Planting the Seeds Early

By / Natalie Bruckner  Photos on pages 4 and 5 courtesy of Local 49

Competition to attract and retain a younger workforce is becoming increasingly fierce.

That’s why SMART and SMACNA are planting the seeds early among high school students with programs specifically aimed at highlighting the many benefits of the sheet metal industry as a career option for the right person.

“Today, we’re competing with other trades, truck drivers, the military, and the likes of Amazon, Google, Uber, even Chick-fil-A, who is offering $18 an hour,” says Thomas E. Martin, president of Ohio-based T.H. Martin, Inc. “If you’re not already looking at ways to attract the future workforce, now is the time to do it.”

Martin should know. He started a program aimed at high school students more than 20 years ago. It has seen great success, although he admits it took years to gain traction. “Back in the early 2000s, we knew recruitment and workforce development were key to our industry,” he says. “We needed to get the word out there and make the younger generation aware.”

He set to work, engaging with vocational schools around the Greater Cleveland area. “From there, we started building relationships with the City of Cleveland and some suburban schools systems,” he says. “We understood that to get to high schoolers, you first need to educate the guidance counselors, teachers, and principals. They often don’t know it’s a paid internship, so how can we expect them to speak to their students about it?”

Working alongside Al Simonitis, training coordinator at the Local 33 JATC, they set in motion a high school program where JATC representatives attend job fairs and meet with the school representatives and students. High schoolers receive an open invite to tour the T.H. Martin facility and experience a day in the life of a sheet metal worker. “Over the years, we have engaged more than 20 high school students, 80% of whom have entered into the trade,” Martin says. “We still have three or four forepersons who came through this route.”

Vince Alvarado, business manager/financial secretarytreasurer at Local 49 in New Mexico, echoes Martin’s sentiments about educating adults first. He, too, has been busy targeting high schoolers for two decades.

“I was doing this 20 years ago, but back then we were having a hard time because the counselors and American Federation of Teachers weren’t on board,” he says. “They thought trade schools were for dummies. That attitude changed when we started partnering with them and they looked at our curriculum. They finally realized we offer a well paying job with many benefits. They even told us, ʻWe thought you were just dirty old construction workers.’ While some of us are,” Alvarado laughs, “this is a skilled craft.”

Following the pandemic, young people are looking for stability, and Alvarado says there has never been a better time to ramp up programs aimed at high schoolers. “Teachers today are more receptive to trade school than ever,” he says. “It’s

Top and middle: courtesy of Local 24. Bottom: courtesy of Local 49 taken 20 years to see that change, but teachers are now directing the right students to the trades, rather than only recommending to them higher academic education.”

To keep the buzz going, Alvarado and his team have a trailer containing equipment that they take to career fairs to get kids actively using their hands. Every time they turn up, there is a line-up around the block. Always looking ahead, Alvarado believes it’s time to shift gears, and for him that means looking at new ways to make access into the industry—for the right candidates—even easier.

“We are currently redoing our standards,” he says. “We realized requiring a high school diploma to enter the trade was putting us on the back foot. The non-union doesn’t have that. We are hurting the industry—putting handcuffs on ourselves. We need to get rid of the country club mentality. The world isn’t what it once was. I told our contractors we need to change this, so we are putting a career path together that doesn’t require an apprentice to have a high school diploma or GED.”

Over in Oregon state, a similar shift in attitude is being seen at the Sheet Metal Institute. Ben Wood, instructor, is currently in talks to implement a direct entry program—similar to a preapprenticeship program, that would work specifically with high school students.

“It mimics the Local 66 program in Seattle,” he explains. “I met with the director of administration there in March, and he let us pattern their program. The idea is, you work directly with the high schools with a sort of sponsorship. The schools get to choose who they think would be a good person for the program, rather than the other way around.”

Like Alvarado and Martin, Wood believes buy-in needs to come from teachers and counselors first. To do that, Wood believes we need to tell our stories. “We have people in the industry who are 20 years old and putting a downpayment on their first house,” he says. “There are journeypersons making $100,000 a year. By joining us, kids are still going to college, and at the end of the five years, they have a guaranteed job and a career.”

To spread the word, Wood recently held a Train the Trainer program. It was attended by 12 people from different backgrounds, and the goal was to align the message and have relatable people speak on the industry’s behalf.

Wood says labor and management working together on these programs is imperative. “Never before has there been such a collaborative effort on the training side, working with business managers, organizers, and the apprenticeship programs, skills centers, and high schools,” he says. “This is huge to the success of getting the suitable high school students onboard. There was a disconnect before, and this created confusion out there. Not any more.”

In a similar vein, Ben Watson, project manager at Climate Engineers in Iowa, is working on a new program to overcome that barrier of gaining a diploma before entering the trade.

“We are looking to work with Local 263 on a program that would give high schoolers trade school credits and get them on the path early,” Watson says. “If they get credit, there is a higher chance of them sticking with it, and we are less likely to lose them to traditional liberal arts colleges or the military. The union and contractors need to figure this out together. We are currently working through the logistics to come to some sort of agreement.”

Watson also says the sheet metal industry loses potential apprentices to the “old-fashioned way of doing things.”

“Just because many of us started off doing grunt work, doesn’t mean that’s how it should be done today,” he says. “In reality, that’s only 10% of what apprentices will actually be doing in the workforce. The labor shortages we are having have exposed how vulnerable we are. Now is the time to show high school students how exciting this trade is, that there is an alternative to taking on the debt that comes with higher education, and that they could be working and getting paid. If in two years they realize it’s not for them, they can still go back to college. The more success stories we can show, the more we will get that point across.”

Back in Ohio, Kathy Kerber has been seeing great success with a school-to-work program aimed at high school students. She has been working on it for the past 10 years, and it bridges the gap between education and ease of access into the trade.

“Our Local 24 worked with the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council to set up a program where, at the end of their junior year, kids can interview for the school to apprenticeship program,” Kerber explains. “If an employer decides to take them on, they can work the whole summer, full-time. When schools starts, the kids work two weeks and then go to school two weeks, and repeat, with apprenticeship classes in the evening. They end their senior year with a first-year apprenticeship under their belt.”

Guidelines mean students are expected to have a certain GPA, and a good attendance record—resulting in quality and dedicated recruits.

Kerber says a big part of the program’s success has been educating the parents and teachers. “Our Local goes to career fairs and chats with the parents,” she says. “We have to remember, they are the ones who understand the importance of healthcare and pensions and not going into debt. Then, should their child say they are not interested in higher education, the parent understands there are alternatives.”

Ultimately, investing in young talent is crucial to the success of the industry, and as Kerber and her colleagues echo, “It’s not what it used to be. Programs need to evolve and we need to share our lessons learned. Our local Chamber of Commerce has worked on youth as early as ninth grade, and while it has taken us 10 years to have the careers center change their attitude towards trades as an option, we are seeing a shift in focus. The time to act is now.” ▪

Natalie is an award-winning writer who has worked in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, the United States, and Canada. She has more than 23 years experience as a journalist, editor, and brand builder, specializing in construction and transportation. When she’s not writing, you will likely find her snowboarding, mountain biking, or climbing mountains with her rescue dog.