavymetalsummerexperience.org and that's where you'll
Speaker:find all kinds of information about our camps and all of our locations. We
Speaker:have a map of the United States and Canada on there that shows every location.
Speaker:There's a lot of states I'm not in yet, and I'd like to get in
Speaker:some of those states. So excited that we are in a few in the South.
Speaker:We're in Nashville this summer for the first time ever, so. But we are
Speaker:missing some big states. We don't have anybody in Florida. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker:of big states we're missing. So I'm hoping to find a few more hosts for
Speaker:next summer. Well, maybe next time we check in, that number will be
Speaker:5,000. Angie, it's been a blast having you here. Keep up the great
Speaker:work. Thank you, Andrew. I really appreciate you having me on. And thank you
Speaker:to our listeners. If today's episode got you thinking about the trades, take the
Speaker:next step and grab your free copy of the no BS Guide to Careers
Speaker:in the Skilled Trades@Andrew Brown.net. it's packed with
Speaker:real steps, real stories, and everything you need to start a career
Speaker:that pays. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never
Speaker:miss another episode. We'll see you next time.
Speaker:Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Lost Art. Of the Skilled Trades. Visit
Speaker:us@AndrewBrown.net for more resources and tips.
Speaker:Join us next time for real stories and meaningful initiatives
Speaker:as we celebrate our. Men and women in the skilled trades. And shape
Speaker:the future together.
