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Whether you are a minority contractor or not, this episode delves into what new opportunities exist within the electric vehicle industry and infrastructure. Specifically, our guest, Larry Bullock from the US Minority Contractors Association discusses how minority contractors can capitalize on the growing EV industry, and what partnership opportunities may exist for non-minority contractors. 00:46 The Morning Huddle Construction Show Sponsors 2:12 Catching Up with Stacey and Chad, Return of the Show Season 7, Episode 1. 4:00 Well Built- Chad's New Book 6:42 Steel Toe Communications discusses launch of Instagram and TikTok @CHAT_CTE 7:35 Introduction of Guest, Larry Bullock 12:57 The Economic Boom of the Transportation Industry. 15:10: 1/3 of where we need to be in fulfilling the 500,000 Station Promise, and half way through funding. Lots of opportunity. 15:53 The Joint Office for Energy and Transportation, www.driveelectric.gov/contact 17:12 Justice40: Goal is 40% of every dollar spent under the $5B operation should be spent in disadvantaged communities. 23:50 Which Non-MBE firms are partners with MBE firms. 28:00 Become Bid Ready 30:58 What kind of trades will be involved in installing and maintaining EV. 33:41 17 Electric Car Business Ideas: You Get in Where You Fit In 46:49 Closing Thank You to our Sponsors: Well Built Construction Consulting https://www.wellbuiltconsulting.com/ Steel Toe Communications (Digital Marketing for Contractors) https://www.steeltoecommunications.com/ Katz Abosch (Tax, Audits and Accounting) https://www.katzabosch.com/ Lawrence Law (Legal Challenges for Contractors) https://lawrencelawllc.com/ Sandy Spring Bank https://www.sandyspringbank.com/ Genesis AEC (Full Service Architecture, Engineering, Construction in Life Sciences) https://www.genesisaec.com/ Marsh McLennan Agency https://www.marshmma.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=ppc&utm_term=ntl&utm_content=resilience&utm_campaign=ntl-brand-awareness-mma&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw3P-2BhAEEiwA3yPhwBStkU82B0UALO_Ro1GKvn_sfhRJaY7TaEfwisj92ciDKSpYt52NwhoCPAcQAvD_BwE Construction Links Network: https://constructionlinks.ca/ For additional episodes and information visit https://www.themorninghuddleconstructionshow.com/about Subscribe to our weekly e-newsletter for the latest updates. https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/sl/Ro2QrVt/Themorninghuddlepodcast?__cf_chl_tk=9S8PSaN6zCOUNBhPtHXE.qk8HWtzxNNluBDlsEYhZkg-1726511898-0.0.1.1-8361

0:23 Independent Electrical Contractors: Skills USA Involvement and Workforce Development 2:58 How IEC works with parents and students to train future electricians. 3:24 Jacksonville, NC Teacher and Skills USA Coach chats about his all girl Teamworks Team: Carpenter, Plumber Bricklayer and Electrician. 4:40 Skills Jam Documentary 5:39 Teacher Involvement with SkillsUSA. 7:22 Using Associations to connect schools to businesses. 7:52 Otis Elevators talks about careers in the Elevator Industry. 9:36 Why all trades can transform over to the Elevator Industry. 10:08 Career Pathway Showcase for Career Services: Students Discuss Why SkillsUSA 10:42 National Technical Honor Society looking to make quality connections with Top Contractors: 100k Active Members, 65k New Members NTHS.ORG 12:47 Don't shy away from a school that doesn't have a construction program, have a conversation with a CTE instructor. 13:14 Skills USA Competitors talk about their involvement in the largest skilled trades competition. 14:07 General Dynamics builds destroyers for the navy, and also visits high schools to develop relationships with students. 18:06 York Technical College, SC student is set to compete in the HVAC category. 20:51 Recruiters from McCarthy on fall and spring apprenticeships and internship programs. 22:58 Interplay Learning talks about non-traditional academics, and consistently adding new modules to their program to help businesses, schools, and non-profits who want to learn about the trades in a digital format. 26:52 CBRE employs over 45k technicians all over the world. 29:18 Virtual Reality Demo 30:20 Two Skills USA student competitors talk carpentry and drywall.

Join The Morning Huddle for an insightful conversation with Jennifer Todd, President of LMS General Contractors, as she explores the nuances of unconscious bias and its impact on the construction industry. Drawing from her experiences, Jennifer reveals how these underlying attitudes shape the industry, potentially impeding efforts toward inclusivity and diversity. Discover strategies for cultivating a more equitable future in construction as Jennifer uncovers the effects of unconscious bias and shares her insights.

Traditional leadership programs often overlook the hurdles obstructing women's path to leadership in the construction industry. During this interview, we'll confront these barriers head-on. By identifying the real issues holding women back, we can lay the foundation for genuine transformation.

One of the challenges is the double bind - Women are told to be more assertive and confident if they want to advance to leadership roles. Then they’re reprimanded for being too bossy or called aggressive.

We often hear from well-intentioned men who want to contribute but are unsure how. During this interview, we'll talk about how to shift the burden of change off of women’s shoulders and create a shared responsibility for change across your entire organization. We'll also share evidence-based strategies that you can use to accelerate the path to leadership for the women in your company.

In celebration of National Apprenticeship Week, we have designed a special episode that focuses on the recruitment of seniors and recent graduates into the electrical industry.

We'll explore the benefits of choosing a career in the electrical industry, debunk common misconceptions, and uncover the vast opportunities that exist within this exciting field. Our guests will share their personal journeys, providing firsthand accounts of the hands-on training, career growth, and job satisfaction that can be found within the electrical industry. From apprentice success stories to the mentorship and support offered by contractors, you will hear inspiring narratives that showcase the rewards of pursuing a career in this dynamic trade.

It has been proven that exposure to the construction industry for school-aged kids inspires many to join the industry upon graduation. By the time kids are in high school, many have preconceived notions about the industry that make them hard to reach. In this episode, Mr. Jarrett joins us to share his story about the first CTE Program in Middle School in Philadelphia and the impact it's making on young lives.

With over 20 years of experience and certifications across multiple trades, Jason Blackwell was in a wreck that changed the trajectory of his life. Approached with the opportunity to teach, Jason found ways to inspire and support his students through his CTE program. In 2022, as the high school industrial maintenance teacher at Escambia Career Readiness Center in Brewton, Alabama, Jason was named a grand prize winner of the 2022 Harbor Freight Tools for Schools Prize for Teaching Excellence, winning $30,000 for himself and $70,000 for his program. That then led to his current role with the Alabama State Department of Education and dreams of running for Governor. Join us to uncover what it takes to master craft training in and out of the classroom.

Great leaders are formed through their experiences. From the interactions they have with bosses, colleagues, and mentors to the education they receive from books and classes, our construction leaders are a product of the development they’ve received. In this episode, Vice President of Construction at Foulger-Pratt, Brett Harton, joins us to share his own leadership development journey and advice for current and future leaders alike on how we can build a better leadership culture in the industry.

Most construction companies recognize opportunities to improve their business. Few have a track record of capitalizing on those opportunities and driving positive change. In the fast-paced environment of designing and building, companies become accustomed to their problems and focus on getting their work done instead.

In a first for The Morning Huddle, host Chad Prinkey will become a guest and share his experience driving organizational change as a consultant for the construction industry over the past 15 years. We’ll discuss why companies get stuck and what employees and executives can do to get better today.

Many construction Project Managers have never received an education in their craft. Finding the time to travel to a training facility and sit for hours can be challenging for the average PM. We have so much going on and limited time, but quality professional development creates efficiency and reduces stress. In short, it is always worth investing time in training that will elevate your performance.

Join me, Stacey, and our guest Jim Rogers, a LinkedIn [In]structor who dedicates his time to delivering top-quality, easy-to-attend, online training programs for construction professionals right here on LinkedIn.

There’s a demand for qualified leaders in the construction industry, and our guest for this episode has dedicated herself to meeting that demand by unleashing the potential of women in leadership positions. Mentors guide up-and-coming professionals, using their experience to help develop a (usually younger) mentee. Sponsors, on the other hand, advocate on behalf of their mentees and help them advance in their careers by being proactive with those in positions of power. In this episode, we learn how to be an effective sponsor for up-and-coming leaders in the construction industry to help eliminate the leadership shortage.

Transcript:

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00:08
Speaker 1
All right, it's morning huddle time. Good morning. I'm not saying it works. I wish you, Godspeed with all of that. I think that's really nice. You know, I'm not sure what kind of success you're gonna have with that today, because the world, my friend, has changed. Right? Latin American construction workers, they have different needs.

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00:28
Speaker 2
They have completely different.

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00:30
Speaker 3
These awards have a huge, like, criteria that you have to fill out. And they usually have a community service or community relations portion, you know, the.

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00:40
Speaker 2
Most productive with a high performance value. And, you know, sometimes it's 11 o' clock at night.

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00:48
Speaker 1
Funny, isn't? Yeah, not for me.

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00:51
Speaker 2
Not for me.

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00:52
Speaker 1
At 11 o', clock, I am guaranteed to be snoring. So foreign. Good morning. It's morning huddle time. We're here for season four. I am psyched. We've got three months of amazing guests that Stacy helped us to hook up with I. Her, I guess just her charm. She's. She's incredible at getting people to agree to come hang out with us. It's so wonderful that we have today Andrea Jansen, who's joining us from Ambition Theory. And Andrea, how are you today?

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01:30
Speaker 2
Oh, I am fantastic. Thank you so much for inviting me onto the morning huddle.

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01:35
Speaker 1
Yeah, we are so glad to have you. You're very welcome. And Stacy, how are you?

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01:40
Speaker 3
I'm doing great. I'm really excited about today's topic. I'm super passionate about mentorship and sponsorship, and I can't wait to hear what you have to say, especially, you know, people first joining the industry and navigating that in their careers and all that stuff and how they can get help and guidance throughout their careers.

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01:59
Speaker 2
So it's going to be great.

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02:01
Speaker 1
Agreed. I'm fired up. I'm also, I'm sitting here thinking, like, I can't believe that it's been already nine or ten weeks or something like that since were last on. Usually we take 8 off, but this time I think we took 9 or 10 off. And I was really getting used to having nothing going on Tuesday mornings. So. But no, I'm, so I'm. I'm really excited to be back in action. This feels more normal to me to have this going on every week. So Stacy is, as always, going to lead the conversation on the live chat. For those of you who are joining us live, if you are not joining us live. Thank you. Think about joining us live next time if you're in a position to do so. It's 9:00am Eastern here on LinkedIn Live. And then, of course, we're getting Stacy.

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02:55
Speaker 1
We have so many people downloading on Apple and Spotify now. I keep watching those statistics. They're going through the roof. It's really exciting to watch people joining us that way. But I do miss having so many people joining us in person. I want, I want more people in person.

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03:11
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely.

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03:12
Speaker 1
You know, it's, it brings a lot to the Q and A. But look forward to the Q and A here in, you know, 20 minutes or so. And I'm going to jump right in with Andrea if that's good with you. Stacy, we'll see you in a bit.

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03:24
Speaker 2
Sounds good.

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03:25
Speaker 1
See you. Thanks. All right, Andrea, let's get to the business of talking about sponsorship and mentorship and what it's all about. And I think I'm, you know, embarrassed to admit that, you know, it wasn't until we had you, Stacy said, you know, hey, we've got Andrea joining us for this that I started looking into this and thought, oh, man, I wasn't really sure of the difference myself. So tell us a little bit about what mentorship is, what sponsorship is, how they really differ.

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03:52
Speaker 2
So don't feel bad about not knowing the difference. Most people don't know the difference. And actually, most people use the word mentorship to describe both mentorship and sponsorship. So we don't really say the word sponsorship out loud, and we don't necessarily need to. And I'll explain the difference. And I want to say thank you for inviting me to talk about this topic because this is my absolute favorite topic to teach about. And it's the topic if people, if women in the construction industry or companies that want to get more women into leadership positions, if they implement one thing, this is the thing that's going to get them the results the fastest. So I'm so excited to talk about this today.

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04:32
Speaker 2
So I don't know about you, but for my whole career, ever since I was probably a teenager, people said you need to find a mentor if you want to be successful. And so I did, like most people, and I spent hours just talking to people about what it takes to be successful, how they became successful. And to be honest, after a while, I was kind of like hitting my head against the wall because it wasn't working. And really, there's this interesting unconscious bias that shows up on how men and women are mentored. And it's different. And I'll explain the difference. So mentorship is really about getting advice. So say you're that, you know, that junior person. You're up and coming. You're like, I want to get to that next level. You go find that mentor.

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05:15
Speaker 2
So that's either a senior person in your company or in the industry. They don't need to be in your company. You meet them, they, you know, will share stories, they'll maybe tell, give you some advice, drop some names of who you should talk to about the thing that you want to learn. And then you go back to your desk or your office or your job site and you're like, okay, I'm all inspired. I'm going to do this. I'm going to invest in myself. And you're like, okay, I read the book, I heard the story. You know what? If I call that person that you mentioned, they're not going to recognize the number. They're going to think it's spam. So they're not going to pick up. You know, same thing with the email.

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05:51
Speaker 2
They're not going to reply because they have no idea who I am. So at the end of the day, it's up to you, the mentee, to implement, you know, what you've learned. The onus to take action is on you, the junior person.

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06:04
Speaker 1
So that's a slow go. I mean, it's, and it's very daunting. And to your point, you are met with a lot of resistance. And, you know, even if you do have the courage to do that outreach, which is by itself a mountain, the amount of obstacles that are thrown in your way, precisely because to your point, it's very difficult to get somebody to pay attention to you when you don't come in with some sort of, you know, some sort of support.

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06:36
Speaker 2
Yeah, exactly. And so sponsorship, on the other hand, is where you're that junior person. You want to learn that thing, you ask the senior person. And I'll give the example of business development, because that's a key skill that people need to learn in the construction industry. You need to understand how does the business of construction work. That's usually a skill that you need to get to that next level of leadership. So I'll give you an example of a sponsorship situation. So you go to that senior person, you're like, I want to learn how to. How the business works. And that senior person is like, you know what? I have a meeting with the VP of Sales and Business development tomorrow. Why don't you come along with me? So you, as that junior person, you get that exposure. You get to meet that vp.

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07:18
Speaker 2
You get to learn about that thing. You need to learn directly from that senior person. Then they get to know you. You start to build that relationship and that person knows. This person wants to, you know, learn this skill. They want to get to the next level, they're motivated. And then typically in a sponsoring relationship, it's like, okay, you know what, in two weeks, I am pitching a new client. Come along, protege. That's what we use to describe that junior person in this relationship. Come along. And you know What? I'm presenting 20 slides. You take the first five. I'll be here. I can step in if you screw it up. But. But we'll do this together. And really, it's that onus to take action is on both people.

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07:59
Speaker 2
And if you think about who's going to progress faster, is it the person that's preparing and reading all the books or the person that's kind of thrown in with that person to guide them and learning it as they go?

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08:12
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think there's no substitute for experience and Trial by Fire, you know, and all those types. I mean, I think it's a good combination. I'd also recommend reading the books, but I agree that certainly getting the hands on experience is going to advance you faster. And so I want to bring this back to the thought of unconscious bias and how the experience differs between men and women. And you know, these aren't just your opinions. These are. This comes from data. I know that you're a data collector. It's a part of what ambition theory does. So tell me, what's the difference between men's experience and women's experience in this and point to that data.

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09:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, so that's a great question. So typically women are mentored. So women are given advice, prepared to the opport, prepared for that opportunity. And men are typically sponsored. And again, like I want to reiterate, this isn't my opinion. This is based on years of research. And the cool thing is we are. And this happens in every industry. It's not just construction. We're actually gathering more data right now so that we can actually quantify this experience for women specifically working in the construction industry. So we will have that in a couple of weeks. But that's typically how it plays out in the unconscious bias. And it's one thing I do want to say is people never do this on purpose. They don't even realize they're teaching. They're treating men and women differently. And it's actually out of really good intentions.

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09:56
Speaker 2
So for women it's the unconscious bias is I want her to be successful, I want her to do really well. I want to support her and I want to make sure that she's ready for when that opportunity arises so that she knocks it out of the park so that she does a really great job. So that's kind of the intention around it. Whereas for men it's typically about like, you know what, let's throw them in. They can figure it out as they go. And the key to doing that, like it's great to take those risks because you need to take risks to grow. But the benefit of having that sponsor is that they have skin in the game too. So if something goes completely wrong when you're taking that risk, they are in it with you.

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10:39
Speaker 2
So they can guide you to, they can help you pick up the pieces. If something goes wrong, they can help you navigate the politics of it. You have that person with you. Whereas in a mentoring relationship, if you're taking that big risk and it goes really wrong, the mentor is not, they don't have skin in the game. If they gave you that advice, you did. It completely did not go well. Nothing happens to the mentor. And the opposite is also true. If they give you some amazing advice and you follow it and it's a great, like you deliver really well, the mentor is not in it with you, so they don't get the credit either.

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11:16
Speaker 1
Wow, wow, wow. So something just happened in my brain as you were talking through that and that I, something kind of clicked in. Is that it actually through what you said is, you know, it's good intentions. It's this real desire to help this woman to be successful. But maybe this almost treating that woman with kid gloves instead of throwing them right into the, to the mix. Almost like being overprotective of the women that you're trying to help is actually hurting them. You know, you're by trying to protect them from failure, you're keeping them from being. And I can, this all makes sense because I can totally socially. Right. It's, it is ingrained. Speaking as, you know, a middle aged guy. Right.

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12:10
Speaker 1
I, I would say it has been ingrained as a Gen Xer growing up for sure that like, you know, I was definitely to be more deferential toward women. I was taught, I was taught to like open the door for women and be nice to women and you know, women, you have to treat women special and extra nice, you know, and things along those lines. And so psychologically I could totally see how we are. When I say we, I mean people who look like me, people we are failing to challenge or failing to throw people to throw women right in the fire. Like, and again, if I thought of a, of a male, right. Of a guy, my. A younger male, I'd be like, yeah, throw them into the fire. What the hell, See what happens.

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13:03
Speaker 1
And, and that is actually a strategic advantage for that person. That is fascinating. But then it's also sponsoring. So talk about being a good sponsor for a minute. Like, how do I. You talk about having your skin in the game. How do I, how do It in a. In the most supportive way possible where they're really set up for success.

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13:23
Speaker 2
So before I answer that question, I just want to go back to this epiphany that I just watched you have, which is pretty awesome. But when another thing, the. It's not just like men are kind of like being protected above women and preparing the women. It's really, it doesn't matter if you're a man or woman that is sponsoring or it's really. The behavior is on who that junior person is. So women will prepare other women too. And that is something like, I find myself getting stuck in these mentoring conversations and I'm like, you know what? Like, we know. And I'm going to segue this to like, how you actually shift the mindset to that opportunity. So because women do the same thing, it's not men versus women. It's just like you said, how we're socialized, right. And it's just, it's nobody's fault.

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14:10
Speaker 2
It just is. And once you know that is just the society and the culture that we're in, you can move forward. So how to be a good sponsor is. It's really about. The first thing is actually slowing down a little bit because the key about sponsors. Spot the difference between sponsorship and mentorship. You can give advice all day long, but you as that senior person that sponsor or that men, if you're a mentor, you can give advice all day long. But there's no skin in the game, right? Like, nothing's going to happen to you if you give that bad advice. And if you give. If somebody isn't really that. That great because you're aligning your reputation with theirs. So the first step is slow down, get to know the person and ask yourself the question, like, am I comfortable aligning my reputation with theirs?

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14:59
Speaker 2
And so understanding, like, ask a lot of questions like, what are their goals? Almost like, take A step back, do a bird's eye view. Like, what are they good at their job? Like, what are people saying about them? Like, what is their reputation? Because you want to just gather a little bit of information and ask yourself, like, am I comfortable aligning my reputation with theirs? And it doesn't have to take a long time. It can happen really quickly. Like, you just, you want to connect with us, that person and really kind of make that decision. Are we going to go for this together? And you don't explicitly usually ask it. It's like it's kind of this dance of human behavior. You're kind of. So if you're looking for that sponsor, that's what you do.

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15:39
Speaker 2
If you're that protege who's looking for that person, that can open the door for you. It's about pausing for a second and maybe thinking, it's not maybe about me. Actually get curious about them. Think about, like, what are their goals? Try to figure out what they are trying to achieve and think about, like, the kind of value that you can bring to them. And really, you need to actually prove yourself that, like, you know what, I have a good reputation. Like, if you create this opportunity for me, I'm not going to screw it up. Like, I'm going to deliver. Because if you go down in a sponsored relationship, both people go down. But if you're like extremely successful, both people get the credit for that. So slowing down is the first thing.

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16:22
Speaker 2
The second thing is really about shifting, like, not getting caught in the advice trap. Because we as humans, we love talking about ourselves too, right? So yeah, because we're all like, everybody's going to get stuck into this bias, right? So that junior person is going to come and say, please tell me all the advice, tell me all the stories. They're going to ask you for it. So you have to recognize this. Be like, you know what, Like, I could tell you a short story. But then shift your thinking to like, what opportunities do I have access to that I could bring this person along? And it could be as simple as, like, you know what, I'm going to a conference next week. Usually only the senior leaders go to the conference.

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17:05
Speaker 2
I will buy an extra ticket and bring this person along to the conference. And that them getting that exposure to the industry, the connections, you can, they can say hi, they can meet other people. That is going to teach them a lot than any, you know, advice that you're going to get them. So it could be simple. Things like that could be bringing them along to that meeting. It could be Making an introduction, it could be talking about them when they're not there. So if you think about like the decisions of like how people get promoted, like how do companies decide who gets promoted? Those conversations are happening when you, as the person who wants to get promoted are not in the room. And often it's like two levels above you that are making that decision.

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17:53
Speaker 2
So your boss may not necessarily be in that room and might be at that higher level. So having those people that can influence at that level, that's another thing that a sponsor can do. And when one place where people get really stuck is as the junior person, you're like, how do I add value to this senior executives world? Right. It's like how I don't. I'm junior in my career. I don't know a lot. The really interesting thing, especially in construction and especially if you're in a bigger company, if you think about it, executives and senior leaders, they can't know what is going on site at every project or even if you're in the office, they can't have their hands in everything.

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18:35
Speaker 2
But what you can do is you can be there, eyes and ears on the ground, so you can be looking at like what is happening here. And you can kind of tell them the things that are not in the formal reporting, the formal weekly reports, all of the things that get documented. There's all these other stuff going on. Like maybe there's a, you know, the client's a little bit mad, so you can tell, you can share that information and that's really helpful for that executive. So kind of recognizing as that junior person, you do really bring a lot of value. And as that senior person, having relationships with people that are junior to you, it gives you access to so much more information. So it really is a win when this is working properly, it's a win for everybody.

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19:18
Speaker 2
And it doesn't actually take a lot of time.

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19:22
Speaker 1
I really love this concept as a. On both ends of it. Right. I have mentors in my life who, if I think about it through a different lens, I'm sure have sponsored me.

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19:35
Speaker 2
Yeah.

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19:36
Speaker 1
And, and I have people in my life that I have that I've definite. I am like Mr. Advice. So I'm like, oh, no, you know that. But, but I see exactly what you mean. And I, I would really have to kind of, you know, think through each of those relationships. I'm sure I've been sponsoring some and I can think of some instances in particular that I've been sponsoring. But I've always done that thoughtlessly. And I'm sure my biases have been at work.

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20:11
Speaker 1
So I want to bring that back just one last time here with the idea that, you know, when we have to recognize that we have biases, one of the biases that we are likely to have, regardless of who you are, which I thought was really useful to think about as well, is that we've, we may have been socialized to not throw, you know, I don't know, to not. To not challenge women to the extent that they could or should be challenged and to maybe not sponsor and instead just get in the advice trap with these women that we're hoping to help be successful in general. I, I know this was probably a question you've answered a thousand times, and I want to be clear. I'm not, I am the choir here, right? Like, I'm not opposed to that.

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21:05
Speaker 1
But I have to ask the question regardless. Why should we have a vested interest in helping to elevate women in the construction industry? Aside from just in the spirit of equity, in the spirit of, you know, doing the right thing. What, what, why should we really want to do this?

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21:26
Speaker 3
Yeah.

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21:26
Speaker 2
So 100% agree. Because what we, what I found, what I've observed is that the, oh, it's the right thing to do. It's not a strong enough motivation. Right. Because it's going to take resources, it's going to take time and like, is there going to be a return on this?

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21:40
Speaker 1
Exactly. When the chips are down?

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21:43
Speaker 2
Right. And the thing about construction, it is a for profit industry. Right. It's not, it's not nonprofit. So we really need to think about, like, what is the business case for this? And it's a really interesting time in the industry because I think most people here are probably feeling the talent shortage. And the reality is right now, if you think like 10, 20 years down the road, there's going to, we're going to be in cases. And I've heard companies say that they're actually in this situation right now. They're like, we pitch for this job. Like, I kind of hope we don't get it because we actually, I'm not sure if we're going to be able to staff it. Like, there's that kind of tension, that kind of stress happening right now. And if you think about it, there's like, we need to recruit, right?

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22:29
Speaker 2
We need more people to come into this industry to deliver all of this work because it's a great business. The work is there, but there's not Enough people to do the work. And that's the place where some companies are at today. And probably in a couple of years more people are going to feel this pain. So I think if you can think about it that way, as this is a way to actually get more labor into the industry, more people leaning. So that's one piece. The second piece is this unique skill set that women bring to the table.

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23:00
Speaker 2
And this I'll try to, I'll do this really quickly, but there's been research that shows like when men are more transactional leaders, so that transactional is more that top down approach, like I'm the boss and I tell you what to do, I delegate the projects and that men veer more towards that side of the spectrum. Women are more transformational, so they are more collaborative. It's about setting that vision, helping people see their strengths, helping them rise to the challenge. So the research says men are more generally transactional, women more transformational. And we've no and I saw you nod. So in the construction industry, more of the leadership, even training, more of the skills that are rewarded are on that side of the spectrum. Spectrum. But with the younger generation, doesn't matter what gender they are.

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23:45
Speaker 2
Whenever you ask the younger generation, it's like, what do you care about? They're like, I want a sense of purpose, I want to grow, I want to contribute. And if you think about what kind of leader are they going to respond to, as the research says, like they respond better to that transformational leader. So having women in the industry, having women in leadership roles, it's just a great way to inspire that younger generation, help them see that sense of purpose. And women can do that naturally. So having more women, that's another reason why, where women can bring that value because it really helps with retention and getting the most out of your employees. Sold.

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24:20
Speaker 1
I agree, totally agree. So I mean, you don't have to convince. I am 100% there with you. I see it in my work as a consultant. One of my primary goals when there are all male leadership teams is to proactively explore opportunities for creating diversity on that team. Because they get better, they get smarter, and you know, if it's a good leadership team, they learn from each other and they adopt some of those characteristics that they see working. So when that woman who it becomes, you know, an executive in that business demonstrates this totally different, just natural take on leadership, it's contagious and that's a really powerful thing. So all right, I'm Going to pull Stacy into the conversation, get some Q and a going here before we wrap. Fantastic discussion, Andrea.

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25:22
Speaker 1
I'm sure the audience has some questions that you can add value to.

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25:28
Speaker 3
Yeah. First off, did you want to share any specific stories of, you know, advocating for people or. I think there was one. A client that you worked with 10 years ago.

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25:43
Speaker 1
Oh, you're talking to me.

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25:45
Speaker 3
Was, was that your story?

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25:47
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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25:49
Speaker 2
For Chad to share this sponsorship story you told me.

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25:53
Speaker 1
I, I, I admitted to Andrew yesterday. I'll do it briefly. I admitted to Andrea yesterday as we did a little prep conversation for this. I was like, you know, I, I, I want to be a sponsor. I enjoy helping people to reach the next rung in their career. I also have to balance that with a bit of a, and I think I'm not alone, but a bit of like a, what I call a hero complex, which is not something that I love about my personality. But, but is there, where there's this sort of desire to, to not just make the impact, but to, you know, just make sure that everybody knows I kind of made the impact, you know, like, that kind of thing. And, and I want to feel really good about myself.

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26:34
Speaker 1
And I think it's important that when we do this stuff that we, that we aren't embarrassed by the fact that. I think Andrea said it beautifully yesterday, was that, you know, I get something from that too. You know, I'm helping to elevate somebody, so it's not just me. Like, look at me being a great helper. You know, I want to publish how much I donated, you know, like, or whatever else. All these, it's all baggage I have in my brain, by the way. It's nobody else's problem but mine. But, but, you know, I think when we help, we, it's okay to win while we help. Right. Because you said it really well today is that we both share in that credit.

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27:15
Speaker 1
So when I sponsor somebody, when I put my social capital on the line and sponsor somebody who wins and becomes wildly successful, we're both winners in that story.

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27:27
Speaker 2
And in your story, Chad, the best part about it is, like, you help this person get into an executive leadership role and just calling you out, you own a consulting business, so having part of my job really benefits you. Just, there was a lot in it for you in this situation. Totally was a true win. Because honestly, if that person did a bad job, like, the whole company is going down. Right?

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27:51
Speaker 1
That's right.

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27:52
Speaker 2
They're like, okay, we did this because.

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27:54
Speaker 1
No, I saw this person and I was like, this person will be fantastic. They happen to be a woman. This is a win, you know? Yeah. So there's risk too.

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28:04
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah.

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28:06
Speaker 3
So how often do you think you should be meeting with your sponsor?

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28:12
Speaker 2
Oh, that is a great question. So a lot of companies, a lot of organizations have formal mentorship programs where it's like, we have a contract, we have goals, there's a schedule of how often we meet. And it's very time consuming, especially because a lot of these programs are for women. Like, they pair a junior woman with a senior level woman. And if you think about that woman, there's not that many. Like, she's got to do her job. She's got to, like, overcome all these obstacles. And she's got a me for coffee like, every month with someone, it's a lot of time. The reality of sponsorship, it can be so fast. You actually don't have to meet a lot. And that is the key about, like, really understanding what are their goals, what are my goals, how can I build that trust?

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28:55
Speaker 2
And when you have that trust there, like, it goes really fast. You don't have to meet with them. Like, you don't need to be sitting there talking about advice. It's just kind of like keeping them in the loop a little bit. I'll give you an example, literally, of, like, people sponsor me all the time. So I'll give you an example. I did a speaking engagement a couple months ago, met someone, attended in the audience, they reached out. Later, we had a conversation on Zoom. So I'm thinking about, like, the speaking agent was an hour. We had a 30 minute Zoom call. Then I got an email last week from conference organizer that they are, you know, on the board of this organization asking if I can come and do a talk for them.

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29:38
Speaker 2
And if you think about, like that time, like, that person put their reputation on the line for me when they were making that recommendation. But the amount of time we met was very short. But because we kind of like, in that conversation got to know each other, we built that trust and we realized, like, we're in it together. Right? Like, I have to rise to the challenge and kind of connect with this organization, deliver something to them, and it's that way. So it's really. I love the sponsorship model because it is a lot less time consuming, but it's really about that trust and that mutual relationship and knowing that, like, I can call this person if things are kind of going, you know, this comfort, something's not feeling great.

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30:22
Speaker 2
I can go back and call my person and we're going to figure it out together because there's that mutual benefit. So that's what I love about the relationship.

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30:31
Speaker 3
So leading off of that, like, the comfortability. So I act as a sponsor a lot to younger generations, high school to college level. And I notice, I don't know if they're intimidated or like you were saying, it's early in their career, so they don't know how to open up and ask questions, or maybe they don't even know what to ask. How do you get the younger generation to open up? Because once you know you're building your relationship with your sponsor, obviously 10 years, 15 years into it, you will call the sponsor for help and you have that relationship. Whereas when you're first starting out with your sponsor, you don't have that relationship yet. So you might feel a little uncomfortable. But how do you kind of pull that out?

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31:19
Speaker 2
I think sometimes it's going back to simple things, like, can you connect on another level? Like, oh, do you like their shirt? Like, compliment them on their shirt? And like, just start the conversation that way. Because you'd be amazed by when you can be authentic with someone, when you could kind of, like, take the walls down, how you can connect and how that relationship evolves and where that kind of those things come out. I think it's like sometimes letting go of this, like, here's the five steps, and just being authentic and really building that human connection with them.

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31:52
Speaker 3
So just getting a little bit more personal instead of focusing on the career part of it.

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31:58
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah.

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32:01
Speaker 3
Okay. And then lastly, question about. I wanted to talk about the survey that you had coming up. I know a lot of women in the industry, or just the industry in general, have issues with competing with other industries and being flexible and offering those type of opportunities. So you had some type of survey to come? That's coming up and feel free to share.

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32:24
Speaker 2
Yeah, we are doing a survey. We partnered with the national center for Construction Education and Research to do a survey. We're going deep on sponsorship. So this is for women only, so please fill it out. If you're here, we'd love to include your opinion. It closes on February 13th. And then the second piece that has come up through a lot of our clients and just engagement with the industry. Is this question about flexibility because of the talent shortage? If you look at the landscape, there's so many flexible work options available, and construction has been a little bit late to the game on figuring that out. And the reality is like you are building something. So a lot of them, you have to physically be there. And I don't know if anyone's cracked that nut yet.

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33:07
Speaker 2
So we have a second piece of the survey where we're getting really curious about flexibility and what could that possibly look like in the construction industry. So, please.

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33:19
Speaker 1
Yeah, I spent a lot of time. So one of the things that I've been doing just in the past year has been really surprising. I spent a lot of time doing these studies inside companies, just inside the business about sort of stress management. And, you know, there are common set of common threads that are constantly the source of high stress. Lack of flexibility in the construction industry is, you know, and some companies are losing relatively substantial people out of the industry because they're just saying, you know, we. And, and again, it's the balance of women doing that to men is much higher. Women. And so we. It is, we've. It would be unbelievable to get to some solution for that works for everybody.

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34:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. And so we will be releasing the results of this in a report. We'll have some live events that will be. That you can come to that are free during Women in Construction Week. So that's the. In March, the week of International Women's Day.

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34:22
Speaker 1
Beautiful, wonderful stuff. Thank you so much. This has been a fantastic conversation. Certainly enlightening for me, which I always love, are I feel like I learn way more from these things than any other learning activity I do. And Andrea, you've been a wealth of information. So thank you so much for coming on and being with us this morning. Anything to say before parting ways?

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34:55
Speaker 2
No, I just want to say thank you for having me. Thank you for everyone in the audience for being curious and open. And I want to just encourage you to lean into that curiosity and keep staying open to new ideas.

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35:07
Speaker 3
And how can people get in contact with you if they.

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35:10
Speaker 2
So they can find us. We have a podcast so you can listen to our podcast. It's called Ambition Theory, Women in Construction. You can go to our website, ambition theory.com you can connect with ambition theory on LinkedIn. You connect with me, Andrea Jansen on LinkedIn. So I'd love to say hi and connect with you.

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35:28
Speaker 3
Great. Thank you so much.

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35:30
Speaker 1
Yeah, Andrea, thank you. All right, Stacy, let's wrap up and talk a little bit about next week. So first things first, I just like to remind people that we stream live on LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook on Tuesdays at 9am Eastern. But be sure to check us out on recorded shows if those times that time doesn't work for you. If you want to go back and binge on all the previous episodes, the easiest places to do that are Apple Podcast, Spotify and then YouTube. Also email us to be added to our weekly mailing list. Stacy h.steeltoe com.com Stacy will get you hooked up so that way you're not reliant on just that LinkedIn invite. But you can expect an email every week that comes across with some cool content recording from last week and a link to sign up for the next one live.

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36:22
Speaker 1
If that's something you'd like to do next week, we have a friend of mine, Trey Farmer, who is an architect down in Texas and has a fantastic conversation planned around passive house design, which is really the latest in, you know, design standards to meet net zero and even net positive buildings. That'll be a really technical discussion but also one that anybody can follow along with. He's, he really has a great way of bringing concepts down to earth. So with all of that in terms of preparation, Stacy, is there anything I've missed? Is there anything you want to hit on? Do you have a tip for us? Do you have a, do you have a steel toe communication?

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37:05
Speaker 3
I completely do not have a tip today.

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37:09
Speaker 1
Tip number one, have a tip. It's, it's all good.

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37:14
Speaker 3
Yeah, I'll be sure next week.

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37:16
Speaker 1
Is there anything that I've missed, Stacy?

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37:20
Speaker 3
No, I think that's it. It's just like you said. If you're not on the email list, please send me an email and we'll get that out to you. We do a recap too so we try to keep our shows short and sweet. We know you guys are busy so if you can't watch the show we at least do a little write up recap in the email.

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37:39
Speaker 1
So awesome. Which we so we will see you all next week 9am and we'll do so for the next 11 weeks hereafter. We look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks everybody.

‍ ‍

Our workforce is in dire need of capable, passionate young people with technical education applicable to careers in construction. Amy Rock is one person delivering that to Prince George's County Maryland and the surrounding region.

Transcript:

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00:00
Speaker 1
We need to get back to work. And work is one of the ways that we contribute to this country, that we grow our gdp, we grow our tax base, we contribute to each other effectively. We help finance our national security, our homeland security, our, you know, our infrastructure.

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00:15
Speaker 2
I had key employees that really wanted to be leaders in the company, but they didn't want to have any ownership in it, responsibility that way. So I just had to start researching out and figuring out, well, how do I market my company?

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00:28
Speaker 3
Go to your local school board for one hour twice this year. And if you can have even just 10 or 15 employers show up and do that at the same school board every single month, there's two contractors filling out a little card to give your 30 seconds at the podium that says, I need your help and we have great jobs. Eventually they will hear you. But if everyone just did two hours a year, that's how we change this.

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00:49
Speaker 4
Stacy, how you doing this morning?

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00:51
Speaker 5
I'm doing great.

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00:52
Speaker 4
She loves it. I ask the question every time, she's like, I'm fine, dude, just a little much.

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01:01
Speaker 6
And I say to that owner, I said, so you're not willing to invest in yourself. You're not going to invest in yourself. You're going to invest in companies you have no control over, whereas your company you control. And you don't have the confidence to pour the money into that.

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01:15
Speaker 7
When things are busy and they're looking for their GC friends to sit down and negotiate a project on a GC and a fee, and they're more excited about building the project, and then all of a sudden the model, the market swings and now the developer market is going to go out and they're going to hard bid the same project to two or three different PCs. And that's where it starts going down.

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01:44
Speaker 4
It's morning huddle time. Good morning, Stacy and Amy. So good to see you.

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01:49
Speaker 5
Good morning.

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01:50
Speaker 8
Good morning.

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01:52
Speaker 4
Oh, sorry for that. How are you doing today, Stacy?

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01:55
Speaker 5
I'm doing great. I love the little intro that me and Amy just had. We've known each other for quite some time and career technical education is a huge passion of mine. So I'm excited to see what she's going to say today. And were just going over briefly about different logistical challenges that we had in trying to get kids to businesses, you know, tour, like, fab shops and projects. So we'll get into that in a little bit.

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02:26
Speaker 4
Awesome. Yes, we will. Guaranteed. Yeah. Amy, how are you today?

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02:30
Speaker 8
I am doing great. We are actually not in the office today. Okay. We're Actually on holiday in Prince George's County Public schools. So I want to say to any of our Muslim listeners, Eid Mubarak, Happy Eid, to any of those folks celebrating today. And thank you so much for having me on. I told Chad the other day that I could talk CTE for days. So I'm going to try tone it down a little bit to fit our 20 minutes.

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02:57
Speaker 4
Well, yeah, I was going to say we're going to give you less than days, but I think we're going to cover a lot of turf in a short amount of time. And, and I know you're super fired up and passionate about this topic. You know, just in my, you know, brief conversation with you in preparing for this, you got me pretty fired up.

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03:16
Speaker 5
So.

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03:17
Speaker 4
So I look forward to digging into it.

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03:20
Speaker 8
So.

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03:20
Speaker 4
So folks, Amy Rock is joining the morning huddle. She is the career and technical education supervisor at Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland. She's been involved in that for quite some time. Very accomplished. She's, you know, helped to design and implement an award winning program that is, you know, being duplicated and you know, learned from by districts all over the state and all over the country. So I'll let Amy talk more about that. Amy, what else would you tell us about your background and you know, sort of who you are for our audience?

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04:01
Speaker 8
Well, again, thank you for giving me this platform this morning. I love cte, love talking about CTE apprenticeships. Those are things that just really get me going because they are so great for students, they are great for our communities, they are great for our country and providing opportunity for our students and to allowing them to grow. So my background, without getting into too much detail, I've lived and worked across the country in multiple different states as a teacher, as an administrator, as a coach, as multiple different things. Instructional coach, not sports coach. But with cte I really got my start here in Prince George's County 10 years ago and currently now as supervisor, I supervise all of our construction trades programs which include electrical carpentry, masonry, H VAC and plumbing, and construction, design management. So yay, construction.

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05:02
Speaker 8
And I also have our early education, early childhood education and our teacher academy programs, as well as financial literacy, all of the family and consumer sciences. Oh, and wait. So apprenticeship really is the kind of our talking point this morning. It is our baby that we are incredibly proud of. And apprenticeship. I do have to give full credit to those who came before me because as I was telling Stacey earlier, apprenticeships kind of landed in my Lap as a, hey, we're starting this thing. We need some extra help. And eventually it came to me completely. So the program that Chad was talking about, we have two different models in the county. One is a school to work apprenticeship, which we run ourselves.

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05:53
Speaker 8
It's a Prince George's County Public Schools apprenticeship where our students in our construction trades begin the program during their junior year of high school. We hire them in Prince George's county in our building services department, and they work for us. They earn 450 hours on the job training. They do their level one and level two in their trade with us in the classrooms. And when they graduate, they then have the opportunity to be hired full time and continue that apprenticeship once they graduate. And we will have our first group graduating next year, which is still working on their hours because they need, depending upon the trade, between 6,000 and 8,000 hours on the job in addition to their Level 4 related instruction. And then they'll be able to sit for that journeyman's license.

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06:42
Speaker 8
So we're incredibly excited about that and very proud of those students, proud of our building services shops who embraced this. It was something brand new and we're the only ones in the states still, I believe, offering this model. And it came about because we just couldn't find qualified workers. When you're in the public sector, the salaries are a little less. So we had to sell kids on the fact that the benefits package, the stability, you're going to be on the job every day, you're not going to have those layoffs, those type of things. That's program one, and that's program one. The one that we're really talking about outside with our partners is our youth apprenticeship, which in Maryland is called Apprenticeship Maryland program. And it's similar to what we're doing in that it begins during high school.

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07:38
Speaker 8
We have employers who partner with us and we tell them in our pitch to them. It's the scariest part and the most exciting part is you design it. You are the designer of this apprenticeship program.

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07:54
Speaker 4
So the companies that themselves actually design the content of this program. Yes, that is exciting and scary.

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08:02
Speaker 8
Yes. Because it's completely tailored to them. Every single employer's apprenticeship looks different.

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08:08
Speaker 4
Right.

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08:08
Speaker 8
So every single one gets to determine who they're looking for, what they're looking for, and then they get to train those young folks into that position that they, we hope they would then enter into full time when they graduate. But the model is the same in that they take one course, okay, about 144 hours of related instruction and 450 hours on the job which they complete while they are still in high school. They earn some type of a credential from that and then they graduate from high school. And our hope of course, is that they would then slide right into full time employment. The model with this is that it has to be some type of a career field where they can step, okay, so they can step up those credentials, they can step up within the company and grow.

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08:59
Speaker 8
So it's really about providing students and employers with some access that they might not have had previously and also giving them that chance to kind of explore some different options. So with that I'm going to stop because I'm going to ramble for the whole time if I don't and let you ask some questions, some more pointed questions that you can address.

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09:20
Speaker 4
Well, no, I think it's really important background. I think we're clear on these two different types of programs. One where it's happening all inside the school, the other where it's happening in conjunction with, you know, employers and where employers themselves are actually designing the program, which I think is, you know, it's an extremely exciting opportunity for employers today. So I'll just, you know, first off, Stacey, I want to cut you free so that you can focus on typing and engaging with the audience, you know, who've joined us live here and I'll bring you back live in 10 minutes or so. Something along those lines. Good. So. So how many different employers do you have involved in the program right now?

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10:06
Speaker 8
Right now with our youth apprenticeship, we have 47 different employer partners who are fully registered with the Department of Labor. So to do a full youth apprenticeship, you have to be registered with Department of Labor. You have to go before the board, get your program approved. We then with the education side msde, we can then award credits to the students for high school. They can earn up to four credits with this program. So we've got 47 who have registered and said yes, we want to work with Prince George's County.

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10:38
Speaker 4
Okay.

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10:38
Speaker 8
Now what's interesting with that though is I kind of compare it to like a dating website in that people sign up and they chat and then there's not a lot of follow through to that first date.

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10:52
Speaker 4
So not every, right, not everybody who's registered is what we might call engaged, Correct?

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10:58
Speaker 8
Correct. So we have two partners who are fully engaged. We have one who was our test program and they jumped right in last year and took our first Youth apprenticeship who has completed her program. And so we're excited for her. And we have another partner who is working with a pre apprenticeship and moving into the amp. And we're looking to fill 20 seats there this spring. Nice with apprentices. So it is moving. Part of this too is that we launched in the middle of a pandemic. So that was maybe not the ideal to try to do this in the midst of a pandemic, but were so excited that we got in our first year. We had 17 partners sign up our first year. We're up to 47 now.

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11:48
Speaker 4
You're getting people registered. We just need to get them to take that extra jump into becoming engaged. And what's the difference between being registered and engaged? Like what, you know, how do people cross that?

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12:03
Speaker 8
Yeah, they call me. You know, it's really that simple. Once they, once they've gotten registered with the state, that means the state has approved them, they are approved to work with us and we are approved to work with them. And really it is, it's just a phone call to me, it's an email to me and say, amy, here's our apprenticeship, here's who we're looking for. And then it becomes my job to go out to the schools and find that candidate. You know, we graduate nearly 8,000 students a year. And this is kind of what I tell employers is that like, oh, I don't know who we're going to find. I don't know if you're going to find the right person. I'm like, I got 8,000 candidates in front of me for you.

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12:41
Speaker 8
I think I can find one right out of that 8,000 who fits what it is that you're looking for.

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12:47
Speaker 4
So talk about supply and demand for a minute. Like, is that, you know, do you find that there's, that there are kids who are interested in.

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12:55
Speaker 8
We have so many students who are interested and who we're really focusing on. And I'm going to get into the education world at this point is we tend to have across the country, and Prince George's is representative of that. About 25% of our students who graduate out of high school graduate without a plan. They haven't applied, been accepted to a college. They haven't, you know, decided on the military. They don't have work lined up. And so we have about 25% of our students who graduate with not really knowing what the next step is. And so our focus is really there and letting them know that these are some other opportunities that are for you that are. Include work and education at the same time, and you can slide directly in from high school.

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13:46
Speaker 8
And so finding that group who now they're going into their senior year and they're like, what am I going to do? Okay, you know, those, that's kind of our target audience on our side is finding those students who have that motivation. They just haven't found the right fit and matching them up, you know, to those employers, you know, in a field that is of interest to them.

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14:11
Speaker 4
It seems to me, you know, I, I'm trying to flashback to, you know, my time finishing high school and, and, you know, the next steps that moment in time, I, I definitely stood side to side with, you know, good friends who were in that 25% of kids without a plan.

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14:35
Speaker 4
And it seems to me that when you, when you, you finish high school without moving into some next system, right, if the, the educational system is there to kind of provide you with structure and direction and, you know, whether you're into it or not, some sort of meaning, some sort something that you feel like you're, you're, you at least have a job to do if you finish that part of your life and you don't move into some structure and, you know, maybe it's college for some kids, but for those kids who don't end up in college if they're not going into another structure, I really, I, I feel like that is a path to, to some really unproductive years for a lot of those kids. Is that, is that what the stats say?

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15:29
Speaker 8
Yes, because now we're in the stats that I love. 70% of high school students say they're going to college and attempt college. 40% of that 70% drop out.

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15:45
Speaker 4
Right.

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15:46
Speaker 8
Because they don't have a plan. All right? And of that 25% who are kind of going, and I don't want to say going nowhere, it's just that they don't know where they're going yet. And this is why I like the youth apprenticeship model, because it's, it provides that bridge directly from high school into the world of employment. And I gave you the example the other day that I think is kind of indicative of why we need this type of thing, is many of our apprenticeship providers in those traditional apprenticeship programs, whether they be through a union or a merit shop, that have those kind of really detailed applications and long interview processes that take six to nine months before you get a decision you have that critical.

‍ ‍

16:33
Speaker 8
You must be 18 all right, and I gave you that example of we had a super brilliant, funny, great kid who was 17 when he graduated. He graduated at 17. He had a 3.8 GPA, he was bilingual, he was National Honor society, you know, completed our carpentry program and he couldn't get into an apprenticeship because he was 17.

‍ ‍

17:00
Speaker 4
Right, right.

‍ ‍

17:01
Speaker 8
So when I caught up with him, you know, because he had companies who said, come back to us when you're 18. And so when I reached out to him and I said, what are you doing? You know, did you go back to so and so? And did you know, how's that going? He said, and he was literally talking to me from the drive through window at McDonald's where he was working.

‍ ‍

17:24
Speaker 4
Man, I'm glad he went and got.

‍ ‍

17:25
Speaker 8
A job, but he wanted a job. He, that was his goal. You know, he wanted to go right to work. But because he, the age limit, you know, he didn't have that opportunity. And so we lost him out of this industry. You know, this kid who was highly motivated, really smart, really a go getter, we lost him. And so these are the type of, you know, these are the type of kids we're going after those kids who we need to get them into this structure and do it quickly.

‍ ‍

17:59
Speaker 4
How do we navigate that roadblock though, with, I mean, is it, aren't there insurance requirements? Is that, you know, what's the, if I'm an employer, you know, how do I get through that issue?

‍ ‍

18:12
Speaker 8
Well, there's, first of all, you know, the ones who come and say, oh, we just can't. Well, yes you can, because we did. Right. You know, we now are the example that yes, you can do this. You do need to work with your unions. If you're a union contractor, you do need to look at your insurance. If you're on federal contracts, yeah, there's going to be some jobs that those kids can't be on, but you need to be a little more creative in thinking about what can they do. Particularly if you're in an industry and you have partnerships or you're in an association where you have some fab shops, you know, and you can move them in, you know, maybe they're only 17 now.

‍ ‍

18:46
Speaker 8
And so for six months you work on the education side of it and then you move them into the workforce. So there are workarounds to this. There are insurance, you know, companies that lower that rider down to 16. So it really is working with, you know, with your own internal structure and looking at how do we make this work rather than we can't make it work.

‍ ‍

19:11
Speaker 4
Right, Right.

‍ ‍

19:11
Speaker 5
Right.

‍ ‍

19:12
Speaker 4
So your answer is try.

‍ ‍

19:17
Speaker 8
There are ways to make it work, right?

‍ ‍

19:20
Speaker 4
Yeah, because we do.

‍ ‍

19:21
Speaker 8
We have students who are on the job, you know, at 16, at 17. And so it is, it is possible. It takes a little bit of effort, but the effort's worth it. And I say that because we get people all the time coming from across the industry say, amy, we need people. We need people. We need you to send us more people. We need, we need more people. And at the same time, they say, oh, well, we get 500 applicants a year. You know, and I'm like, well, if you get 500 a year, where's that disconnect between the we need people. What you're saying is you need the right people, Right. You need those people who are interested, those people who have been vetted, who really want to go into this.

‍ ‍

20:06
Speaker 8
And, you know, the stat that really sticks out to me is the average age of a first year apprentice in this country is 27.

‍ ‍

20:15
Speaker 4
27 years old for a first year apprentice.

‍ ‍

20:18
Speaker 8
Average age across the industry.

‍ ‍

20:21
Speaker 5
Wow.

‍ ‍

20:22
Speaker 8
So imagine if you could get them at 17, that's 10 additional years of productivity.

‍ ‍

20:29
Speaker 4
Yeah. They're adjourning by the time they're what, 21 at that point or something along.

‍ ‍

20:34
Speaker 8
Those lines, you know, they've earned their license, they're out there, they're fully employed, and you're gaining 10 years of work experience, you're gaining productivity. And the average age of our construction industry is aging. Right. And so we keep hearing that we're going to need younger people, but if we keep putting those barriers up that you can't start until you're 18, you can't until this, you can't until that, you know, we're spiting ourselves.

‍ ‍

21:03
Speaker 4
Yeah, it's. Well, it's a huge. I, I mean, I can't tell you how many times, and I know you have too. I've heard the construction companies that I, you know, that I work with, frustrated that they can't, to your point, can't find people. There are actually a lot of them that I know that are, you know, intentionally not taking on work because they don't have the people to do the work. So there are, there's the drum beat there that says, we need people, we need people there. We have to somehow close this gap where we're actually, we're creating them. These people are coming. We have these people who are coming out of school and then Dropping into an abyss and going into a different industry. They were ready for you. That's mind blowing.

‍ ‍

21:50
Speaker 4
So, okay, so the youth program is your answer to that strategy, right? The youth apprenticeship program is a part of your answer to that strategy.

‍ ‍

21:59
Speaker 8
And part of it, too is. Is just some other things to think about, because I got to do the other little. Think about. As an educator, think about who you are excluding, okay, Maybe not intentionally, maybe subconsciously, somehow. 50% of the population in this country are women. How many women are in the construction industry actually in the trades?

‍ ‍

22:23
Speaker 4
Not enough.

‍ ‍

22:24
Speaker 8
Not enough. Not many at all. And part of that reason is how we market. Okay, how we market construction. You know, a little pink toolbox isn't your marketing tool, you know, so you need to be looking at, you know, how inclusive are you in who you're recruiting? Here in Prince George's county, we are a county that is 55% African American, our student body, and 37% Hispanic. The construction industry is 69% white.

‍ ‍

22:57
Speaker 4
Certainly in the management positions that would be, you know, coming out to the schools and saying, you know, hi, come, you know, I want to introduce you to ABC Electric, you know, come and get to know our organization or what have you. Yeah, we need people of color out in those schools. Right? We need. We need women out in those schools.

‍ ‍

23:19
Speaker 8
We need folks who are actually. We need. Again, it's the whole idea. If I can't see myself in that role, you know, it makes it that much harder. It doesn't mean I don't want it. It just makes it that much harder for me to. To make that next push and that next step. If I don't see anybody who. Who I can kind of model myself after. So really doing recruitment based on. On who the, you know, who's available, who's the pool of your applicants. And so having that representation is critically important when you're coming out to the schools, you know, and saying we have a place for you, and not just saying it, but showing it by showing me some people who look like my kids.

‍ ‍

23:59
Speaker 4
Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, I think, you know, if I'm putting myself in the shoes of these employers and I'm picturing being one of these people who are, I don't know, maybe hesitant to bringing high school kids out on my jobs. What would you say to that? How has that actually worked in practice?

‍ ‍

24:27
Speaker 8
This is the most fun part for me when working with employers. When we launched this in the height of the pandemic, we had to pretty much do everything virtually and we had lots of partners who were willing to say, hey, I'll give you a few hours of my time. I'm willing to work with these kids. We'll work on their interview skills, you know, those type of things. And we got ready for this big, massive, you know, workshop series were doing. And so I had all these little partners lined up, and, you know, they've turned into good friends. And I had one say, amy, I'm a little scared. You know, I don't know kids. You know, I don't know teenagers. I don't know how this is gonna work.

‍ ‍

25:10
Speaker 8
And by the end of that series, they were like, this was the most fun I've ever had. They're like, these kids are so engaged. They ask interesting questions. They are enthusiastic. And that was. You know, the person who was scared was the first one to sign up and take a youth apprentice. And so it's really about engaging with the students, because if you have that stereotype in your mind of what a teenager is, you've got to go and break through that and talk to them as individual students. And we've had people come in who've come in to do presentations and say, we're not here to hire. We're not here to hire. We're just here to do this presentation. We're just here to talk to them about the industry.

‍ ‍

25:56
Speaker 8
And then by the end of their engagement in that class period time, they said, okay, that one over there, is he looking for work? Because he's really good. And, you know, so it's creating that engagement and to engage with students, talk to students, and realize that these are great kids, you know, who are fantastically interested, smart, engaged, and willing to go to work.

‍ ‍

26:24
Speaker 4
That's. I. I think, you know, again, the opportunities there, the interest is there, the talent is there, the training is happening there. There's a vehicle to do this. I hope that some of the. The folks, the potential employers that are watching this and that are listening to this are considering ways how they can get involved. Now, is this Prince George's County? Obviously, that's your focus, but if. Let's say I'm based in, you know, Hagerstown or heck, let's say I'm based in Kansas. You know, what do you know about these programs outside of your personal footprint?

‍ ‍

27:03
Speaker 8
Yeah, career and technical education is everywhere. You know, folks of my age may still refer to it as votech, early 20s or shop. Yeah, early 20s. Me. You know, you may still be looking at it as, you know, kind of that traditional old VO Tech model And that's one of the things we really need to get away from, because career and technical education is technical. All right. These are highly skilled jobs. I mean, you could. The biggest thing with the construction industry today is people still have this vision of what a plumber is. Right. And I think you can visualize in your head what I'm thinking, right, plumber. And that's not what most plumbers are and do. Right. So it's a. Both sides.

‍ ‍

27:49
Speaker 8
But if you're not in Prince George's county, if you are in Maryland, every county in Maryland has a CTE program, has a CTE department. Montgomery county, good friends with Sean over there who works with the apprenticeship program there. Anne Arundel, Charles county, all of us are doing it around the country. If you are looking to recruit, talk to your school's CTE department, call up that main number and say, I need whoever, you know, who's your CTE person, connect with them. We are always, always looking for ways to connect. And apprenticeship, youth apprenticeship is the big thing right now across the country. There's millions of dollars in federal money right now sitting there for employers to help fund their related instruction. To help fund, you know, some of the funding is available to help offset the cost of the salary.

‍ ‍

28:43
Speaker 8
So money is there, the interest is there, the will is there, the kids are there. You know, we just need to get them connected.

‍ ‍

28:53
Speaker 4
Yeah, there's just that integration that needs to happen between the educational sphere and the corporate sphere. Right. The industry itself. So I'm going to shut up. Stacy, what do you have for us?

‍ ‍

29:06
Speaker 5
Yeah, I have some questions. So you were talking about youth programs and trying to get people involved that way. I think when we talk to a lot of contractors, they take the easy way out and they participate in career fairs. Not saying that career fairs aren't beneficial, but when you compare the two, I just wanted to see what your thoughts are because having participated myself and career fairs, I feel like it's very intimidating for high school students and also for us. We're meeting them for the first time and, you know, we're having really short conversations. The students don't really know what to ask us. They're, you know, very intimidated. So with a youth program, I feel like you can connect more on another level if you could kind of speak to that.

‍ ‍

29:53
Speaker 8
Yeah, nothing against career fairs, because we need those too. We just need them at the middle school. Right. We need to start doing those at the middle schools. We need to make them hands on. We need to, you know, instead of just handing out A little brochure and saying, I'm Stacy, you know, and this is my industry. Show me. Right? That's the biggest thing with catching kids interest is giving them something to do. And so we definitely need that engagement and we need it younger and we need it also to involve the parents. So that's part of our marketing strategy this year around CTE as a whole is creating more community events, community wide events where you can come out and try cte. You know, you can do some hands on pieces to that. And then that leads us to that youth apprenticeship model.

‍ ‍

30:42
Speaker 8
Because now you have employers who go, oh, wow, this was fun, right? I enjoyed this. These kids aren't so bad. They're not scary, right? They're engaged, they're doing the work and the kids get a feel and the parents get a feel. Because again, we in the educational world did a really fantastic job over the 50 years of selling the idea that you to be successful, to have a good career, you got to go to college. All right, we sold that so well, right. That, you know, I went to college, I went three times. None of those times that I went until the last one had anything to do with finding a career.

‍ ‍

31:22
Speaker 4
Yeah.

‍ ‍

31:23
Speaker 8
Okay. And so we have students who are going to college because they think that's the only pathway for them. And so doing more of those career fairs, doing more of those hands on engagement, showing parents that here are these alternatives. What I call the higher education you're not thinking about. Because that's what apprenticeship is. It is higher education. You're coming out with a license, you're coming out with a degree, and you're doing it without the debt.

‍ ‍

31:50
Speaker 4
All right?

‍ ‍

31:50
Speaker 8
Average student graduates or doesn't graduate out of college carrying $30,000 of debt. And if you're going into a career field that starts you off at 35, $40,000 and you're already carrying $30,000 of debt, maybe you want to look at an alternative.

‍ ‍

32:07
Speaker 4
You know, my brother went to VO Tech because he's from that era. Right? We are. And my brother went to Votech and was a mason, went through their masonry program. And when he finished, he was a super smart kid who just could not fathom the idea of going to school to, of getting good grades for good grade sake. He wasn't, you know, really interested in going to college or what. You know, everything for him had to have purpose. And so that program was a lifesaver for him. And he would tell you that today was absolute lifesaver for him. When he finished High school and was actually inspired to go to college for.

‍ ‍

32:49
Speaker 4
For a construction management degree because he could now see a very clear connection between what he was learning and what, how he wanted to apply that, you know, in a management sphere. And, and he came out of college, started his own business, which he's, you know, been running for 20 some years. He's an employer. And I mean, he's. This is the perfect example of. And, and I remember it was, you know, a visitation night when he was in middle school to the Votech that changed his life. And that was it. Like he saw it and was like, that's what I want. That's what I need in my life. If I don't get that, I'm never going to make it out of school. And, and I'm certain that's true. Knowing him, I'm certain that's true.

‍ ‍

33:33
Speaker 8
And it comes back again. And it's a, it's a culture as well in our country that we've elevated certain careers, you know, as being professional and as being, you know, respectable, you know, and people aren't looking. And parents, I mean, bless parents, you know, they want the best for their kids. Right. You know, there's not a parent out there who doesn't want the best possible for their child. But we have an image of what that is. Right. And of what success is in this country. And so it's really also changing that cultural mindset of what success is. You know, if I'm a successful business owner, because I started out as a Mason, right? Dang. That's the American story, right, that you came up, you used your hands, you used your mind, you created this business. You're now an employer.

‍ ‍

34:28
Speaker 8
You know, you're contributing, you know, in multiple different ways to your community. And so we really need to be talking about changing that mindset of our culture as well, of what we consider to be success.

‍ ‍

34:41
Speaker 4
No question. Stacy, probably time for one more.

‍ ‍

34:44
Speaker 5
Yeah, I was just gonna say if we could just close out. Mark made some great points and so has a couple people in the audience here, but I was thinking back to previous episodes we have. And not to put you on the spot, Chad, so if you don't remember, that's fine. There was some type of statistic on how most construction companies are small businesses with a certain amount of employees. I don't know if you remember, 25.

‍ ‍

35:10
Speaker 4
Yeah, about 25 employees. Yeah.

‍ ‍

35:12
Speaker 5
So I think for those businesses, they get intimidated with this.

‍ ‍

35:16
Speaker 8
They.

‍ ‍

35:16
Speaker 5
They kind of leave it up to the larger businesses to participate in this type of thing. So how would you encourage a small business with maybe limited resources, but it's still important to them because they have to recruit candidates to participate in your program.

‍ ‍

35:34
Speaker 8
We have those folks, right, Those folks who. One way to do it, I mean, I'm going to give you two examples. So one way to do it is if you're a merit shop, if you're an independent contractor, join with your local association, you know, who pull those resources, all those resources. Here in Prince George's county, you know, we have builders and contractors, you know, who offers classes. You can go through the union. So there's lots of different opportunities and ways to kind of pool that cost. Right. But we also have some independent contractors who we've had relationships with over the years who call me up every spring and say, hey, Amy, I'm ready for another one. You know, they take them on as a helper. They take them on in that initial position.

‍ ‍

36:21
Speaker 8
They say if they make it past six months, going to pay for them to go into an apprenticeship because they've shown me that work ethic. And so it's doable. It is scary. There is a risk. Right. And you don't know what your return on investment is going to be. So that's part of why we do the vetting process. You know, nobody gets to you employer until they've come through me from our programs. So they go through the school, all right, they go through the teachers, they get their recommendations and then they've got to sit with me and convince me that they really want to go in and do this. So that vetting process is helpful. It's not just blindly putting out there, you know, an ad, I need a helper position and hoping you find somebody.

‍ ‍

37:08
Speaker 8
You kind of have a built in recruiter with your school system. Awesome.

‍ ‍

37:15
Speaker 4
All right, folks, we've gone over, but I think for good reason and it's well deserved. So, Amy, thank you so much. Keep doing what you're doing. It's awesome. Important work. Your passion for it shines through. I think I'd love to have you on next year and hear that you've vastly increased the number of engaged youth program participants. And it would really make me happy if some of the people who were, you know, our audience today and subsequent today, you know, who are watching this and listening to this after the fact reach out to you. Amy, if people want to get in touch, how should they do that?

‍ ‍

37:58
Speaker 8
It's very simple. You can go right there. You put up our website, right? It's pgcps.org cte. You can learn about all of our CTE programs. You can watch our videos. You've got about five days worth of content in there. You can read or you can reach out to me directly. And my email is very Simply Amy Rock. GCPS.org and so we are always looking to engage and even if you just have questions, right. If you're somewhere around the country and you're like, wow, that sounds like something we'd like to do here. You know, sharing is caring, and that's what we do in education, is we build each other so we work with our counterparts in our surrounding counties. And it's all about building up these opportunities for students.

‍ ‍

38:50
Speaker 8
So always happy to help, always happy to engage with whomever has questions or maybe has a job for one of my kids.

‍ ‍

39:00
Speaker 4
Let's go.

‍ ‍

39:00
Speaker 5
Thank you.

‍ ‍

39:01
Speaker 4
I hope that happens. Let's, let's get that happening. That's wonderful. Thanks so much, Amy. Stacy, let's talk a little bit about next week. So next week we've got an incredible, I mean, I, I, you couldn't even, you're the best producer. You couldn't have staged this better. Have one after the next. So next week we're talking with Mark Perna, who is a renowned speaker and author, who talks about unleashing the power of the youth in the workforce. So talk about a complimentary conversation. Next week's show, we're going to be digging in with Mark about sort of the mindsets and the habits that we need to develop to start unlocking the potential of the youth in the workforce so that we can take what Amy's given us and start to really put it to practice.

‍ ‍

39:51
Speaker 4
I think Mark is going to help immensely with that, so don't miss that Live. It's going to be a lot of fun. If you can't join live, obviously, just make sure that you catch us on YouTube or here on LinkedIn, on, you know, the Replay or even on Spotify, podcasts. Stacy, has there, is there anything that I've missed? Is there anything that you want to say to wrap up?

‍ ‍

40:13
Speaker 5
No, but I have seen Mark Perna Live in Action speaking, and he's an excellent keynote speaker. So I don't think you're gonna have a problem with next week's episode. He's very entertaining and he has a great story to share.

‍ ‍

40:28
Speaker 4
Yeah, I, I, it was kind of like my preparation with Amy, where I could tell it was just pull the string and stand back. They're passionate and they're great. So, yeah, Mark's exactly the same way. It'll be great. Thanks so much.

‍ ‍

40:41
Speaker 5
All right, have a great day.

‍

Guest: Kevin Fleming PhD

Topic: Purpose Driven Education

Transcript:

Speaker 1: 00:00

So Kevin, when you, you've got a. We were just talking about this YouTube video of you. How, how much of your time do you spend in front of audiences? Like, you know, how often is that a thing for you?

Speaker 2: 00:18

It's a side hobby that's just, that's evolved. But I'm still full time community college vice president, so I do maybe 15 to 20 keynotes or speaking engagements a year. So it's definitely not my full time gig. But, but I love it. And at some point, maybe those two roles will, will reverse. Like for many of our kids, sometimes plan B becomes plan A and vice versa. But I love, I love working with schools and with districts, colleges and students, just kind of helping them navigate life after 12th grade. So I do, I do a little bit of it. Some of the animation videos take a chunk. And right now I'm working on my fourth book. So that takes a chunk of time. So like all of us just spinning, spinning plates and still trying to be a good dad.

Speaker 1: 01:01

I can relate. I know that drill so well. So welcome to everybody. It's showtime. We've got a slightly delayed show this morning. We're doing a holiday special time mostly to make sure that we can accommodate our guest, Kevin Fleming. We had this conversation about bringing Kevin on. It was like, we really want to have Kevin on. Kevin is located in California. Yeah, California.

Speaker 2: 01:28

Southern California.

Speaker 1: 01:29

And in California, it's weird, they follow this different time zone thing and, and Kevin was like, look, I can try to be on at 4:45, but I don't know that that would go well. And so, so for Kevin right Now it's still 6:45, still bright and early on the west coast. But I'm sorry, now. Yeah, sorry, 7am on the West coast, but 10am here on the east Coast. Thank you, Kevin, so much for, for making this happen. It's awesome to have you here.

Speaker 2: 02:00

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 02:02

Yeah, this is great. So, Kevin, I actually. You just said you're finishing your fourth book. Talk to us just a little bit about your books, your authorship, what's your. What have you been writing?

Speaker 2: 02:15

Yeah, I, well, thanks, Chad, for asking. I consider myself a recovering academic elitist. So I did the traditional educational pathway and got a bunch of degrees and then realized I couldn't get a job. And so a lot of my research and work is really fixing that, that chasm in helping people prepare with intentionality for what they don't want to do with their life and not just to get degrees for the sake of getting them. So my first book was called Redefining the Goal and that was written for an audience of educators to help them really understand that commencement is not the goal, but it's a milestone. And the goal is really what happens after that and what people do with their lives and in their communities. My second book was on a really niche area of higher education. It's called program discontinuance and viability. Really helping faculty and administrators change their career technical education programs over regularly. My third book was a children's book. My daughter's now five and so I read a lot of children's book and nothing really hit the mark for our field and talking about all the different careers they could have. So, so that's a children's book called There's a Hat for that. And you follow Little Monkey through all the different industry sectors and trying different hats. A construction had an engineering hat, of course. And then my fourth book is going to be for parents and it's tentatively titled Life After 12th.

Speaker 1: 03:30

Love it. That's exciting. Do you have a target release date for that?

Speaker 2: 03:35

November 2022. We just got the first draft is being refined right now. And then you got to go through the whole production cycle. So I'm looking at a pre Christmas release next year.

Speaker 1: 03:43

Wonderful. That's exciting. And you know, so, so purpose driven education, that is our, you know, topic for today. And you know that, you know, this is an audience, our audience, Stacy and I, every, everybody that joins us, you know, either a contractor, an engineer, architect, or services the, you know, construction community in some way, maybe a developer. And so that is, I know that your experience is outside of that as well. Right. You're bridging all different types of occupational settings in your educational background. But bearing in mind that we're going to be talking about the building industry, I want to invite the audience as always, please shoot in your questions. You should have some great ones based on the topic today, which I think is extremely relevant to the building industry. And Stacy, engage with that audience as you always do and make sure that we gather great questions that we can pose to Kevin in the final 10 minutes. And then one quick heads up is that Stacy and I have planned a couple of giveaways through the course of the conversation today. So keep your eye on the chat. Stacy's going to be hitting you with a couple of quiz questions. First person to answer wins. And we'll share with you what what the opportunities are for for the giveaway today.

Speaker 2: 05:15

Am I eligible?

Speaker 1: 05:17

Yeah, Kevin, no, you're out. You are, you do not qualify yeah, but you get two points for asking. I think that took, uh, that was good.

Speaker 2: 05:27

Points don't matter. All right, good.

Speaker 1: 05:30

All right, cool Stacy, we'll see you with 10 minutes to go. All right audience, we look forward to hearing your questions. And uh, and you know, hopefully uh, a couple of you guys get our quiz questions right so we can send you some cool st. See you soon, Stacy.

Speaker 3: 05:42

See ya.

Speaker 1: 05:44

All right, so Kevin, let's, let's dig in. I think, you know, we, in conversation leading up to this interview today, we talked about this idea that there's, you know, a message for educators and there's a message for students and there's a message for employers. And I think for our, for our audience today, it makes sense to focus on employers and students, you know, families, if you will, parents, which I think we can all, many of us can relate to. And you know, if maybe you're not a parent, maybe you're actually a student and you're checking this out, it'd be relevant. You know, questions along those lines would be relevant as well. So you mentioned earlier, how do we help students to realize it's not just about commencement. Give me more on that. How do we help students to realize that?

Speaker 2: 06:40

Yeah, so we, we have a whole educational system and I'm in that system so I can poke at it with a fair amount of love and affinity. But we have a public educational system in America that is really set up for commencement and for university baccalaureate attainment. That's primarily what this system was always set up for. So first, as, as employers have to acknowledge that that that's what the system's going to get. If you look at how they're funded, if you look at what are the metrics, education, it's, it's very much directed towards a couple very specific outcomes and they're not often in aligned with what the labor market needs. I've spent at least 10 years worthy in the manufacturing, industrial automation, robotics, space. And our systems are just not set up to help students engage, hands on and have work based learning and to really tease out some of those other outcomes other than commencement. And so a part of this structural challenge we have is we all have the same ultimate goal. We want our students and our children to have a great educational experience. We want them to find a career they love. We want them to be productive members of the citizenry in our community. We define that success differently. So the first I think maybe aha moment is for employers that want to bridge this gap. They want to work together with schools, the first thing is really to realize that they have a different set of metrics that they're trying to fulfill that motivates them. And it's not the same metrics we have. Schools are not rewarded by actually creating a large pipeline of trained workers. Shocking. That's what we want, but that's actually not what they're designed or incentivized to do.

Speaker 1: 08:13

Right. Yeah. There's this. The love of education, and I love educating. I think the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of learning is a very, very worthwhile endeavor. And, you know, personally read all kinds of books that I'm not going to necessarily use in my occupation, but I think that maybe the appropriate space for that kind of learning is maybe in books on your free time. But when you're going to school, as you're, as you're, you know, you're spending, you know, when it's your job to be a student, on some level, we have to be, I think, considering the fact that once that's done, you're actually going to have a job.

Speaker 2: 08:52

That's right.

Speaker 1: 08:53

And so, you know, what is it that you're learning that is going to be applicable? And I think there's the Purpose Driven education piece now. So you mentioned I'm gonna get it wrong, but you and I, yesterday you said a word. I was like, I'm gonna get him to say this publicly. Oh, ika guy.

Speaker 2: 09:13

Yeah, Ika guy. All right, so I learned about this last year. So here's what I want you if, for all those listening, if you're on the treadmill or if you're driving, don't do this. But if you're in front of your computer, if you can go to your phone, open up a new tab and Google image this word. It's called ikigai I k I G A ikigai I K I G A I And if you Google image that, you're going to see this image of a Venn diagram with four circles. And ikigai is a Japanese philosophy of getting that intrinsic motivation, and it's a reason for living. It's poorly translated as the thing that wakes you up in the morning. We might loosely define that in Western culture as purpose, but that's a poor translation of it, but it really aligns four different things. And so the concept of ikigai says you want to identify what can you get paid to do, what do you love to do, what does the world need? And what are you actually good at? And if you can get those overlapping circles, if you can find the thing or the few things that hit the bullseye in all four of those dimensions, you're going to have a reason for getting up in the morning, you're going to want to labor, you're going to want to contribute. You're going to love what you do. And imagine if I like a lot of what ifs, Chad. What if our school system actually focused on helping students find their e. A guy instead of helping them just go through commencement and graduate? It'd be a whole different structure in helping students learn what they love and what they're good at and what problems the world has that needs solving. Instead of get a degree in philosophy like I was initially taught to do.

Speaker 1: 10:40

As a parent of three, I am really, really glad that there are people like you out there fighting the good fight, trying to make sure that our educational systems do that. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do right away is I'm going to start to weave that thought process into my conversations with my kids.

Speaker 2: 10:55

Awesome.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Right? And I think, I think that's something that all of us can do. But, but meanwhile, I think there's that. I mean, that's, I've all my. You know, when I was a kid, my dad always told me, if you do something that you're passionate about and that you're really good at, chances are pretty good that money is going to find you as long as you're doing something that people care about.

Speaker 2: 11:18

That's right.

Speaker 1: 11:20

That was the, that was the X factor. And you know, turns out, you know, I. I missed my calling. I should have become a professional video game player. Evidently that, in fact, is a thing.

Speaker 2: 11:32

It's a thing now. You were just a decade too early. That's awesome.

Speaker 1: 11:35

I was just a decade too. You nailed it. It's exactly how too early I was.

Speaker 2: 11:39

And the thing I love about ikigai is. And you have children. A lot of the, the people listening are kids. My daughter's 5. She loves to build. She loves blocks, Legos, like her first erector set. She loves to build things, and frankly, she loves to knock them down with as much tenacity. She might be a future demolition supervisor or something, but she loves to create and build what kids don't. Right. Fast forward 10 years and how many teenagers are playing with blocks and building as much? Something happens in that span, but looking at ikigai, they love it and they're. And they're good at it, then we don't keep reinforcing it. So, yeah, I think as wearing our parent hat and Then also wearing our employer hat, I think it's important to say, okay, how do we give people the opportunity in the space to practice the things they love to practice, the things they're good at so they can get great at it. And that includes of course, building an engineering design.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Yeah. And Lord knows they can get paid to do it and there's a need for it. That's right. Let's talk about what it is to be an employer. How can employers play a more meaningful role in driving the student population to consider the building industry?

Speaker 2: 12:52

Absolutely. There's a short term game and there's a long term game. So what a lot of people think they need to do is just go visit a classroom, give a presentation and get to know the principal and all of a sudden you're going to have this trained pipeline of workers and that's insufficient, that's not going to work. It's really a three to five year game and that's a short term game. To change the structure of the system a little bit, we have to change the DNA of the school. And it goes beyond just one interpersonal relationship. The long term game, the ten year game. For those that are in this for the long haul, we actually have to change state policy. And that's, and that's the answer. And the example I can give is South Carolina, they changed state tax code to incentivize apprenticeships and over a 10 year period they saw a 20 year, 20 times increase rather their formal apprenticeship programs. And that's union or non union. And so that's, that's a longer term play. So I'd say short term we have to build the actual programs into the school. And here's one way to look about it. Think if everyone can think about the two closest high schools to you. Do they both have strong construction trade programs? And if the answer is no or I don't know, then that's where you start. And you start right there by getting a bunch of employers to show up at the school board and just say we have great paying jobs, we provide great standard of living, there's a needle. You have students that have this desire, how do we partner? What do we have to do to start a program? That's a three to five year dialog that's not going to happen overnight. So that's like your short term. The long term is having that same conversation with elected officials and actually looking at tax incentives and education code to prioritize hands on construction trade programs in at least 51% of schools. And that's both middle school, high school and community college. That's a, that's an eight to 10 year game.

Speaker 1: 14:30

It's a really difficult proposition, I think, in, in particularly for the, the vast majority of construction companies that are, you know, less than 100 employees, that are not rolling in millions of dollars of profit every year that they can reinvest into their businesses. It's a very difficult proposition, I think, to get these employers to act. I would even say, I think you kind of have to act unselfishly to do this. I know that it's, it's, it's long, maybe it's long term selfish, but, but you have to go into this idea that I'm not just setting up this pipeline for me, I'm setting up this pipeline for our industry and that may benefit my competition.

Speaker 2: 15:23

Well, I would say it's okay to be selfish. I'd say you show up and you say you need, you want to make sure you have a trained workforce for the next five to seven years.

Speaker 1: 15:29

Right.

Speaker 2: 15:30

And if that's you, if that resonates, then this is actually it's okay to be selfish. This is you getting the best employees that you can out of middle schools and high schools and community colleges so that you have a bench of great folks to choose from. I'd say be selfish about it. And everyone's busy. A lot of listeners there. You're running your own business. There's, you know, there's small contractors, maybe 50 employees or less. I'd ask just for two hours, give two hours in 2022, go to two board meetings, one hour each in 2022. That's my ask. That's the initial call to action. Go to your local school board for one hour twice this year. And if you can have even just 10 or 15 employers show up and do that at the same school board every single month, there's two contractors filling out a little card to give your 30 seconds at the podium that says, I need your help and we have great jobs. Eventually they will hear you. But if everyone just did two hours a year, that's how we change this.

Speaker 1: 16:20

Wow. I love that. I mean, I think it's, there's a power, there's, there's, you got to do the math on that. I think exponentially, it could be massively impactful if everybody did that. I just wrote it down. I'll be, I'll be making that step. I'll be taking that step this year for sure for the building industry.

Speaker 2: 16:40

That's what makes a difference. And you know, I've met a lot of school board and a lot of, you know, university trustee members. They're good people. They want what's best for their students. They're typically not malicious. 99% of them are altruistic good people. Right. So, so when, when they have this steady stream of information coming at them, they only know what they know. And they may not have been in the construction trade. So when you start pinging them every single month with tenacity and with fidelity, over time they're going to, they're going to hear you and eventually they will respond. And that, that's the, that's the three year game.

Speaker 1: 17:10

So, so back to speaking as a parent here. You know, in, in I have to put my, what I know about the building industry off to the side and all the opportunities that exist for, for just, just for a moment to ask this question. I think a lot of parents fear getting their children involved in the building industry because there's some sort of mindset or mentality that these jobs are bad, that they are going away, that they are right, that everything's going to be automated, that these aren't the ideal kinds of jobs, you know, that people should want. What would you say to parents who fear getting their children involved in the building industry?

Speaker 2: 17:58

Well, first they can call my brother who did the inverse. He got his bachelor's degree in TV and film production, only to later become a general contractor. So sometimes you can want the best thing for someone and then they go down this path and realize it's not in alignment with who they are. And I think every parent would agree with the philosophy of Ikigai. And I would say to them, well, don't your child, don't you want them to do what they love and what they're good at and what they can get paid to do that solves a problem the world has no parent with any conscience can say, no, I don't want that at all. I just want them to get a piece of paper in psychology because that was no.

Speaker 1: 18:29

Right.

Speaker 2: 18:29

So, but I would say we can historically look at automation and robotics. The example I like to share is the ATM in the financial services industry. I tell parents this and I wrote about my book. Do you remember back in the 90s when ATMs first came out? Late 80s, early 90s, there was this big scare that all the tellers were going to get fired and we were going to automate the banking industry. Well, if you look before ATMs and after ATMs, there's more workers in the financial services industry, when you walk in now, they're doing a lot more than just being a teller. They're helping us with financial investments and getting a mortgage and a Roth IRA and all these other things. Right. But there's more employees. Even if we get 3D printers on the job site that helps us build, we're still going to need people to set up, maintain and clean up and do quality control on these builds. So automation is not going to get rid of the headcount or the number of jobs in the, in this industry. It's just going to increase the number in a different skill set in a different way. So, so we might have to learn new things about artificial intelligence and robotics and, but it's not, it's not going to change the fact that there's still a great industry with a good workforce. It just might change some of the hands on skills we need to adopt along the way.

Speaker 1: 19:37

What changes what the skill set for preparing for a career in the trades might look like as the, as technology and innovation changes what building looks like. But it doesn't change the fact that again those, those, those students that, that love building, are passionate about doing it, are good at it, that, that if we can train, if we can, you know, leverage that passion and get them trained up so that they can be prepared. Maybe it looks totally different 30 years from now, but I think what I'm hearing you say is don't be afraid to, to get your. Look, any industry is going to change.

Speaker 2: 20:23

That's right.

Speaker 1: 20:24

Every industry is going to adapt and it's all going to look different, you know, and, and you know, for, for that's what progress looks like.

Speaker 2: 20:31

That's right. We don't want it to look the same.

Speaker 1: 20:34

Right.

Speaker 2: 20:35

Every industry, I mean just look at the last year and a half, how many industries because of the pandemic have completely changed and adopted new technology and different ways of operating that we, there was a recent McKenzie report that says we as a society evolved 10 years in the last year in terms of our technological, you know, advancement and adoption. Every industry is going to change. We can't fear automation and robotics, is it not being. But I'd also tell parents that this is one of the few industries you can't outsource. You know, my doctor outsources reading the X rays, my accountant outsources filling out some of the tax forms. You can't outsource many elements of construction and engineering. And so this is actually more resistant to at least that economic force than other industries. I'd Be more fearful of my child going into accounting in the next 20 years than I would at the construction and building trades.

Speaker 1: 21:23

Love it. I totally agree with you. So we have, in my opinion, and I think many others, we have this really interesting paradox that has to be solved. And what we've been discussing today, I think, is the path through it, both the short game and the long game, as you've described, where we've got. We're not at 0% unemployment in the United States.

Speaker 2: 21:50

That's right.

Speaker 1: 21:52

So roughly how many Americans are today without jobs, American citizens without jobs?

Speaker 2: 21:58

As of Yesterday, it was 6.9 million Americans, 4.2% unemployment rate. So from a labor market perspective, we have about seven. Let's round up from 6.9 million. It's called seven million. There's seven million Americans.

Speaker 1: 22:11

We have seven million Americans sitting at home who don't have work.

Speaker 2: 22:17

That's right. And I'm going to bet, Chad, a lot of them when they were kids like to build, and a lot of them today still might like to create. And they might want to have a legacy that outlives themselves and supports things beyond even their vitality of life. And I think a lot of them, we failed as a system, as a community, as an educational contract. We failed those seven million human beings. I think we were designed to work. I think we were created to labor. I think we have something in our DNA that we want to produce and give back and make things. And I think we failed 7 million people by either directly or indirectly convincing them that this isn't a viable opportunity for them. And I think we vilified hard work. As I like to quote Mike Rowe, who speaks a lot about this. And so there's a labor market answer to this, is that you could look out in any state, any region, look at the unemployment rate. There's a lot of folks out there that could benefit from a better understanding and changing the way they perceive the opportunities in this industry. And that's a marketing that goes right back to Marketing 101 and just, you know, getting associations, not necessarily individual employers, but associations out there to get the information out there about what the benefits are. What the. And not just about pay. I'm talking benefits about. In alignment with your eco guide. I'm talking about the benefits of being a contributor to community and be an example to your kids, not just be a taxpayer.

Speaker 1: 23:37

Yeah. And. And create that clear entrance, that clear path that makes it obvious for people how to get involved.

Speaker 2: 23:50

And.

Speaker 1: 23:50

And I think meanwhile, every day I'm talking with you know at least five, maybe six different construction companies every single day, 50 to 75% of them are falling all over themselves to bring talent in at every level in their organization. And, and we have 7 million people who aren't, who aren't, you know, successfully finding jobs.

Speaker 2: 24:16

That's a great.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Imagine how many other people who hate what they're doing.

Speaker 2: 24:22

That's right. They call it now the great reshuffle. You know, there's a lot of people that are cashier somewhere and they don't want to be a cashier anymore. They'd much rather be outside and doing so. So yeah, we're in the middle of that great reshuffle right now. There's never been time to get out new messaging or to dust off the old messaging we abandoned 10 years ago and really start promoting with tenacity the opportunities we provide, the well being and the self efficacy, self confidence we can give to people. And for everyone listening, if you're not out there at least doing, you know, at least once a quarter, volunteering for things like Habitat for Humanity and getting out there, those are the opportunities that middle school kids sometimes will go to. We need to get if our king of the world chat and my wife likes to remind me I'm not, but if I were, every middle school kid would go out there and do Habitat for Humanity so they can see geometry actually being applied and they can get excited about erecting a wall and running pipe and running wire and understanding how that, that those systems all work together and those, those experiences can really light a fire inside them and create a desire to go into this industry. So I'd say anything you could do to make sure everyone in your community does something like Habitat for Humanity, that also is part of the long term game that will pay dividends down the road.

Speaker 1: 25:34

Outstanding. Stacy, I brought you back on. We've got a little over five minutes. What do we got?

Speaker 3: 25:41

Okay, so I had a question for you. You were talking. I love the actionable plan because I sit in a lot of these workforce development discussions and we're so stuck on just Career day and having volunteers represent our industry and Career Day because we don't know how to go above and beyond that really. So I love the tips that you gave and the fact that it's a three to five year game or a ten year game with the state policy. So I'm thinking what the contractors would want to know who needs to sit on the school board meetings is it. We have a recruiter that usually works with a contracting firm, workforce development person or the owners or all three. I don't know, like who would you assign that role to?

Speaker 2: 26:30

All three. You each take a month, have the CEO in January, the recruiter in February, of the HR person in March. I mean, I would say everybody there's. Imagine how powerful it would be. You're, imagine you're a school board member, you want your, you know, you're running your local school. Imagine if a CEO came to the podium one night and said, I have 18 jobs that are going unfilled in our community and you're not producing from your school. Workers that are interested in my field and I pay 30 bucks an hour. Like, how piercing is that? When they hear that month after month after month after month repeatedly from, from one industry, eventually they're going to get. So you're going to browbeat them kindly and always be kind, right? But you're, you're going to, eventually you're going to guilt them and embarrass them into responding, at least having a conversation about what they're doing to prepare students for, for the billed trades. I think every high school should have at least two apprenticeship programs. Every single high school, union or non. Union. And, and if your high school doesn't, that's a really easy thing to point at and say, hey, we got thousands of jobs in the community. Why don't you have even one apprenticeship program in your school district? That's hard for them to defend. And eventually they're going to start getting people galvanized around that to figure out, okay, we should have at least one apprenticeship program. The apprenticeship model is not. Knew Jesus Christ was an apprentice. This is not a new model. So why doesn't every school in America have at least one apprenticeship program? When you start asking those kind of poignant but polite questions, then they start to respond. So I would say great questions, Stacey. I'd say all of them. Everyone take a turn with a slightly different angle at it. And you get five or six of your other company buddies in the same community do the same. Don't let a school board meeting go by without someone being at the podium asking them to respond to the industry. And I bet about four to six months in, that's when you'll see some traction.

Speaker 3: 28:13

Nice.

Speaker 1: 28:15

So I just read. Stacy, I'm sorry, I just read a comment that I had to call out. So I read this comment that said some of us should go back to high school and be guidance counselors. I love that.

Speaker 2: 28:29

Yes, Gregory, yes. Here's my thing about guidance counselor. I love school counselors. I love their hard working, warm people, but I think less than 10% of them have ever had a job outside of being a school counselor. So we have to recognize who they are. They went to school, they got their bachelor's, they got their master's in counseling, then started working at the school board or the school district. They don't know what they don't know, so they're incentivized to get them just to commencement. I think maybe we should have a. Buy a school counselor, take a school counselor out to lunch day or something and help them see what's going on in the world and help educate them because again, hard working, good people, but they don't know what they don't know. If. If you're looking to retire, I would absolutely encourage you to go back and be a school counselor. That. That's certainly one way to infiltrate the system. You can't change the system if you're not in the system. As a mentor of mine used to.

Speaker 1: 29:17

Say, you can't change the system if you're not in the system. Yeah. And that's. I mean, that's my biggest takeaway, you know, in terms of personal involvement as a parent. Very easy to make a presence at school board meetings and, you know, get an opportunity to speak. I think that makes a ton of sense.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Two hours a year. That's all we're asking, Chad. Awesome.

Speaker 1: 29:39

Stacy, what else we got? We got probably time for one more.

Speaker 3: 29:43

I don't see any questions. Lots of great, great comments. We can get into the three giveaway questions.

Speaker 1: 29:51

Thank you. Yes. All right. All right.

Speaker 3: 29:53

I want to do it during the discussion because it was so good and I just thought it was inappropriate, but good call.

Speaker 2: 30:00

I don't.

Speaker 1: 30:00

I have my gauge on what's appropriate. Stacy is terrible.

Speaker 2: 30:04

I'm with you. I'm with you.

Speaker 3: 30:06

I don't want to take this off topic, so let's do the first one. Kevin has generously said he would give away one of his children's books that he published. So with that being said, the first person to respond to this question, how many books has Kevin Fleming actually published?

Speaker 2: 30:26

Someone had to be paying attention for that one.

Speaker 1: 30:28

Yeah, I like that. There's a little trick in there, too.

Speaker 3: 30:31

I don't know how many people joined us in the very beginning.

Speaker 1: 30:34

Yeah, you had to be there for the first 10 minutes.

Speaker 3: 30:36

Might as well just guess.

Speaker 2: 30:39

Some educated guesses. Let's see. Well, they know it's at least one or else you wouldn't ask a question. Right?

Speaker 3: 30:47

Exactly. Nope. Not two. Try again.

Speaker 2: 30:59

Good guess, Mark.

Speaker 3: 31:03

Very close, though. Come on, guys. Hey.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Oh, there it was. Caitlyn's got it.

Speaker 3: 31:08

Come on. Caitlyn's got it. So. All right, Caitlyn, I'll contact you and you have one of Kevin's children's books. And then remind us again, Kevin, when is your fourth book going to be published? November, right?

Speaker 2: 31:23

Yeah. Next fall it'll be called tentatively entitled There's a life after 12th. And that'll equip parents with the conversation points to help their, their child really have success in alignment with who they are with life after commencement.

Speaker 3: 31:37

Okay, cool. Two more questions.

Speaker 1: 31:40

So, Stacy, Stacy, I apologize, I'm gonna have to, I have to call this one thing out. Is it. I totally forgot that we have like a solid 30 second delay from the time we say something to the time that we. The time that people see it and then the time that they type. So here's, here's what I'm going to propose is that you pop them in the chat afterward just so that we don't have two minutes of awkward waiting. And so, so watch, watch the chat box right after this, guys. Watch the chat box right after this. Stacy's gonna pose two questions. The first two accurate answers. We will be hooking up with your choice of giveaway. Stacy, what are we doing? We're doing mugs.

Speaker 3: 32:28

Yeah, mugs. Some swag we'll give you from the morning huddle. But the next question is the first person to name two guests that we had on our first season so far.

Speaker 1: 32:38

All right, cool, good. So we'll pop them in the chat. We'll handle. You're going to put those questions in the chat, Stacy? Yes, yes, I just put it in the wonderful. All right, Kevin, I can't thank you enough for being here, spreading a really, really important word. It was wonderful to have you. I hope that we can do this again maybe in November next year. The timing would be good.

Speaker 2: 32:58

I like where you're going with that. Yeah, let's, let's, let's, let's plan for it. Thank you, Chad. Thank you so much, Stacey. Appreciate you both. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 33:04

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Thank you so much, guys. We are off next week. We are taking off the weekend between Christmas and New Year's. We're gonna reload and get ready to rock for the first week in January. Our guest the week in the first week in January is Marissa Bankert. She's the executive director for Central Pennsylvania's Independent Electrical Contractors association, who's going to be joining us to talk about attracting women to the Trades. So, you know, similar kind of theme here, which is how do we get more awesome people involved in the building industry specifically? Marissa's got a great story of her success in attracting women to the trade. So don't miss it. We look forward to seeing you. Happy holidays. Stacy, anything to say as we wrap up?

Speaker 3: 33:53

One more question. Which topic haven't we covered yet? The first person to respond correctly, A, acquisition B, small business, C, cybersecurity, or D, contact roles. And there might be a little bit of lag here.

Speaker 1: 34:11

There will be. We'll get it. We'll get it in the chat.

Speaker 3: 34:15

So my husband tried to respond to the one question, but, no, he does not get a prize. So, Libby. Yes. You won.

Speaker 1: 34:25

All right, Libby. Awesome. All right, guys. Stacy, do you mind? Do you want to hang out? Is that what you want to do?

Speaker 3: 34:34

Yeah, I just want to wait for the last one.

Speaker 1: 34:37

She has to give somebody. Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 3: 34:38

I have to. So which topic haven't we covered? A, acquisition B, small business, C, cyber security, or D, contract contact roles?

Speaker 1: 34:51

Oh, we got Matthew.

Speaker 3: 34:53

Correct. Matt. Matt won. All right, Matt, you got some goodies coming your way.

Speaker 1: 34:59

All right, guys.

Speaker 3: 35:01

All right. Thank you so much for joining us. Happy holidays. And we'll see them in January, right?

Speaker 1: 35:06

Yeah, January, January, whatever that is. Fourth. The first two back at our normal time. Same bat time, same bat channel.

Speaker 3: 35:12

Okay, great.

Speaker 1: 35:13

Thanks, guys. Thank.