May 24, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of the RepcoLite Home Improvement Show, sponsored by Benjamin Moore, host Dan Hansen discusses the significance of skilled trades with Drew Anderson from Harmel Academy of the Trades. They delve into the reasons behind Drew's passion for the trades, the current shortage of skilled workers, and the misconceptions that trade jobs are less valuable than a college education. The conversation covers the personal and societal importance of working with one's hands, the value of failing and learning, and the deeper spiritual meaning associated with trades. Drew also highlights the unique approach of Hormel Academy in forming young men into skilled tradesmen and the exciting future prospects for the industry. If you're considering a career in trades or want to understand their broader impact, this episode offers valuable insights.LINKS: Harmel Academy00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction00:03 The Importance of Skilled Trades00:47 Personal Connection to Trades01:25 The Crisis in Trades and Character03:06 The Shortage in Skilled Trades04:22 Changing Perceptions of Trades09:56 The Dignity of Work20:11 Encouraging Young People to Explore Trades23:05 A Surprising Survey on Basic Skills24:38 Learning Through DIY Repairs25:58 The Importance of Teaching Kids Practical Skills27:16 Parenting Challenges and Letting Kids Help28:16 The Value of Work and Household Chores28:57 Introducing Harel Academy29:08 Embracing Failure as a Learning Opportunity35:22 Connecting with Others to Learn Trades39:28 The Future of Trades and Manufacturing42:22 Exciting Developments at Harel Academy
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Well, good morning, everybody, Happy Saturday. You're listening to the
Repcolite home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, And this
week I've got kind of a special episode planned. You know,
most of the time, most weeks, we cover a relatively
wide variety of different topics. But this week I'm playing
just a long conversation that I had with Drew Anderson
(00:23):
from Harmel Academy of the Trades in Grand Rapids. Now,
I know Drew a little bit from church, and when
I saw something on his Facebook page recently talking about
the importance of the skilled trades, I was super pumped
to talk to him about all of that on the show.
So today that's what I've got for you, a long
conversation about the value of the trades, about the value
(00:44):
and dignity of work, you know, work itself. If you've
got young people in your life, you know, whether they're
your own kids or maybe nephews and nieces, maybe grandkids,
whatever the case, there's a lot of good stuff in
this conversation. So with all of that out of the way,
let's just jump in. Drew, thanks for being.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Here, Dan, thanks for having me on. Greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this, and you know,
you represent a school helping, you know, get men, young
men trained, and we're going to get into that. But
the conversation that I want to have is actually bigger
than just any particular school. I want to really celebrate
and dig into the trades and why they matter more
than ever you know right now, and I guess to
(01:27):
get us started, let's just jump in with this. Why
are you so passionate about the trades? You know, why
do you think this work matters so much for me?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I mean, it's got a deeper meeting. I come from.
My great grandfather was a cabinet maker when he came
over to the United States, so there's a personal connection there.
And in my family though my grandfather and my father
and myself were not directly tradesmen, but we're always men
that worked with our hands, and so that was always
(01:59):
past down and that was just so important and that's
why I'm passionate about it. I also have you know,
three children that right now that I want to pass
that on to, and it's just so important right now
because one where we have we have a crisis of
people in the trades, but a crisis and character of
(02:19):
word crisis and the character of men and and people
that simply just don't know how to use their hands.
And it's really unfortunate because I really think we were
made to do that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, I completely agree. Your great grandfather he was a
cabinet maker and passed the importance of working with his hands.
Pass that on to your dad. Your dad passed that
on to you as you're growing up. What kind of
things were you doing, you know, what kind of little
jobs were you tackling.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
We had rentals growing up, so we were constantly doing
repairs and renovations and working with our hands, so you know,
it would be you know, school five days a week,
and then on the weekends it was it was working
on rentals when you know people move out. Yeah, so
I mean it was it was learning all these things.
And I look at it just like what a gift
(03:05):
that was and something that I can pass down to
my kids. And now being at Harmel, it's got a
deeper I would call it even like a deeper spiritual meaning.
For me. It's not just a means to an end,
but it's like it's the gospel of work that we've
been called to do.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Because harl is is it affiliated with a particular church
or is it help me understand that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. So so we're we're affiliated with the
Catholic Church where we're a men's Catholic trade school, and
so you know, we hit deeply on the trades, uh,
and also the humanities, you know, studies of philosophy and
literature and theology and the and the deep spiritual formation
of men. Because at the end of the day, you know,
we kind of see it as we've got we've got
(03:49):
a problem with young men, and we definitely think it's
a it's at the root of it, it's a spiritual one.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
All right. All right, so let's we'll get into some
of that, you know, And I guess what I want
to get back to is the shortage in the trades.
You know, we hear about that, you referenced it. How
real is that gap? You know, we hear a lot
of things. There's always a problem with something, something that's
you know, the bottom is dropping out of everything all
the time. It seems like, how real is this problem
(04:15):
that we've got in the trades And what's behind it?
Do you think?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So I'm just going to shoot out a few a
few numbers, and so the Manufacturing Institute estimates that by
twenty twenty eight there will be a shortfall of two
point four million skill trade workers and for five retiring
baby boomers, only two younger workers are stepping up to
replace it. And beyond numbers, like the basic skill levels
(04:39):
are just declining, Like plant managers are just lamenting that
they struggle to find workers who can even read a
measuring tape. I mean, and and that's just like, that's
like that is just a crazy problem that we see
right now simply within manufacturing. And we all feel it
right now. I mean, and you know, try to try
(05:01):
to get a uh you know, someone that's working and
plumbing things like that, you're getting waitlisted. And you know
why I think we're feeling it right now.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
What do you think? All?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, you know what, I'll be honest with you. I
think it's because for decades we wrongfully shamed the trades
as like second class compared to college education. There's nothing
wrong with college education, you know. And I was at
an event with micro on the east side of the
state at the beginning of this month, and he was
talking about when he was in high school they had
(05:34):
this picture of like this college graduate with this bright,
smiling face on their diploma, and then on it was
was a tradesman who just looked weirdy, wearied down and
disheveled and things like that. So it's it's something that
we've been doing in our society for generations right now.
And like you know, so just young people and particularly
(05:55):
young men are just disinterested, disillusion and really ill prepared.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I mean, I know when I was in high school,
it certainly wasn't something that was talked about as any
any kind of positive you know, if you couldn't cut
it in college, you know, there was always this you know,
you could always go and do that, I guess. But
like you're just explaining, you know, all the marketing that
we'd see is the college graduate full of smiles and bright,
(06:21):
shiny teeth, and then the trades person just looks weighed
down by the way to the world, right, So who's
going to choose that?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, And it's the perception, right, And I mean and
the you know a lot of times we say perception
reflects reality, and I'm sorry in this way, it doesn't.
I mean, I don't know how many college students are
smiling over the amounts of debt that they have. And
I'm not going to say that going in the skilled
trades is an easy thing either, But I don't look
(06:50):
at the young men that have just gone through Harmel
and they're starting families. They have no debt, they have
fantastic jobs, and they're on a career path development. That's
just amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
No, it is, Yeah, incredibly much so. Because you know,
I'm on the phone with Drew Anderson from Harmel Academy
of the Trades. You guys are located in Grand Rapids, right.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Correct, yep, yeah, yeah, and actually we're moving to a
new location the summer within Grand Rampage, which is really exciting.
We could talk that about that a little bit la there.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, we'll get to that. So on the phone Withdrew
and yeah, you're you're what you're talking about. My kid
is living. I've got a son who's an electrician apprentice.
He's working on Journeyman's you know, taking that test and
all of that. But everything you just said I can
attest to. You know, he doesn't have any debt. He
well he's got a vehicle and that's his debt. And
(07:41):
he went straight out high school into this work. He's
got a really nice savings account going, he's making really
good money, and yeah, he's socking it away. He's got
a future where he's not going to be digging out
from underneath, you know, a mountain, a mountain of debt.
Because I've got other friends, other other friends who've got
kids who they're talking about it's monumental how much debt
(08:06):
they're gonna be digging out of and how how many
years they're gonna be working just to pay for that. Now,
that's not to say that college isn't like you said
everything you said, college is a path for a group
of people that is the way to go. I went
to college. You know, I don't have any problems with that,
But this is certainly something that is it should certainly
be considered. The work is needed, the jobs are out
(08:27):
there and they pay well. It's not anything like what
I was presented in high school.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Right, And I mean, I'll tell you I can ebe.
We'll talk about this a little bit later too. Is
the trades have changed and they're gonna you know, we'll
talk a little bit later on of just how much
they've changed since the time we've been in school and
what the future is looking like. And it's looking really
bright right now for trades. But we're in this crisis
right now that we've for decades we've made it second class,
(08:57):
even third class, and we didn't see it as as
a as an equal opportunity for people, you know, So do.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You think it's coming around? Are we starting to see
it turn? I know Mike grow you mentioned him earlier. Yeah,
he's made a you know, the last I don't know
how many years that this has really been something he's
been driving home. Do you see a change coming?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
You know what? I can't. I see it with our
men at Harmel Academy all the time. But it's going
to take a larger change than just like creating trade
schools and incentives like and that hits to like a
second crisis, like as a crisis of character work and
in the hiring standard right now, Dan is just it's
so painfully low, like you show up mostly on time,
(09:44):
you pass the drug test perhaps, and still employers are
still struggling to find workers that meet even like these
basic expectations and like family, church, community, all these pillars
of character formation, like they've really weakened and they'll leave
being particularly young men, but women as well, without the
formation that is necessary for a certain level of excellence.
(10:06):
You know, we we look at kind of our past
and I think we've come very complacent and we just
we have this crisis of character. So I'm thinking, like
that's before we're even like can we solve this thing
at the skill trades? Like we got to have people
see that, like work is a really good thing. It's
(10:27):
not just something that we have to drudge about on.
It doesn't mean I mean it's not hard, but it's good.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well we'll dig into that a little bit. Why is
it so good? I mean there's a million reasons I
can say that. Right, You're you're living in this world,
you're preaching this message, so right, run with it.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah yeah, absolutely, Well I mean for me just you know,
I'll go into religious aspect a little bit, but I
think it can really speak to everybody. Is like we
were made for a purpose. And as a Catholic, like
I believe that that we were made for work. You know,
work isn't bad, work was good, but the pain of
(11:03):
sin is like toil and work, right, Like I'm not
gonna say every time in work is oh yeah, it's
just amazing. And I always remember my my dad saying like,
if you love what you do, you'll never work a
day in your life. I'm like, well, no, you'll work.
But I think it's like we were made for it.
And I think why, like why we're struggling as a
(11:24):
society is we've failed to see what we were made for.
And I think work is just such a good thing.
But we live in a society today in which the
aspects the character of work are just not valued. And
it's kind of like I want to apply to like running, right,
Like I mean, I'm not like, I'm not like the
(11:47):
biggest runner. I don't love running. There other things that
I love it, but.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Runner, true, I only run if I'm being chased, and
even then I've got to decide if it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
But you talk about like some of these people they
experience are running high, and you can say, like, oh, man,
like you got some people that were really made for that.
I firmly believe that every single person has been made
to work. And I don't mean like subservient work or
things like that, but like the dignity of work, and
(12:17):
that's probably what what kind of cultivates this crisis of
character and work is people don't see the dignity and work,
Like you know, we saw the trades as like second
class and it's like, oh, if you're a trash man,
like I mean, how many times maybe that I don't
know if you heard of this in high school, but
like you know, we get jokes from like teachers, you know,
people that we look up to, and they're like, well,
(12:37):
you know, if you don't do well, you're gonna have
to say, you know, would you like fries with that?
It's just like we've we've lowered the dignity of work.
Every person that's doing a job is doing a great
service to our society and we have to recognize that. Well.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And I think it's so interesting you talked to you,
you hinted at and then you didn't go completely into it,
but you said the trash man or whatever. That was
literally what nobody ever said the fries thing to me,
But it was always you're going to have to pick
up garbage, you know, if you don't get this figured
out and get this college, you're going to end up
picking up garbage. Well, thank goodness, we've got people that
pick up garbage, right, I mean, there's still incredible importance
(13:17):
and value to that. And you know, like my kid
would the electrical work. You don't always think about that,
as you know, dignified work and important work, until you
need it, and then all of a sudden you realize
how important this is and how glad you are that
you've got people who take care of all of those things,
your furnaces and your car, all of these things. And
(13:38):
in fact, what happens to me, I'm assuming it happens
to most of us out there, is we didn't think
about that work, you know, back when we were making
the big career choices and you know, we went to
college or whatever we did. And now I'm thinking, oh,
my goodness, if I had just figured out how to
fix a car, do you think, do you realize how
much money I would have saved myself? Or if I've
(14:00):
figured out how to do plumbing, or if I or
if I now I can do some of those things still,
But my kid has specialized in it, and man, he
is helping people out left and right, you know, I
mean right, and whether he's being paid for it, whether
he's bailing my parents out on a weekend or whatever
he's doing. Yeah, he's feeling great about it. Like you
said that, the dignity of it and the value of it.
(14:23):
A weekend where I sit around all weekend long. You know,
it's rainy, it's dreary, I'm lazy, whatever it is. Yeah,
by the end of that weekend I've sat around, I
don't necessarily usually feel very good about myself. The weekends
where I've gone out there and I've laid patio blocks
or something. I'm sore, I'm completely hunched over because my
hands hurt, my back hurts, I'm a mess, But I
(14:44):
feel great because I've been out there working. There is
something really true about what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, I'm going to say. You know, we talk about
the runners high. That's the workman's high, you know, and
I think everybody feels that.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You know, mm hmm, No, like we talk about paint
and houses, painting rooms. You know, that accomplishment. It's not
just the accomplishment of what you've made. I mean, that's
a big part of it, but just having done the
work and knowing that you can accomplish it, that you've
figured out whatever it was that you maybe didn't know.
You know, That's what my kid's having that's the thing
I love about the trades that I think is completely
(15:17):
It makes me so annoyed. I guess it's the right word.
With all of the prep that I had in high
school and stuff leading up to college, that the idea
that the trades like, if you want to learn, you
go to college. If you want to just do something,
I guess you go into the trades. My kid is
learning NonStop. I mean, every single job he goes to
(15:38):
there's something new happening that he's got to figure out
and problem solve. His brain is incredibly active and he's
constantly figuring out new things. You're learning all the time,
and there's so much value in that.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, you know, and Dan, both you and I work,
and we've learned through our work, and I just you know,
I'm going to do a shameless plug for Rep. Collite.
Is you know I've gone into Rep. Colite and I
going in there because I'm talking to somebody who's passionate
about paint. I can start having a conversation, I can
start answering these deeper questions. And this work isn't belower
(16:12):
beneath me, Like it's like I can talk about it
and it's just so great to be with people that
are passionate about what is important to me in that moment,
in that moment when I'm at Rep. Colite, Like it's
about getting the right paint, but it's more than that,
it's about doing the job right. Like I mean, I
love That's why I love like your minutes with Rep. Coolite,
because I'm like, oh, man, next time, I'm going to
(16:34):
do that. Because a lot of us just like hop
into doing the work and then we don't realize what's
really needed to be gone.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Oh yeah, absolutely, I think that's a really good point.
You know, it's easy sometimes to think about my time
in the store. I was working a store at Repcolite
for about ten years. I was going to be a
teacher and then a pastor, and then I ended up
working in the paint store. And it was easy to
think in the beginning that what I was doing was
not important work. And yet as I started to realize,
(17:02):
you know, as the years went by, I realized it
was important. You know, I'm not just selling you paint.
I'm selling you or helping you through a project, helping
you through something that you're not familiar with so that
you can get to spending time with your family or
enjoying your home or whatever. There's a bigger dignity to it.
And yeah, I just love that aspect of it. Every
(17:23):
every every trade out there, everything that we do, there
is dignity in it. You just got to sometimes look
a little harder.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, yeah, and I would say, I mean, and we're
looking beyond the jobs in trades. I mean, any job,
there's there's that great thing of you know, putting that
and if we see, actually we have a we have
a for a formation for our men. We actually have
a part where were taught, like throughout our theme of
our first year, we have this class called work as service.
(17:53):
And that's the thing. If we look at our work
not as an ends to a mean, but as what
we're called to do, called to serve, it's so much
more fulfilling. It's really the work itself is not changing
in the tangibles, but like it's the spiritual side of
how we look at things, you know, It's like that
(18:14):
can make a huge change. It. It's like being a parent,
you know, being a it's I probably do the same
things that all a lot of other parents do, but man,
I love being a father. I love being a husband,
and it's not because I'm doing something radically different than
other husbands and fathers. I really think it's a mindset
(18:35):
And that's what I think we need to look a
is we need a mindset change when it comes to
the skilled trades, when it comes to work. And I think, honestly,
the biggest problem, Dan is we have just these young
men that have lost like what their meaning is and
(18:56):
it's really bad. Like we're seeing workforce participation among young
men are like just collapsing. Like there's just this really
aching question that these young men have, and like they're asking,
like why should I care at all? What is an age?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
When when you talk young men, what age are you talking?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
What?
Speaker 1 (19:15):
What constitutes young men?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah? I mean I mean we could, I mean we
could say I would even I would go like high
school all the way to like men that are that
are hitting like their thirties. At Harmel, we primarily we
we serve men that are post secondary so after right
after high school. But you know, honestly, Dan, I mean
you've got kids. I've got kids. It's it actually starts
(19:40):
when they're really young, you know, like how do we
talk about work and how do we present work in
front of our children. Do we see it as a
burden or do we see it as an opportunity to serve?
You know, And that's that's really, that's really it. So
I think it starts at a very young age, especially
for young men.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Well right, right, and and like you mentioned, you were
brought up in it. You know, you were constantly dragged
into you know, you guys had the rentals and stuff
like that. I know my kids they all talk about
all the different projects that we tackle around the house
that they'd tag along with and help with, and sometimes
they did not help very well, they were there anyway,
(20:20):
you know, they have the common I think it's common.
I hope it's common. The story about the flashlight, holding
the flashlight, how a kid can't do it. No matter
where they aim that thing, it's always wrong. And Andrew was
just my middle kid, was just talking the other probably
a couple of weeks ago, just about the stress of
(20:40):
being handed the flashlight when we're working on something, because
he knew, no matter what I described, he would never
figure out the right thing to point it at. Someday
he'll have his own kids and they'll aim the flashlight
in a million different directions except the right one, and
he'll know what I'm talking about. But they were there
for the whole thing. They were a part of the process.
I guess that's it. Let's talk to the parents or
(21:02):
young adults maybe that are listening. Parents of the young adults,
grandparents the young adults themselves. Maybe they feel stuck. Maybe
it's you know, like I said, their kid and they
hate desk work or whatever. They're wondering if college is
the right path, what makes a trade? Are the trades
or any of this a compelling option for them besides
some of the things you said, Well.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I think you know a lot of young people, young men,
they come out of high school and they don't know
what they want to do, and I think at least
an exploration or hopping into a job. But what I
like about what we do at Harmel Academy is our
first year program is like it's an it's a it's
a full introduction to like ten different trades. So they're
(21:44):
getting like test things out, tease things out. And what
I think, because you know, we have these young men
that were like so you know, squeezed into a classroom,
you know, sit at a desk, do this instead of
like working with their manual genius and young women too,
(22:05):
but now like they've just they've they've they've gotten through
the thing and they have no idea what they want
to do. Sure, so I think, you know, like whether
that's you know, coming to a place like Carmel, which
I heavily encourage because we focus more than just on
the trades aspect. There's a communal aspect, there's a whole
human formation aspect. But like for a young person to
(22:29):
get into a community which the trades are valued is
really important because it gets them thinking in a different way,
gets them working in different ways. And let's be honest,
I think now it's really hard for homeowners, right for
young people to become homeowners right now. We got to
work on that in our society. But how many people
(22:53):
have their houses owned them instead of them owning their houses.
And that goes to like it's not necessarily having Like
I'm not a tradesman by my profession, but my house
doesn't own me. I own my house and I'm able
to do some pretty general stuff with it, you know,
(23:14):
cutting my own lawn, fixing my own lawn. More when
it breaks down doing my own simple electrical or plumbing work,
painting there you go. Rep Coo right right there, you
know those things. And I think at least like exploring
or being introduced to a trades and I've got to
make out the appeal for our high schools and our
(23:35):
learning institutions, like we got to start teaching this in
high school. But you know what, it's also putting tools
in the hands of parents and saying don't be afraid.
You know, you don't need to do it perfect, just
do something with your kids.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
No, I think that's so good. I can't remember. I'm
trying to remember an article that I ran into probably
five years ago, and it was out of it was
you know, a London area, you know, so across the
pond drew. And the story though, was about all these
young kids, you know, high school or college age kids.
(24:12):
And the article focused on all these different things that
they struggled with. It like they took this huge survey,
you know, big sample of people, and they had ridiculous
numbers of people that didn't quite feel comfortable with crazy
things like you know, dealing with a tripped circuit breaker
and you know they didn't know what that meant, or
switching light bulbs out, and it sounded ridiculous. We at
(24:35):
first thought when we ran into the article that it
was a joke article, but it wasn't. It was real data.
And some of the jobs that they were unfamiliar with
or not comfortable with were you know, things at least
you can kind of wrap your brain around painting and
stuff like that. But even then, you know, that is
hard for me to understand because I guess I've grown
(24:55):
up with painting, you know, not just here, but mom
painting all the time, and there's not much to it,
and there's so many jobs out there that you know,
Electrical things can go wrong, right, you know, and you
can have some problems. Plumbing things can go wrong. I
get that, But even then, there's a lot of plumbing
things that you can do that are really straightforward that
(25:16):
people just aren't comfortable doing and they call for help
on and you end up paying a huge amount of
money to people who come out you wait, like you said,
sometimes because you can't get somebody out there. You know,
I had my dryer once, you know, right right at
the beginning of home ownership, the dryer quit working and
we didn't have money at that point. I mean, like
(25:37):
now I roll in the cash. You know, I don't
know money now even but back then I had way
less and trying to get somebody out there. They couldn't
come right away. We had a bunch of kids at
that point. We needed the dryer, and I thought, forget it.
You know, Dad used to fix everything, and I watch them,
and so I thought, I'm going to look it up.
So I'm looking online, looking on YouTube, and I found
(26:00):
out a dryer. There's almost nothing going on in the dryer,
you know, if the motor part works, there's not a
whole lot else in there. I mean little things that
you can fix here in there. And for thirteen bucks,
I figured out what was going on, got the new
belt or whatever it was. What an incredible feeling of success.
I saved myself that big bill and it was a
doable thing, even though it seemed like a mountain that
(26:22):
was big to climb. So yeah, getting into the trades,
even though you get into something that you know, my
kid's inelectrical. You know, that's what he does, and that's
what he's really comfortable with. But what he finds is
that everything else seems accessible now and he's willing to
try and to dig into it, and he learns new
tasks and new skills along the way. And when he's
got a house, I mean, there's so many things he's
(26:44):
going to be able to do to that thing, right.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And you know where I think it goes back to Dan.
It's that time of holding the flashlight. You know, kids
aren't seeing their parents, and whether it's like the parents
aren't doing it themselves, or the parents are like, oh
my gosh, like I can just do it so much
faster on my own, like I don't even know. Like
that's part of our job as parents is to form
(27:08):
these young people to be adults, not to not to
be efficient children, but to be young, you know, to
be capable adults that can that can't do these things.
And so you know, there is appropriate times where you know,
we have them start doing like little things and you know,
I have I have a one year old will be
(27:30):
two in August, and he helps empty the dishwasher with
his five year old in four year old siblings, and
it is super inefficient. I could do it so much faster,
I know, But that's not the purpose. The purpose, though,
is he sees the value in the dignity of work.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
And he now less than two years old, goes out
and seeks to help out with work, and it's like
there we go, like it's so true.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
The problem I.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Think, I think that is probably you know, nobody said
parenting is going to be easy. In fact, most people
say there's it's pretty complicated. And I'm pretty sure that
probably the hardest part, one of the hardest parts of
parenting is letting them help at their pace, because for
my personality, that's brutal. But I know, I know, I've
got to let them do it. I've got to let them,
(28:21):
you know, cut the lawn in such a way that
it just, oh, my goodness, guys, and then I can
walk them through what they need to learn, but I
got to let them do it, and that's how they learn.
I've got lots of pictures of the kids doing exactly well.
We never had a dishwasher. I've never in my whole
life if I had a dishwasher, I don't even know
what that's like.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
But the thing is, you've you've always had dish washers,
you or your kids rights washers.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah, And I've got lots of pictures of them sitting
at the sink washing dishes with these huge, ridiculous, cheesy
grins on their faces because for some reason it's fun
to them. I don't get it, but when they're little
it's fun. Another fun fades very quickly once it becomes
a job. But they do see that. Yeah, I think
(29:07):
they see the value of it, and maybe even more,
not more importantly, but maybe more so, they see the
necessity of it, you know, because not everything I do
at the like you said, I think you said that earlier.
Not everything we do is fun.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
It's not like I love you know, I get all
giggly when it's time to clean the dishes. You know.
That's not how I get how I am. But I
do know the necessity of it. The kids know the
necessity of it. The house needs this to keep running,
and the goodness of that, and right in the value
of the clean dishes, the value of an organized place,
and what all the good things that come from that,
(29:43):
lots and lots of good stuff. At Harmel Academy, you've
mentioned it, You've talked about it. You're training young men
in the trades with a unique approach. You've kind of
hinted at that. Give us a quick snapshot, you know,
what's the heart of what you're doing out there for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, I mean again I want to talk to you know,
like you know, with our kids, and like what we
can do and what we have at Harmel is Harmel
is a place where these men and I mean in
this and most honest and genuine way, is a place
where they can fail. You talked about that statistic over
you know, over in Europe of you know, they just
feel so much anxiety of doing these small, simple tasks
(30:19):
because they haven't learned how to fail and then get
back up. And at Harmel, that's what we're forming these
young men. We're forming them through the trades so that
they apprentice themselves to Jesus Christ, you know, becoming better
husbands and fathers, but also like learning that failure is
not the end. Honestly, failure is just the beginning. But
(30:41):
then it's it's working past that. And I think that's where,
like we talk about the crisis and the skilled trades,
the crisis and character, the crisis of meaning is you know,
we don't we stop at the failure and we and
we don't push beyond it. I think that's maybe what
we're struggling in our society.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
You think you see a lot of that. The people
that failure just that's the end of the line. We
fail out something and then we want ditch and move
on to something else. Is that what you're thinking?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Well, yeah, I mean so you know you talked about,
you know, being a teacher. I was a teacher wants
to and it's just like you know, you'd see these
kids they get these grades and they just be completely
deflated and it would like just like set them off
spiringing instead of saying, hey, you know what we can
we can fix this. And probably as you know, as
(31:30):
a teacher, I'm thinking, like I didn't do it. I
don't think I did a good enough job of like
where you gets fixed us. And my dad so so
my I should say, actually, my dad is a tradesman.
You know, he's a he's a teacher, but he actually
spent twenty years in the Marine Corps as a as
a missile technician, so he was a tradesman pretty much. So,
but he had something different when he was teaching. He
(31:52):
would let these kids retake, redo the work, retake the test,
and like give them like like they can build it
all the way back up to ninety percent. I'm like
oh man. I think about so many teachers that are
just like they just let the kids fail and then
that's it, Like that's the end. Nope, you messed up,
You're done. It's like, no, that's.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
A lot of right, but that's so much life. I mean,
last week on the show, or a couple of weeks ago.
I don't know when you're in when this interview, particular
particular conversation is going to air, but I was talking
about wrong colors, you know, painting a living room. I
painted a living room and I'm I wasn't sure when
I got done if I had the right color. And
at the very you know, we walked through a bunch
(32:35):
of things you can do and all of that to
work through those situations when you find yourself, if you
find yourself in that situation. And at the very end
of the show, I was trying to just sum everything up, like, Okay,
you know, worst case scenario, you've got the wrong color,
you know, just write it off. You know, this is
one of those things where you know, most of us
have projects. I would say almost all of us have
projects that we tackle that we mess up, we fail,
(32:58):
we have to redo them. You know, it's not the
way we wanted. This might be yours. You know, that
particular color thing that might be mine I might need
to just buy into. I've got to repaint that one
and move on. Oh, there are my lessons and move on.
That is literally, that is life is just NonStop failing
at something, figuring out why you failed at it or
not succeeding as well as you wanted to, figuring out
(33:21):
what went wrong where you drop the ball, learning from that,
and moving on. And yet I know for a fact
everything you're saying is true that people get frozen by
the idea of failing. And sometimes they're frozen so badly
they don't even start something because they're afraid they're not
going to be able to take it to the hoop
or whatever, you know, sports analogy you want to make.
(33:43):
And yet that's just so unrealistic in most things. Yeah,
we have to fail. That's how we grow, how we learn,
how we pick ourselves up and keep moving.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
We can't let the perfect or the ideal be the
enemy of the good, and we do that so much
much because we have this idea like it's either perfection
or nothing. It's just like, what what have we built?
It's like no, like we we go and we build,
we continue to build. I mean that that and we
(34:14):
when we persevere and we push through. And yeah, it's
you know, and the thing that if you just fail
in the small ways and the bigger ways, you're gonna
be just finem you know, because because you'll you'll reiterate
those those you know. Harmel Academy has been around for
five years and uh, you know, we haven't done everything perfectly.
(34:35):
We've actually learned a lot from our mistakes. But we
keep on going and we keep on reiterating, and I
think that's we've actually come up with something pretty amazing
because we didn't stop, because we kept on going.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Right, And I do think that's really completely true where
you run into sometimes it's the failures that end up
producing you know, after we go through the work of
dealing with that failure and adjusting to it, we end
up with a better result then than we might have
had right from the bat, you know, right off the
bat with our original plan.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
You know.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
So failure shouldn't be something that that we freak out
about and run away from. So let's say somebody listening
is you know, pumped up, inspired or curious, they want
to dip their toes into the trades or just learn
enough to tackle some projects at home. Just you know,
you can't run them through a whole game plan for life.
But what's one practical step they could take today?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well, I mean, if they're if they're gonna if they're
gonna paint, I mean it metal with rep Collide is
where I would start.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, there you go, there you go. You know, you
know how to do this. You've done these kinds of things,
kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
I mean but seriously though, No, it's it's picking up
these little things, and it's it's it's starting small. I
think people really we talk about that failure. It's like
because people try to try to do like this big
colossal thing and and they're and they're gonna fail uh,
and they're gonna fail hard. It's like, Okay, let's start
out with something small. You know, if you don't know
(36:04):
how to drive a nail or screw uh or screw
screw like, you know, just just practice. And part of
the problem that we have, Dan is like people are
not connected with each other, Like talk with somebody that's
just a little bit of a level up ahead of
you and and see if you can offer a hand
(36:24):
or just learn or just do something. I mean, YouTube's phenomenal.
But but even then it's like, all right, get get
the right size project. You know. For me, Dan, like
I hadn't had a lot of Like my my father
in law, he's like he's a total gear kid. He's
actually a tradesman. Uh you know. He he did a
lot of stuff within manufacturing. But he loves cars. I
(36:47):
mean this, and he's so good with him And for
early on in my wife and I his marriage, I
would just i would hand off.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
The car to sure to.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Him and his buddy who's a mechanic, and and they
take care of him, be great. And now I'm seeing,
wait a second, I'm not gonna be able to teach
my kids some of these day. Yeah, so I need
to hop in there and do these things. So it's
just one is connecting with with someone that knows something
and build up a great relationship. So I would I would, honestly,
I'd start with connecting with the human being that is
(37:18):
that is probably the best thing I think can happen.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Now, I really like that. And you know, specialty stores,
I mean, if you don't even have somebody in your life,
specialty stores, stores that really specialize in whatever they're doing.
There's people there who know what they're talking about, you know,
and they care, they care about it. But find those
people because you know, sometimes I don't know, it depends
on the personalities. Some people don't think about it. I
(37:42):
always think, oh, this is going to be intrusive. They're
not going to want me around. You know, it's going
to be annoying to have me sitting there watching everything.
Most of my experiences with people who know how to
do stuff and you express an interest in learning it,
they're very excited to share the info. Oh yeah, it's
kind of a it's near and dear to their heart.
I'm assuming that your father in law doesn't get annoyed
(38:06):
at the thought of you hanging around. He's probably excited
to show you all these different cool things that he
knows and you can pick it up along the way.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, it's rue. I mean we have so like every
every Monday night we actually have like our our family dinner,
and so like my in laws come and my sister
in law comes over, and any you know, my wife's
grandmother comes over. They're all from this area. And I
love it because, like I could say, hey, hey, Randy,
hop into the garage with me, like I want to
ask you this question, or hey outside, and it's such
(38:36):
good for like our relationship. I mean, I love my
father in law. Like I think about some people that
they hate their in laws. I'm like, that really sucks
for you, because I love my laws.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Please speak in your comers. He's showing you all this
stuff and showing me you connect too.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, And I think that's probably maybe where we see
this crisis is everybody wants to just you know, they
want to kind of stick with their own generation. I
think like intergenerational part too. That's part of it is,
you know, and not to say that you know I've
learned you know Dan, you know me, I worked in
(39:14):
a church before, and I learned so much from the
young adults that I would be with and i'd mentor.
I took so much from them, and they took a
lot from me. So that's that relationship is really key
and crucial.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
No, right, And it's all across all different generations because
like my kid, like I said, he's got all this
electrical knowledge and it's amazing what he's picked up and
what he's comfortable doing he's talking about his buddies at
work and they're drywall in house you know, they're buying
houses up, you know, and drywall in them and all
these things that they know how to do that they're
(39:50):
really comfortable doing. You know, I know how to dry wall,
I know how to do that. But I'm blown away
that people that age know way more than I've picked
up over the years of doing So if I want
to get some tips and tricks, I don't have to
necessarily go find somebody older than me. I can actually,
I mean it's it's it's across all different generations. I
can go find those younger guys and oh my goodness,
(40:11):
the stuff they know. Oh yeah, it's amazing. I just
connect with people. I think that's really smart. Last thing
I got for you is where do you see trades?
You know, everything heading in the next decade or so.
You know, what do you see coming? Do you think
we're going to round the corner on this thing or
is it going to get worse before it gets better?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
You know? I think I think it's I think it's
gonnat a little worse before it gets better. But I
do I am an optimist, so I think I'm an
optimistic like you know, we're going to rise to the occasion,
and I mean we right now. We're in the midst
of a lot of things going on in the world,
but one of them is a strong desire for people
(40:48):
to see manufacturing returning back to the United States, across
the aisles, across political spectrums, these things like people want
to see this and so that is really exciting. And
I alluded to earlier, like the trades now were not
necessarily like the trades back then, Like some of these
shops that I go into, I mean, Dan, it is
(41:09):
just wow, Like it is incredible the technology that's being
used in the knowledge and the infrastructure and things like that.
So it's the trades are not that like when Micro
would talk about like you know a guy that's just
down on his luck and well, I guess I'll just
do the trade. No, actually, the trades are. I mean
(41:30):
you talk about it like that is where a lot
We're going to see a lot of investment go towards
and I see that within the next decade. So I
would tell people, hop on the train right now, Harmel Academy,
we were are are we still focus on it. We
have a second year program that's geared towards manufacturing and
(41:50):
man that what these guys learn and what they're able
to do in the shops that they're in, I mean,
it is incredible, you know, and it's just it really
is exciting. But even within like plumbing, electrical, these things
like that, I mean, it is fascinating to see the
tools and technology. It is so cool. It's so cool.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
It's amazing where things going. It's really positive, it's really hopeful.
And yeah, definitely if you're you know, on the fence,
you know, you're a young person on the fence, thinking
about college, thinking about you know, the trades which one
dig into it a little bit, do some digging. You
just realize the jobs are out there. I mean, they
are just clamoring for work. The money is good and
(42:36):
there's such a value to working with your hands and
you know, helping people because a lot of these trades
you are directly helping people, you know, live their lives
in a better way. You know, homeowners, you're fixing their plumbing.
When my toilet's plugged, that nobody's living a happy life
at that moment, or a hot water heater isn't working,
or you know, there's a lot of misery and when
(42:58):
when you can come through and fix those things, you know,
you know, yeah, Harmel. If people want to, you know,
go online, look for more information. How's the best way
to contact you guys.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, absolutely, And I told you we have some exciting
news where you know, we've been around for five years
and we're excited for the next five. We're actually moving.
We just signed a lease with Aquinas College, so we're
going to be on the east side of their campus,
operating out of what used to be the old minor
seminary for the Diocese of Grand Rapids, which is really cool,
like we kind of see that formation kind of coming
(43:31):
full full circle. But yeah, we're we're moving over this summer.
A great place to connect with us is at Harmel
Academy dot org and they can kind of see, you know,
what we're doing and this exciting move that we're doing
and being a part of that and being we We
(43:52):
also have events and things like that where people can
be a part of it. You know, it is about
these guys, these young men, sure, but you know, a
lot lectures and opportunities for people to be a part
of it and kind of dive into work and we're
excited for the next five years because we've been really
focusing on these menu you talk about what's six exciting
in the next ten years and trades. We started out
(44:13):
with six men five years ago. Oh wow, we have
we have We have formed over sixty men and we
have thirty men coming to Harmel next year. So that's
super exciting. So we want a lot of people to
be a part of this move and move with us
as we start this new chapter. But yeah, Harmel Academy
dot org perfect is a great place to see what
(44:36):
we're doing and all the good work that we're doing
here in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I'll put links to that in our show notes and
all of that, And yeah, you guys are one of
all these other places where people can learn more about
the trades, jump in, you know, even you know, whatever
you need to do, talk to some plumbers to I've
had some plumbers on the show once where I asked,
how do you get started, and they said, just stop
out talk to us about apprenticeship and they'll walk you
(45:01):
through what that would look like and whatever you've got
to do. Dig into it. Like I said, I'll put
links to Harmel in the show notes and people can
check it out. Drew, thanks so much for hanging out
with me, taking all this time to talk about something
so important.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, Dan, thank you very much. You appreciate it and
appreciate your Rep Colite and this opportunity to talk about
what Harmel is doing and how we're trying to make
an impact in the trades but in work and especially
in the lives of young men.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Excellent. I appreciate it, and that's going to do it.
Whatever you've got planned this weekend makes your paints a
part of it. I do want to highlight the fact
that right now we've got basically a deck coding sale
going on. So if you've got to do your deck
this summer yet, we've got all the products that you're
going to need on sale. Benjamin Moore's Woodlucks is on
sale for twenty percent off, and Repcollites Deck and doc
(45:53):
would Protector, our premium go to product for decks. We've
got a water based version and our traditional VOC compliant
oil based version. Both of those are on sale the
lowest price I think we've ever sold them at. I
guess I'm not technically sure of that. If it's not
the lowest price, it's really close. I'm going to be
talking about decks next week on the show. I'm going
(46:15):
to walk you through what a deck project looks like,
and we'll cover everything you need to know. In the meantime,
just be aware deck products are on sale at Repcolite
until June sixteenth, so you've got time to take advantage
of that. All right, have a great weekend everybody, and
I'll see you next week. I'm Dan Hansen. Thanks for listening.
Well, good morning, everybody, Happy Saturday. You're listening to the
Repcolite home improvement show sponsored by Benjamin Moore, And this
week I've got kind of a special episode planned. You know,
most of the time, most weeks, we cover a relatively
wide variety of different topics. But this week I'm playing
just a long conversation that I had with Drew Anderson
(00:23):
from Harmel Academy of the Trades in Grand Rapids. Now,
I know Drew a little bit from church, and when
I saw something on his Facebook page recently talking about
the importance of the skilled trades, I was super pumped
to talk to him about all of that on the show.
So today that's what I've got for you, a long
conversation about the value of the trades, about the value
(00:44):
and dignity of work, you know, work itself. If you've
got young people in your life, you know, whether they're
your own kids or maybe nephews and nieces, maybe grandkids,
whatever the case, there's a lot of good stuff in
this conversation. So with all of that out of the way,
let's just jump in. Drew, thanks for being.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Here, Dan, thanks for having me on. Greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this, and you know,
you represent a school helping, you know, get men, young
men trained, and we're going to get into that. But
the conversation that I want to have is actually bigger
than just any particular school. I want to really celebrate
and dig into the trades and why they matter more
than ever you know right now, and I guess to
(01:27):
get us started, let's just jump in with this. Why
are you so passionate about the trades? You know, why
do you think this work matters so much for me?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I mean, it's got a deeper meeting. I come from.
My great grandfather was a cabinet maker when he came
over to the United States, so there's a personal connection there.
And in my family though my grandfather and my father
and myself were not directly tradesmen, but we're always men
that worked with our hands, and so that was always
(01:59):
past down and that was just so important and that's
why I'm passionate about it. I also have you know,
three children that right now that I want to pass
that on to, and it's just so important right now
because one where we have we have a crisis of
people in the trades, but a crisis and character of
(02:19):
word crisis and the character of men and and people
that simply just don't know how to use their hands.
And it's really unfortunate because I really think we were
made to do that.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, I completely agree. Your great grandfather he was a
cabinet maker and passed the importance of working with his hands.
Pass that on to your dad. Your dad passed that
on to you as you're growing up. What kind of
things were you doing, you know, what kind of little
jobs were you tackling.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
We had rentals growing up, so we were constantly doing
repairs and renovations and working with our hands, so you know,
it would be you know, school five days a week,
and then on the weekends it was it was working
on rentals when you know people move out. Yeah, so
I mean it was it was learning all these things.
And I look at it just like what a gift
(03:05):
that was and something that I can pass down to
my kids. And now being at Harmel, it's got a
deeper I would call it even like a deeper spiritual meaning.
For me. It's not just a means to an end,
but it's like it's the gospel of work that we've
been called to do.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Because harl is is it affiliated with a particular church
or is it help me understand that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. So so we're we're affiliated with the
Catholic Church where we're a men's Catholic trade school, and
so you know, we hit deeply on the trades, uh,
and also the humanities, you know, studies of philosophy and
literature and theology and the and the deep spiritual formation
of men. Because at the end of the day, you know,
we kind of see it as we've got we've got
(03:49):
a problem with young men, and we definitely think it's
a it's at the root of it, it's a spiritual one.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
All right. All right, so let's we'll get into some
of that, you know, And I guess what I want
to get back to is the shortage in the trades.
You know, we hear about that, you referenced it. How
real is that gap? You know, we hear a lot
of things. There's always a problem with something, something that's
you know, the bottom is dropping out of everything all
the time. It seems like, how real is this problem
(04:15):
that we've got in the trades And what's behind it?
Do you think?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So I'm just going to shoot out a few a
few numbers, and so the Manufacturing Institute estimates that by
twenty twenty eight there will be a shortfall of two
point four million skill trade workers and for five retiring
baby boomers, only two younger workers are stepping up to
replace it. And beyond numbers, like the basic skill levels
(04:39):
are just declining, Like plant managers are just lamenting that
they struggle to find workers who can even read a
measuring tape. I mean, and and that's just like, that's
like that is just a crazy problem that we see
right now simply within manufacturing. And we all feel it
right now. I mean, and you know, try to try
(05:01):
to get a uh you know, someone that's working and
plumbing things like that, you're getting waitlisted. And you know
why I think we're feeling it right now.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
What do you think? All?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, you know what, I'll be honest with you. I
think it's because for decades we wrongfully shamed the trades
as like second class compared to college education. There's nothing
wrong with college education, you know. And I was at
an event with micro on the east side of the
state at the beginning of this month, and he was
talking about when he was in high school they had
(05:34):
this picture of like this college graduate with this bright,
smiling face on their diploma, and then on it was
was a tradesman who just looked weirdy, wearied down and
disheveled and things like that. So it's it's something that
we've been doing in our society for generations right now.
And like you know, so just young people and particularly
(05:55):
young men are just disinterested, disillusion and really ill prepared.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I mean, I know when I was in high school,
it certainly wasn't something that was talked about as any
any kind of positive you know, if you couldn't cut
it in college, you know, there was always this you know,
you could always go and do that, I guess. But
like you're just explaining, you know, all the marketing that
we'd see is the college graduate full of smiles and bright,
(06:21):
shiny teeth, and then the trades person just looks weighed
down by the way to the world, right, So who's
going to choose that?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, And it's the perception, right, And I mean and
the you know a lot of times we say perception
reflects reality, and I'm sorry in this way, it doesn't.
I mean, I don't know how many college students are
smiling over the amounts of debt that they have. And
I'm not going to say that going in the skilled
trades is an easy thing either, But I don't look
(06:50):
at the young men that have just gone through Harmel
and they're starting families. They have no debt, they have
fantastic jobs, and they're on a career path development. That's
just amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
No, it is, Yeah, incredibly much so. Because you know,
I'm on the phone with Drew Anderson from Harmel Academy
of the Trades. You guys are located in Grand Rapids, right.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Correct, yep, yeah, yeah, and actually we're moving to a
new location the summer within Grand Rampage, which is really exciting.
We could talk that about that a little bit la there.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, we'll get to that. So on the phone Withdrew
and yeah, you're you're what you're talking about. My kid
is living. I've got a son who's an electrician apprentice.
He's working on Journeyman's you know, taking that test and
all of that. But everything you just said I can
attest to. You know, he doesn't have any debt. He
well he's got a vehicle and that's his debt. And
(07:41):
he went straight out high school into this work. He's
got a really nice savings account going, he's making really
good money, and yeah, he's socking it away. He's got
a future where he's not going to be digging out
from underneath, you know, a mountain, a mountain of debt.
Because I've got other friends, other other friends who've got
kids who they're talking about it's monumental how much debt
(08:06):
they're gonna be digging out of and how how many
years they're gonna be working just to pay for that. Now,
that's not to say that college isn't like you said
everything you said, college is a path for a group
of people that is the way to go. I went
to college. You know, I don't have any problems with that,
But this is certainly something that is it should certainly
be considered. The work is needed, the jobs are out
(08:27):
there and they pay well. It's not anything like what
I was presented in high school.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Right, And I mean, I'll tell you I can ebe.
We'll talk about this a little bit later too. Is
the trades have changed and they're gonna you know, we'll
talk a little bit later on of just how much
they've changed since the time we've been in school and
what the future is looking like. And it's looking really
bright right now for trades. But we're in this crisis
right now that we've for decades we've made it second class,
(08:57):
even third class, and we didn't see it as as
a as an equal opportunity for people, you know, So do.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You think it's coming around? Are we starting to see
it turn? I know Mike grow you mentioned him earlier. Yeah,
he's made a you know, the last I don't know
how many years that this has really been something he's
been driving home. Do you see a change coming?
Speaker 2 (09:20):
You know what? I can't. I see it with our
men at Harmel Academy all the time. But it's going
to take a larger change than just like creating trade
schools and incentives like and that hits to like a
second crisis, like as a crisis of character work and
in the hiring standard right now, Dan is just it's
so painfully low, like you show up mostly on time,
(09:44):
you pass the drug test perhaps, and still employers are
still struggling to find workers that meet even like these
basic expectations and like family, church, community, all these pillars
of character formation, like they've really weakened and they'll leave
being particularly young men, but women as well, without the
formation that is necessary for a certain level of excellence.
(10:06):
You know, we we look at kind of our past
and I think we've come very complacent and we just
we have this crisis of character. So I'm thinking, like
that's before we're even like can we solve this thing
at the skill trades? Like we got to have people
see that, like work is a really good thing. It's
(10:27):
not just something that we have to drudge about on.
It doesn't mean I mean it's not hard, but it's good.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well we'll dig into that a little bit. Why is
it so good? I mean there's a million reasons I
can say that. Right, You're you're living in this world,
you're preaching this message, so right, run with it.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah yeah, absolutely, Well I mean for me just you know,
I'll go into religious aspect a little bit, but I
think it can really speak to everybody. Is like we
were made for a purpose. And as a Catholic, like
I believe that that we were made for work. You know,
work isn't bad, work was good, but the pain of
(11:03):
sin is like toil and work, right, Like I'm not
gonna say every time in work is oh yeah, it's
just amazing. And I always remember my my dad saying like,
if you love what you do, you'll never work a
day in your life. I'm like, well, no, you'll work.
But I think it's like we were made for it.
And I think why, like why we're struggling as a
(11:24):
society is we've failed to see what we were made for.
And I think work is just such a good thing.
But we live in a society today in which the
aspects the character of work are just not valued. And
it's kind of like I want to apply to like running, right,
Like I mean, I'm not like, I'm not like the
(11:47):
biggest runner. I don't love running. There other things that
I love it, but.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Runner, true, I only run if I'm being chased, and
even then I've got to decide if it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
But you talk about like some of these people they
experience are running high, and you can say, like, oh, man,
like you got some people that were really made for that.
I firmly believe that every single person has been made
to work. And I don't mean like subservient work or
things like that, but like the dignity of work, and
(12:17):
that's probably what what kind of cultivates this crisis of
character and work is people don't see the dignity and work,
Like you know, we saw the trades as like second
class and it's like, oh, if you're a trash man,
like I mean, how many times maybe that I don't
know if you heard of this in high school, but
like you know, we get jokes from like teachers, you know,
people that we look up to, and they're like, well,
(12:37):
you know, if you don't do well, you're gonna have
to say, you know, would you like fries with that?
It's just like we've we've lowered the dignity of work.
Every person that's doing a job is doing a great
service to our society and we have to recognize that. Well.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
And I think it's so interesting you talked to you,
you hinted at and then you didn't go completely into it,
but you said the trash man or whatever. That was
literally what nobody ever said the fries thing to me,
But it was always you're going to have to pick
up garbage, you know, if you don't get this figured
out and get this college, you're going to end up
picking up garbage. Well, thank goodness, we've got people that
pick up garbage, right, I mean, there's still incredible importance
(13:17):
and value to that. And you know, like my kid
would the electrical work. You don't always think about that,
as you know, dignified work and important work, until you
need it, and then all of a sudden you realize
how important this is and how glad you are that
you've got people who take care of all of those things,
your furnaces and your car, all of these things. And
(13:38):
in fact, what happens to me, I'm assuming it happens
to most of us out there, is we didn't think
about that work, you know, back when we were making
the big career choices and you know, we went to
college or whatever we did. And now I'm thinking, oh,
my goodness, if I had just figured out how to
fix a car, do you think, do you realize how
much money I would have saved myself? Or if I've
(14:00):
figured out how to do plumbing, or if I or
if I now I can do some of those things still,
But my kid has specialized in it, and man, he
is helping people out left and right, you know, I
mean right, and whether he's being paid for it, whether
he's bailing my parents out on a weekend or whatever
he's doing. Yeah, he's feeling great about it. Like you
said that, the dignity of it and the value of it.
(14:23):
A weekend where I sit around all weekend long. You know,
it's rainy, it's dreary, I'm lazy, whatever it is. Yeah,
by the end of that weekend I've sat around, I
don't necessarily usually feel very good about myself. The weekends
where I've gone out there and I've laid patio blocks
or something. I'm sore, I'm completely hunched over because my
hands hurt, my back hurts, I'm a mess, But I
(14:44):
feel great because I've been out there working. There is
something really true about what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, I'm going to say. You know, we talk about
the runners high. That's the workman's high, you know, and
I think everybody feels that.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
You know, mm hmm, No, like we talk about paint
and houses, painting rooms. You know, that accomplishment. It's not
just the accomplishment of what you've made. I mean, that's
a big part of it, but just having done the
work and knowing that you can accomplish it, that you've
figured out whatever it was that you maybe didn't know.
You know, That's what my kid's having that's the thing
I love about the trades that I think is completely
(15:17):
It makes me so annoyed. I guess it's the right word.
With all of the prep that I had in high
school and stuff leading up to college, that the idea
that the trades like, if you want to learn, you
go to college. If you want to just do something,
I guess you go into the trades. My kid is
learning NonStop. I mean, every single job he goes to
(15:38):
there's something new happening that he's got to figure out
and problem solve. His brain is incredibly active and he's
constantly figuring out new things. You're learning all the time,
and there's so much value in that.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well, you know, and Dan, both you and I work,
and we've learned through our work, and I just you know,
I'm going to do a shameless plug for Rep. Collite.
Is you know I've gone into Rep. Colite and I
going in there because I'm talking to somebody who's passionate
about paint. I can start having a conversation, I can
start answering these deeper questions. And this work isn't belower
(16:12):
beneath me, Like it's like I can talk about it
and it's just so great to be with people that
are passionate about what is important to me in that moment,
in that moment when I'm at Rep. Colite, Like it's
about getting the right paint, but it's more than that,
it's about doing the job right. Like I mean, I
love That's why I love like your minutes with Rep. Coolite,
because I'm like, oh, man, next time, I'm going to
(16:34):
do that. Because a lot of us just like hop
into doing the work and then we don't realize what's
really needed to be gone.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Oh yeah, absolutely, I think that's a really good point.
You know, it's easy sometimes to think about my time
in the store. I was working a store at Repcolite
for about ten years. I was going to be a
teacher and then a pastor, and then I ended up
working in the paint store. And it was easy to
think in the beginning that what I was doing was
not important work. And yet as I started to realize,
(17:02):
you know, as the years went by, I realized it
was important. You know, I'm not just selling you paint.
I'm selling you or helping you through a project, helping
you through something that you're not familiar with so that
you can get to spending time with your family or
enjoying your home or whatever. There's a bigger dignity to it.
And yeah, I just love that aspect of it. Every
(17:23):
every every trade out there, everything that we do, there
is dignity in it. You just got to sometimes look
a little harder.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Well, yeah, and I would say, I mean, and we're
looking beyond the jobs in trades. I mean, any job,
there's there's that great thing of you know, putting that
and if we see, actually we have a we have
a for a formation for our men. We actually have
a part where were taught, like throughout our theme of
our first year, we have this class called work as service.
(17:53):
And that's the thing. If we look at our work
not as an ends to a mean, but as what
we're called to do, called to serve, it's so much
more fulfilling. It's really the work itself is not changing
in the tangibles, but like it's the spiritual side of
how we look at things, you know, It's like that
(18:14):
can make a huge change. It. It's like being a parent,
you know, being a it's I probably do the same
things that all a lot of other parents do, but man,
I love being a father. I love being a husband,
and it's not because I'm doing something radically different than
other husbands and fathers. I really think it's a mindset
(18:35):
And that's what I think we need to look a
is we need a mindset change when it comes to
the skilled trades, when it comes to work. And I think, honestly,
the biggest problem, Dan is we have just these young
men that have lost like what their meaning is and
(18:56):
it's really bad. Like we're seeing workforce participation among young
men are like just collapsing. Like there's just this really
aching question that these young men have, and like they're asking,
like why should I care at all? What is an age?
Speaker 1 (19:12):
When when you talk young men, what age are you talking?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
What?
Speaker 1 (19:15):
What constitutes young men?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah? I mean I mean we could, I mean we
could say I would even I would go like high
school all the way to like men that are that
are hitting like their thirties. At Harmel, we primarily we
we serve men that are post secondary so after right
after high school. But you know, honestly, Dan, I mean
you've got kids. I've got kids. It's it actually starts
(19:40):
when they're really young, you know, like how do we
talk about work and how do we present work in
front of our children. Do we see it as a
burden or do we see it as an opportunity to serve?
You know, And that's that's really, that's really it. So
I think it starts at a very young age, especially
for young men.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Well right, right, and and like you mentioned, you were
brought up in it. You know, you were constantly dragged
into you know, you guys had the rentals and stuff
like that. I know my kids they all talk about
all the different projects that we tackle around the house
that they'd tag along with and help with, and sometimes
they did not help very well, they were there anyway,
(20:20):
you know, they have the common I think it's common.
I hope it's common. The story about the flashlight, holding
the flashlight, how a kid can't do it. No matter
where they aim that thing, it's always wrong. And Andrew was
just my middle kid, was just talking the other probably
a couple of weeks ago, just about the stress of
(20:40):
being handed the flashlight when we're working on something, because
he knew, no matter what I described, he would never
figure out the right thing to point it at. Someday
he'll have his own kids and they'll aim the flashlight
in a million different directions except the right one, and
he'll know what I'm talking about. But they were there
for the whole thing. They were a part of the process.
I guess that's it. Let's talk to the parents or
(21:02):
young adults maybe that are listening. Parents of the young adults,
grandparents the young adults themselves. Maybe they feel stuck. Maybe
it's you know, like I said, their kid and they
hate desk work or whatever. They're wondering if college is
the right path, what makes a trade? Are the trades
or any of this a compelling option for them besides
some of the things you said, Well.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I think you know a lot of young people, young men,
they come out of high school and they don't know
what they want to do, and I think at least
an exploration or hopping into a job. But what I
like about what we do at Harmel Academy is our
first year program is like it's an it's a it's
a full introduction to like ten different trades. So they're
(21:44):
getting like test things out, tease things out. And what
I think, because you know, we have these young men
that were like so you know, squeezed into a classroom,
you know, sit at a desk, do this instead of
like working with their manual genius and young women too,
(22:05):
but now like they've just they've they've they've gotten through
the thing and they have no idea what they want
to do. Sure, so I think, you know, like whether
that's you know, coming to a place like Carmel, which
I heavily encourage because we focus more than just on
the trades aspect. There's a communal aspect, there's a whole
human formation aspect. But like for a young person to
(22:29):
get into a community which the trades are valued is
really important because it gets them thinking in a different way,
gets them working in different ways. And let's be honest,
I think now it's really hard for homeowners, right for
young people to become homeowners right now. We got to
work on that in our society. But how many people
(22:53):
have their houses owned them instead of them owning their houses.
And that goes to like it's not necessarily having Like
I'm not a tradesman by my profession, but my house
doesn't own me. I own my house and I'm able
to do some pretty general stuff with it, you know,
(23:14):
cutting my own lawn, fixing my own lawn. More when
it breaks down doing my own simple electrical or plumbing work,
painting there you go. Rep Coo right right there, you
know those things. And I think at least like exploring
or being introduced to a trades and I've got to
make out the appeal for our high schools and our
(23:35):
learning institutions, like we got to start teaching this in
high school. But you know what, it's also putting tools
in the hands of parents and saying don't be afraid.
You know, you don't need to do it perfect, just
do something with your kids.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
No, I think that's so good. I can't remember. I'm
trying to remember an article that I ran into probably
five years ago, and it was out of it was
you know, a London area, you know, so across the
pond drew. And the story though, was about all these
young kids, you know, high school or college age kids.
(24:12):
And the article focused on all these different things that
they struggled with. It like they took this huge survey,
you know, big sample of people, and they had ridiculous
numbers of people that didn't quite feel comfortable with crazy
things like you know, dealing with a tripped circuit breaker
and you know they didn't know what that meant, or
switching light bulbs out, and it sounded ridiculous. We at
(24:35):
first thought when we ran into the article that it
was a joke article, but it wasn't. It was real data.
And some of the jobs that they were unfamiliar with
or not comfortable with were you know, things at least
you can kind of wrap your brain around painting and
stuff like that. But even then, you know, that is
hard for me to understand because I guess I've grown
(24:55):
up with painting, you know, not just here, but mom
painting all the time, and there's not much to it,
and there's so many jobs out there that you know,
Electrical things can go wrong, right, you know, and you
can have some problems. Plumbing things can go wrong. I
get that, But even then, there's a lot of plumbing
things that you can do that are really straightforward that
(25:16):
people just aren't comfortable doing and they call for help
on and you end up paying a huge amount of
money to people who come out you wait, like you said,
sometimes because you can't get somebody out there. You know,
I had my dryer once, you know, right right at
the beginning of home ownership, the dryer quit working and
we didn't have money at that point. I mean, like
(25:37):
now I roll in the cash. You know, I don't
know money now even but back then I had way
less and trying to get somebody out there. They couldn't
come right away. We had a bunch of kids at
that point. We needed the dryer, and I thought, forget it.
You know, Dad used to fix everything, and I watch them,
and so I thought, I'm going to look it up.
So I'm looking online, looking on YouTube, and I found
(26:00):
out a dryer. There's almost nothing going on in the dryer,
you know, if the motor part works, there's not a
whole lot else in there. I mean little things that
you can fix here in there. And for thirteen bucks,
I figured out what was going on, got the new
belt or whatever it was. What an incredible feeling of success.
I saved myself that big bill and it was a
doable thing, even though it seemed like a mountain that
(26:22):
was big to climb. So yeah, getting into the trades,
even though you get into something that you know, my
kid's inelectrical. You know, that's what he does, and that's
what he's really comfortable with. But what he finds is
that everything else seems accessible now and he's willing to
try and to dig into it, and he learns new
tasks and new skills along the way. And when he's
got a house, I mean, there's so many things he's
(26:44):
going to be able to do to that thing, right.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
And you know where I think it goes back to Dan.
It's that time of holding the flashlight. You know, kids
aren't seeing their parents, and whether it's like the parents
aren't doing it themselves, or the parents are like, oh
my gosh, like I can just do it so much
faster on my own, like I don't even know. Like
that's part of our job as parents is to form
(27:08):
these young people to be adults, not to not to
be efficient children, but to be young, you know, to
be capable adults that can that can't do these things.
And so you know, there is appropriate times where you know,
we have them start doing like little things and you know,
I have I have a one year old will be
(27:30):
two in August, and he helps empty the dishwasher with
his five year old in four year old siblings, and
it is super inefficient. I could do it so much faster,
I know, But that's not the purpose. The purpose, though,
is he sees the value in the dignity of work.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
And he now less than two years old, goes out
and seeks to help out with work, and it's like
there we go, like it's so true.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
The problem I.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Think, I think that is probably you know, nobody said
parenting is going to be easy. In fact, most people
say there's it's pretty complicated. And I'm pretty sure that
probably the hardest part, one of the hardest parts of
parenting is letting them help at their pace, because for
my personality, that's brutal. But I know, I know, I've
got to let them do it. I've got to let them,
(28:21):
you know, cut the lawn in such a way that
it just, oh, my goodness, guys, and then I can
walk them through what they need to learn, but I
got to let them do it, and that's how they learn.
I've got lots of pictures of the kids doing exactly well.
We never had a dishwasher. I've never in my whole
life if I had a dishwasher, I don't even know
what that's like.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
But the thing is, you've you've always had dish washers,
you or your kids rights washers.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
Yeah, And I've got lots of pictures of them sitting
at the sink washing dishes with these huge, ridiculous, cheesy
grins on their faces because for some reason it's fun
to them. I don't get it, but when they're little
it's fun. Another fun fades very quickly once it becomes
a job. But they do see that. Yeah, I think
(29:07):
they see the value of it, and maybe even more,
not more importantly, but maybe more so, they see the
necessity of it, you know, because not everything I do
at the like you said, I think you said that earlier.
Not everything we do is fun.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
It's not like I love you know, I get all
giggly when it's time to clean the dishes. You know.
That's not how I get how I am. But I
do know the necessity of it. The kids know the
necessity of it. The house needs this to keep running,
and the goodness of that, and right in the value
of the clean dishes, the value of an organized place,
and what all the good things that come from that,
(29:43):
lots and lots of good stuff. At Harmel Academy, you've
mentioned it, You've talked about it. You're training young men
in the trades with a unique approach. You've kind of
hinted at that. Give us a quick snapshot, you know,
what's the heart of what you're doing out there for sure.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Well, I mean again I want to talk to you know,
like you know, with our kids, and like what we
can do and what we have at Harmel is Harmel
is a place where these men and I mean in
this and most honest and genuine way, is a place
where they can fail. You talked about that statistic over
you know, over in Europe of you know, they just
feel so much anxiety of doing these small, simple tasks
(30:19):
because they haven't learned how to fail and then get
back up. And at Harmel, that's what we're forming these
young men. We're forming them through the trades so that
they apprentice themselves to Jesus Christ, you know, becoming better
husbands and fathers, but also like learning that failure is
not the end. Honestly, failure is just the beginning. But
(30:41):
then it's it's working past that. And I think that's where,
like we talk about the crisis and the skilled trades,
the crisis and character, the crisis of meaning is you know,
we don't we stop at the failure and we and
we don't push beyond it. I think that's maybe what
we're struggling in our society.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
You think you see a lot of that. The people
that failure just that's the end of the line. We
fail out something and then we want ditch and move
on to something else. Is that what you're thinking?
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Well, yeah, I mean so you know you talked about,
you know, being a teacher. I was a teacher wants
to and it's just like you know, you'd see these
kids they get these grades and they just be completely
deflated and it would like just like set them off
spiringing instead of saying, hey, you know what we can
we can fix this. And probably as you know, as
(31:30):
a teacher, I'm thinking, like I didn't do it. I
don't think I did a good enough job of like
where you gets fixed us. And my dad so so
my I should say, actually, my dad is a tradesman.
You know, he's a he's a teacher, but he actually
spent twenty years in the Marine Corps as a as
a missile technician, so he was a tradesman pretty much. So,
but he had something different when he was teaching. He
(31:52):
would let these kids retake, redo the work, retake the test,
and like give them like like they can build it
all the way back up to ninety percent. I'm like
oh man. I think about so many teachers that are
just like they just let the kids fail and then
that's it, Like that's the end. Nope, you messed up,
You're done. It's like, no, that's.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
A lot of right, but that's so much life. I mean,
last week on the show, or a couple of weeks ago.
I don't know when you're in when this interview, particular
particular conversation is going to air, but I was talking
about wrong colors, you know, painting a living room. I
painted a living room and I'm I wasn't sure when
I got done if I had the right color. And
at the very you know, we walked through a bunch
(32:35):
of things you can do and all of that to
work through those situations when you find yourself, if you
find yourself in that situation. And at the very end
of the show, I was trying to just sum everything up, like, Okay,
you know, worst case scenario, you've got the wrong color,
you know, just write it off. You know, this is
one of those things where you know, most of us
have projects. I would say almost all of us have
projects that we tackle that we mess up, we fail,
(32:58):
we have to redo them. You know, it's not the
way we wanted. This might be yours. You know, that
particular color thing that might be mine I might need
to just buy into. I've got to repaint that one
and move on. Oh, there are my lessons and move on.
That is literally, that is life is just NonStop failing
at something, figuring out why you failed at it or
not succeeding as well as you wanted to, figuring out
(33:21):
what went wrong where you drop the ball, learning from that,
and moving on. And yet I know for a fact
everything you're saying is true that people get frozen by
the idea of failing. And sometimes they're frozen so badly
they don't even start something because they're afraid they're not
going to be able to take it to the hoop
or whatever, you know, sports analogy you want to make.
(33:43):
And yet that's just so unrealistic in most things. Yeah,
we have to fail. That's how we grow, how we learn,
how we pick ourselves up and keep moving.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
We can't let the perfect or the ideal be the
enemy of the good, and we do that so much
much because we have this idea like it's either perfection
or nothing. It's just like, what what have we built?
It's like no, like we we go and we build,
we continue to build. I mean that that and we
(34:14):
when we persevere and we push through. And yeah, it's
you know, and the thing that if you just fail
in the small ways and the bigger ways, you're gonna
be just finem you know, because because you'll you'll reiterate
those those you know. Harmel Academy has been around for
five years and uh, you know, we haven't done everything perfectly.
(34:35):
We've actually learned a lot from our mistakes. But we
keep on going and we keep on reiterating, and I
think that's we've actually come up with something pretty amazing
because we didn't stop, because we kept on going.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Right, And I do think that's really completely true where
you run into sometimes it's the failures that end up
producing you know, after we go through the work of
dealing with that failure and adjusting to it, we end
up with a better result then than we might have
had right from the bat, you know, right off the
bat with our original plan.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
You know.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
So failure shouldn't be something that that we freak out
about and run away from. So let's say somebody listening
is you know, pumped up, inspired or curious, they want
to dip their toes into the trades or just learn
enough to tackle some projects at home. Just you know,
you can't run them through a whole game plan for life.
But what's one practical step they could take today?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Well, I mean, if they're if they're gonna if they're
gonna paint, I mean it metal with rep Collide is
where I would start.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Yeah, there you go, there you go. You know, you
know how to do this. You've done these kinds of things,
kinds of things.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
I mean but seriously though, No, it's it's picking up
these little things, and it's it's it's starting small. I
think people really we talk about that failure. It's like
because people try to try to do like this big
colossal thing and and they're and they're gonna fail uh,
and they're gonna fail hard. It's like, Okay, let's start
out with something small. You know, if you don't know
(36:04):
how to drive a nail or screw uh or screw
screw like, you know, just just practice. And part of
the problem that we have, Dan is like people are
not connected with each other, Like talk with somebody that's
just a little bit of a level up ahead of
you and and see if you can offer a hand
(36:24):
or just learn or just do something. I mean, YouTube's phenomenal.
But but even then it's like, all right, get get
the right size project. You know. For me, Dan, like
I hadn't had a lot of Like my my father
in law, he's like he's a total gear kid. He's
actually a tradesman. Uh you know. He he did a
lot of stuff within manufacturing. But he loves cars. I
(36:47):
mean this, and he's so good with him And for
early on in my wife and I his marriage, I
would just i would hand off.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
The car to sure to.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
Him and his buddy who's a mechanic, and and they
take care of him, be great. And now I'm seeing,
wait a second, I'm not gonna be able to teach
my kids some of these day. Yeah, so I need
to hop in there and do these things. So it's
just one is connecting with with someone that knows something
and build up a great relationship. So I would I would, honestly,
I'd start with connecting with the human being that is
(37:18):
that is probably the best thing I think can happen.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Now, I really like that. And you know, specialty stores,
I mean, if you don't even have somebody in your life,
specialty stores, stores that really specialize in whatever they're doing.
There's people there who know what they're talking about, you know,
and they care, they care about it. But find those
people because you know, sometimes I don't know, it depends
on the personalities. Some people don't think about it. I
(37:42):
always think, oh, this is going to be intrusive. They're
not going to want me around. You know, it's going
to be annoying to have me sitting there watching everything.
Most of my experiences with people who know how to
do stuff and you express an interest in learning it,
they're very excited to share the info. Oh yeah, it's
kind of a it's near and dear to their heart.
I'm assuming that your father in law doesn't get annoyed
(38:06):
at the thought of you hanging around. He's probably excited
to show you all these different cool things that he
knows and you can pick it up along the way.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Yeah, it's rue. I mean we have so like every
every Monday night we actually have like our our family dinner,
and so like my in laws come and my sister
in law comes over, and any you know, my wife's
grandmother comes over. They're all from this area. And I
love it because, like I could say, hey, hey, Randy,
hop into the garage with me, like I want to
ask you this question, or hey outside, and it's such
(38:36):
good for like our relationship. I mean, I love my
father in law. Like I think about some people that
they hate their in laws. I'm like, that really sucks
for you, because I love my laws.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Please speak in your comers. He's showing you all this
stuff and showing me you connect too.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Yeah, And I think that's probably maybe where we see
this crisis is everybody wants to just you know, they
want to kind of stick with their own generation. I
think like intergenerational part too. That's part of it is,
you know, and not to say that you know I've
learned you know Dan, you know me, I worked in
(39:14):
a church before, and I learned so much from the
young adults that I would be with and i'd mentor.
I took so much from them, and they took a
lot from me. So that's that relationship is really key
and crucial.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
No, right, And it's all across all different generations because
like my kid, like I said, he's got all this
electrical knowledge and it's amazing what he's picked up and
what he's comfortable doing he's talking about his buddies at
work and they're drywall in house you know, they're buying
houses up, you know, and drywall in them and all
these things that they know how to do that they're
(39:50):
really comfortable doing. You know, I know how to dry wall,
I know how to do that. But I'm blown away
that people that age know way more than I've picked
up over the years of doing So if I want
to get some tips and tricks, I don't have to
necessarily go find somebody older than me. I can actually,
I mean it's it's it's across all different generations. I
can go find those younger guys and oh my goodness,
(40:11):
the stuff they know. Oh yeah, it's amazing. I just
connect with people. I think that's really smart. Last thing
I got for you is where do you see trades?
You know, everything heading in the next decade or so.
You know, what do you see coming? Do you think
we're going to round the corner on this thing or
is it going to get worse before it gets better?
Speaker 2 (40:27):
You know? I think I think it's I think it's
gonnat a little worse before it gets better. But I
do I am an optimist, so I think I'm an
optimistic like you know, we're going to rise to the occasion,
and I mean we right now. We're in the midst
of a lot of things going on in the world,
but one of them is a strong desire for people
(40:48):
to see manufacturing returning back to the United States, across
the aisles, across political spectrums, these things like people want
to see this and so that is really exciting. And
I alluded to earlier, like the trades now were not
necessarily like the trades back then, Like some of these
shops that I go into, I mean, Dan, it is
(41:09):
just wow, Like it is incredible the technology that's being
used in the knowledge and the infrastructure and things like that.
So it's the trades are not that like when Micro
would talk about like you know a guy that's just
down on his luck and well, I guess I'll just
do the trade. No, actually, the trades are. I mean
(41:30):
you talk about it like that is where a lot
We're going to see a lot of investment go towards
and I see that within the next decade. So I
would tell people, hop on the train right now, Harmel Academy,
we were are are we still focus on it. We
have a second year program that's geared towards manufacturing and
(41:50):
man that what these guys learn and what they're able
to do in the shops that they're in, I mean,
it is incredible, you know, and it's just it really
is exciting. But even within like plumbing, electrical, these things
like that, I mean, it is fascinating to see the
tools and technology. It is so cool. It's so cool.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
It's amazing where things going. It's really positive, it's really hopeful.
And yeah, definitely if you're you know, on the fence,
you know, you're a young person on the fence, thinking
about college, thinking about you know, the trades which one
dig into it a little bit, do some digging. You
just realize the jobs are out there. I mean, they
are just clamoring for work. The money is good and
(42:36):
there's such a value to working with your hands and
you know, helping people because a lot of these trades
you are directly helping people, you know, live their lives
in a better way. You know, homeowners, you're fixing their plumbing.
When my toilet's plugged, that nobody's living a happy life
at that moment, or a hot water heater isn't working,
or you know, there's a lot of misery and when
(42:58):
when you can come through and fix those things, you know,
you know, yeah, Harmel. If people want to, you know,
go online, look for more information. How's the best way
to contact you guys.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, absolutely, And I told you we have some exciting
news where you know, we've been around for five years
and we're excited for the next five. We're actually moving.
We just signed a lease with Aquinas College, so we're
going to be on the east side of their campus,
operating out of what used to be the old minor
seminary for the Diocese of Grand Rapids, which is really cool,
like we kind of see that formation kind of coming
(43:31):
full full circle. But yeah, we're we're moving over this summer.
A great place to connect with us is at Harmel
Academy dot org and they can kind of see, you know,
what we're doing and this exciting move that we're doing
and being a part of that and being we We
(43:52):
also have events and things like that where people can
be a part of it. You know, it is about
these guys, these young men, sure, but you know, a
lot lectures and opportunities for people to be a part
of it and kind of dive into work and we're
excited for the next five years because we've been really
focusing on these menu you talk about what's six exciting
in the next ten years and trades. We started out
(44:13):
with six men five years ago. Oh wow, we have
we have We have formed over sixty men and we
have thirty men coming to Harmel next year. So that's
super exciting. So we want a lot of people to
be a part of this move and move with us
as we start this new chapter. But yeah, Harmel Academy
dot org perfect is a great place to see what
(44:36):
we're doing and all the good work that we're doing
here in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
I'll put links to that in our show notes and
all of that, And yeah, you guys are one of
all these other places where people can learn more about
the trades, jump in, you know, even you know, whatever
you need to do, talk to some plumbers to I've
had some plumbers on the show once where I asked,
how do you get started, and they said, just stop
out talk to us about apprenticeship and they'll walk you
(45:01):
through what that would look like and whatever you've got
to do. Dig into it. Like I said, I'll put
links to Harmel in the show notes and people can
check it out. Drew, thanks so much for hanging out
with me, taking all this time to talk about something
so important.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, Dan, thank you very much. You appreciate it and
appreciate your Rep Colite and this opportunity to talk about
what Harmel is doing and how we're trying to make
an impact in the trades but in work and especially
in the lives of young men.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Excellent. I appreciate it, and that's going to do it.
Whatever you've got planned this weekend makes your paints a
part of it. I do want to highlight the fact
that right now we've got basically a deck coding sale
going on. So if you've got to do your deck
this summer yet, we've got all the products that you're
going to need on sale. Benjamin Moore's Woodlucks is on
sale for twenty percent off, and Repcollites Deck and doc
(45:53):
would Protector, our premium go to product for decks. We've
got a water based version and our traditional VOC compliant
oil based version. Both of those are on sale the
lowest price I think we've ever sold them at. I
guess I'm not technically sure of that. If it's not
the lowest price, it's really close. I'm going to be
talking about decks next week on the show. I'm going
(46:15):
to walk you through what a deck project looks like,
and we'll cover everything you need to know. In the meantime,
just be aware deck products are on sale at Repcolite
until June sixteenth, so you've got time to take advantage
of that. All right, have a great weekend everybody, and
I'll see you next week. I'm Dan Hansen. Thanks for listening.
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