November 14, 2025 • 30 mins
The Wall Street Journal and other media are picking up the story that Gen Z is being called the Toolbelt Generation because they are disenfranchised with the college track and see rising pay and more jobs in the trades. Aaron Hilger CEO of SMACNA [[smack-na]], the trade association for the sheet metal and HVAC indust ry, can help us understand more about this trend.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Virginia Focus. I'm Rebecca Hughes of the Virginia
News Network, The Wall Street Journal and other media are
picking up the story that gen Z is being called
the tool belt generation because they're disenfranchised with the college
track and see rising pay and more jobs in the trades.
Aaron Hilger, CEO of SMACKNA, the trade association for the
(00:26):
sheet metal and HVAC industry, can help us understand more
about this trend. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad
you could join us today. We're talking about the tool
belt generation and I'm looking forward to hearing what your
your perspective is on this.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thanks Rebecca, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Why don't we start by explaining to people what you
are the president of because SMACKNA is a nice way
of saying it, but it really stands for something a
lot more lengthy.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Of course, So I'm Revecca. I'm the CEO of SMACKNA,
which is the Sheet Metal and Air condition Contractors National Association.
SMACKNA is a trade association that represents union HVAC contractors
across the US, Canada, Australia and Brazil. We have about
three thousand members. And one hundred chapters in that footprint.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Wow, that's awesome. So how did you get this job?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
You know, it's kind of a long story. So I
have been involved in the construction industry since I was
a kid. My family was in the roofing and sheet
metal business in Buffalo, New York. I had no intention
of ever being a commercial building contractor, but was for
a little bit a little while after college. But I
started managing associations professionally in two thousand and three and
(01:40):
ran a group of mostly construction related associations in Rochester,
New York. And then a couple of years ago I
got hired as the CEO of Smacking. And I had
been involved with Smackna really throughout my entire construction career
as a roofing contractor, I used the architectural metal manual
that Smackna produces, and then of course as an association manager,
we had a couple Smacking chapters. So great organization to
(02:00):
have been part of the family.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Awesome. So let's talk a little bit about what they're
now calling the tool belt generation that is considered Generation Z.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That is correct?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah, So it's exciting to see the interest that younger
people are starting to have again in the construction industry.
And it isn't just the sheet metal contractors. It's the
electricians and the plumbers and the carpenters, the labors and
the masons, you know, all the different trades that are
part of the building trades and all the things you
need to build a building. You know, this idea that
(02:33):
we have jobs that you know, can't be outsourced, that
you can start doing right away and learn while you're learn,
while you're getting an education in it, I think has
become more attractive.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I think so too. And I feel like technology and
all this stuff came around, and we had these degrees
and it became a very attractive thing, and so schools
started pushing it really hard, and then before we knew it,
you know, more people than I think they expected were
going into college degrees and it almost made it. The
underlying feel of the marketing, so to speak of that
(03:05):
was that anything less than a college degree is lesser
than And I think that's a shame. I think it's
a shame that we took a lot of occasional things
out of the schools. Can you speak towards that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Sure, you know, I think I'm just old enough to
have still had a wood shop class in my little
high school and outside of Buffalo, New York, but almost
all of those programs are gone now. And I think
you're absolutely correct that, you know, college became the thing,
and I certainly don't want it to sound like I'm
negative on, you know, going to college or university. I
have a bachelor's degrees and two master's degrees, so clearly
(03:40):
that worked well for me. But along the way, we
lost this idea that there are lots of different jobs
out there, and those jobs aren't lesser, they're just different.
And I think some of that stems from, you know,
how we measure things. High school principal, school superintendents aren't
measured by you know, how many graduates get a job
or join an apprenticeship program. They're typically measured by how
(04:01):
many kids go to college. And until you change that metric,
there's probably going to be this bias with an education
to push kids towards colleges or universities, which you're starting
to see. You know, parents counter a little bit as
the cross go up so much.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I agree with that. I actually have a child
who just graduated, and it's my youngest of three, and
all three of them. I have sat through the mandatory
senior meetings, and you know, they push so hard on
college and here's how you apply, and here's how you
get transcript and here's how you set up a visit,
and here's how you do this and that and the other.
(04:36):
And if you dare ask about a trade school, you
almost get dismissed. I mean, they'll answer the question, but
it's one sentence tops maybe two, and it's treated as
if it's the red headed step child. And my son's
interested in trade school. He's not interested. He's part of
this tool bell generation. He's not interested in more school,
(04:57):
you know. And we're seeing colleges, you know, adding things
like construction majors and things like that. What do you
see the future being for these industries? Do you think
we're going to see trade schools become for your colleges
or do you think it's gonna stay where you can
just use an apprenticeship to get into it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I think it sort of depends on the path you're on.
There are fantastic college programs that are typically two year programs.
Alford State University comes to mind in upstate New York,
that have really strong programs in HVAC or carpentry or masonry.
I think they have an electrical program as well, But
(05:38):
there are two year programs. Those kids work, you know,
in the industry just about every summer, and they get
jobs immediately afterwards. That is a very viable path into
the industry. Lots of other entry workers join an apprenticeship
program right away, or some just simply get hired by
a contractor. There are advantages or disadvantages to each one
of those paths that we can explore. The other route,
(06:00):
a lot of four year schools have construction type majors.
They're typically construction management or construction operations type majors, which
are really designed more for office positions as opposed to
field positions. So you see a couple of different paths
in there.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Okay, So how does a youngster who has no life experience,
how do they make the decision what is the best
path for them?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
And that's probably a question that the answer depends on
each kid, right, But if you have the opportunity to
get a job in the industry, you know, the construction
industry is always busy in the summertime, regardless of where
you are in the country certainly busier, and maybe areas
like the Northeast that have to deal with winter and
construction slows down. But we're always hiring, you know, summer
(06:45):
or seasonal help. So there's a lot of ways. You know,
once you're eighteen years old, they actually, you know, try
out a little bit of the industry, whether it's working
in residential or commercial, to see if you actually like
working in the field and working with your hands. If
you're more academically inclined a natural path, maybe you know
the traditional college application process and you know whether you
want to do a construction major and explore that from
(07:07):
that direction. And of course, if you had experience and
already liked the industry, your two year programs or your
apprenticeship programs are by far the best path.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Okay, And I know some say that this generation coming
up is entitled and dare say lazy at times, they
just don't want to put in a lot of work.
They just want to play video games and sit in
the basement of the parents' house. Have you encountered that
as as the leader of this industry, have you heard
(07:35):
rumors of things like that? Or what ways are y'all
marketing yourselves to this younger generation to get them motivated.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
So I always laugh a little bit when you know,
people talk about generational differences, because they almost always start
with this generation is different than us. They don't work hard,
they don't want to work, they don't want to show
up at the office early.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And I'm sure we heard that about the Gen xers.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
And then the Millennials, the Gen z s, right, Yeah,
every one of those has had part of the same story.
And you know, perhaps they're perhaps they're all true to
some extent, but there are people of all age categories
that really want to work hard and work in the
construction industry or whatever industry they're in, and there are
people who don't, right, And you know, obviously we're interested
in the you know, people that are comfortable getting up
(08:20):
early in the morning and you know, being on a
job site, you know, fifteen minutes early, because that's you know,
if you're not fifteen minutes earlier late, right, Yeah, sort
of the traditional joke about the military or construction or
other things. And you know, the summertime, a lot of
our projects start at six in the morning, so you
have to be motivated to get up and be there
and that.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Really self selects itself pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Okay, So there's not any specific campaigns or anything like
that that you guys are using to target these younger
people specifically.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
So I think broadly speaking, the yeah, short answer is yes,
but it's really more broad than that. There are about
four hundred thousand open positions in the construction industry today
on the sheet Mental. Just looking at the sheet Mental
side of that industry, there are probably thirty five thousand
positions open in the next four to five years. So
obviously we're constantly recruiting to find people of all age categories,
(09:09):
but especially younger people because they've got the longest time
horizon to be in the industry. You're starting to see
a lot more receptiveness from high schools, despite the fact
that we just talked about them a little bit negularly
earlier about having representatives of the construction industry show up
and engage with students. Now get invited to the career affairs,
whereas you know, ten or fifteen years ago you might
not have. You can also use social media and all
(09:31):
the different platforms, whether it's Instagram or TikTok to really
target target younger folks and show them the things that
are interested and exciting about the industry. You know, Smackna's
Instagram feed, for instance, has a lot of fun content
that you know, gets very engaging for younger folks.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Okay, I love that, And I know in places I've
lived before, there was a high school they actually incorporated
a heavy machinery class and so you got to learn
to run all the have machinery types of things. Do
you think things like that might start coming back.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I would love to see it if they started coming
back to give younger folks of better exposure to life,
not just the construction industry. Whether it's learning heavy equipment
or learning about basic electrical or how to do simple
home repairs, carpentry, whatever it might be. Those are really
good life skills that I kind of feel that we've
gotten away from unfortunately, and it's good for kids to
(10:28):
learn them.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I'm hopeful that they suess start to see a little
bit of a resurgence.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So do you have
children yourself.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I actually have triplets that are nineteen years old. They
all just finished their freshman year in college. My son
goes to American University. One of my daughters goes to
the Eastman School of Music. She's a voice student, a
vocal performance student.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And my other daughter.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Second daughter or multiple daughter, can I want to phrase that,
goes to the University of Rochester. So none of them
joined the trades, although they had lots of exposure to it,
but they each picked the path that they wanted.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Okay, awesome, Yeah, that was gonna be my question. You
were reading my mind there. I was trying to find
out if anybody followed your footsteps, because you basically said
that's how you got into it was family, right.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
So I grew up in the industry and my father
and my grandfather ran a commercial roofing company in outside
of Buffalo, New York, where I grew up, and I
was exposed to construction at a very young age when
I was you know, a little I can, you know,
very much remember going to job sites with my father
and especially in the summertime or you know, after school
when I was picked up and seeing what was you know,
seeing what the what we were building we were working on.
(11:40):
When I was a little bit older and you know,
allowed to work, I worked in our warehouse and loaded
trucks and unloaded trucks. When I had a driver's license
in the summertime, I would do, you know, deliveries to
job sites and you know, you know, limited work that
we were allowed to do in the field, which is
a lot before you're eighteen. And then as I when
I became old enough, I also worked in the field
and learned both sides of the trade, both roofing and
sheet metal. So had quite an exposure that my kids
(12:03):
didn't have the same level of exposure because I don't
run a construction business, but they certainly knew a lot
about the industry. They have a lot of connections with
a lot of the labor leaders picklar An upstate New
York where we worked, as well as a lot of
the contractor leaders, so there they had a great, great
exposure to it, and for whatever reason picked the past.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
They picked.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, everybody has to follow their dream.
I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
The funny part is of the three, my daughter, who's
a music major, would probably be the one who would
be best in construction, so.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh wow, far away from where you could be.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Oh wow. So why don't we talk about a few
of those pros and cons of the different ways to
get into the industry if you don't.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Mind, no, absolutely, So, you know, let's talk about apprenticeship
programs first. And obviously the building trades have been doing
apprenticeship programs for you know, hundreds of years, thousands of years, right,
Apprenticeships a very old concept. I view that as one
of the best ways to get in the trades because
you're education is paid for. You're going to do a
period of classroom instruction each year for three, four or
(13:05):
five years, depending on the program that you're in and
the trade that you're in, and at the same time,
you're going to work. So the second part of that,
you know, of that training is actually on the job,
getting paid, you know, making a good wage and likely
having healthcare and retirement from day one. To me, that
is the best learning path that actually costs you the least.
(13:27):
So I find that to be the most interesting and
most effective path, but of course not for everyone. I
think the second path, joining the two year programs that
a number of schools have, is very viable. You get
a great education, particularly in the more technical trades. Most
of those kids, almost all of them get jobs right
after they finish their program, or even during their program,
(13:48):
and then roll right into it afterwards. The downside is
they do have to pay for that, but your typical
two year program tends to cost less than for year
private school. A lot of them are community colleges or
state institutions.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And then your other path that.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We had touched on a little bit was, you know,
if you're interested in a more traditional college environment, you know,
joining a four year program in construction management or engineering.
You know, it's a really different career path from the
field workforce, but one that's you know, very viable and
I think something that our listeners are probably more familiar
with on day one.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, I agree. Is there any disadvantage to starting, say
at that first path where you go in with the
least amount of cost out of pocket cost, and then
as you're working, I assume you can still do the
college things, it just takes that much longer. Is that
(14:41):
the best way to see that?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
So you can always go to college. You can go
to college at any age you want, to write. So,
whether you're joining an apprenticeship program on day one, or
join an apprenticeship program after you go to school, which
a lot of people do, you know, those are just
life choices and paths you can take. I mean I
knew a brick layer with a pH d in mathemat
Oh wow. So you could see a whole range of
people in the industry. Some never finished high school and
(15:06):
they've finished tenth or eleventh grade and you know, got
a job and I had a very successful career.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Okay, now do you know computers have been playing a
role in construction for a while. I tried to teach
myself CAD in college back in the late nineties and
that didn't go well.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
That would have been hard back then.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it was u it was rough. It was rough.
My husband now, he kind of went into the trades
out of high school and has never been formally to college.
But he deals with a lot of college engineers who
have only gone to college, and he finds that because
they don't have that mix and that blend of hands
on experience and the computer stuff, he gets really frustrated
(15:48):
because they'll say, well, the computer says it works, and
he's like, well, it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And you can't put the legos together even though the
computer says they.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Fit together exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I very much agree with your husband, whether it's engineers
or architects or other design professionals. I would love it
if it was mandatory that everyone has to work on
a job site a little bit and interpret the drawing
they have in front of them to say, can you
actually build that?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So he's not wrong. I think that it is a.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
It is more difficult to draw, you know, whether it's
architectural drawings or engineering drawings, if you've never done them,
never put put it together. Not mandatory. A lot a
lot of great design professionals who managed to figure that out.
But I do think the combination of skills is by
far the most powerful.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
And you see a lot of.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
People who started in the field in whatever trade they're in,
you know, moving into office positions, sometimes getting a college
degree sometimes not, or other industry certifications so they're familiar
with technology, and they become very successful project managers and
estimators because they actually know how to build things. I
do think one of the things that is misunderstood about
(16:59):
construction is is the level of technology that's involved. There
is an incredibly high level of technology, whether it's simply
using things for estimates or project management to you know,
AI generated computer models that we might use on a
job site, or scanning of things that build into a
model we use technology every day. It isn't construction in
(17:20):
the nineteen tens. While you're you're putting things on your
shoulder and you know, walking it up the stairs. You
know that the technology space has changed so much in
the last one hundred years, or even the last fifteen years,
that I'm sure occasionally we all scratch our head on it.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
But while I never thought you could do that right.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And that was exactly where I was headed, because I
did see you on your trade website that you guys
are using AI. So can you talk a little more
about how that plays a role in the industry and
possible jobs for that as well well.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
I think we're all just learning about AI and how
AII is going to impact our industries over time. There
are some really obvious uses for AI and the construction industry,
things like document management, reading and understanding and having a
better feel for risks within a contract. For instance, there's
a number of AI tools you can use to analyze
(18:10):
construction contracts as well as specifications to make your life
easier from managing a company perspective. I think over time
we will figure out how to use AI better to
plan jobs, to plan projects, to lay out designs to
build things on job sites, to manage safety risks on
job sites, and really probably anything that you can think of,
(18:33):
whether it's the trucking to get all the materials there
to the actual putting the pieces together.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Having a different.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Data view of what we do and how we do
it will probably make construction more efficient. But I started
this as we're all just kind of figuring that out.
So I see a tremendous amount of potential and a
lot of uncertainty at the same time.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I know, is it the same kind of uncertainty that
I like in my industry? People are like really said
about it. I mean not, some are more than others, obviously,
as is everybody. But you know, feasibly they could take
my voice and replicate it and now they don't need
me anymore. Do you think it'll ever get to that point?
Because I have seen where like three D printed buildings
(19:16):
and stuff like that, which I never thought would be
something possible, but I've seen videos and it was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Oh they're really cool.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
I mean the videos that you see online of the
three D printed buildings are really really interesting. Now you
still need people to come in and actually fit them
out with everything that you need to live in the buildings,
So building structures with three D printing is cool technology,
but it's long ways to go to replacing the people
who actually build things. So I do think it's different.
You know, I very much agree with the concerns that.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Reporters or actors are expressing about.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Well they you know, AI can just take my voice
and take my image and rebuild it, and all of
a sudden, you've got this new entity that isn't me
doing something right. Construction, you know, we're a long ways
from construction robotics that can actually build things. There are
robotics tools, for instance, that make things easier on job
sites that are great to use. For instance, if you
had to lift eighty pound masonry blocks all day long.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
There are robots.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
They're actually one is called a mule that helps you
pick up those things and put them in place. You
see exoskeletons or things like that that people are playing
with to make jobs that are very heavy easier. But
the unique thing about construction is at least with today's technology,
and who knows how we'll develop over time, but it's
going to take a while to get there. I would
think is that these jobs can't be outsourced. Someone still
has to show up in the job site and put
(20:34):
the pieces together or do the finishing work to make
the buildings work and function as we want them to.
So the concern I think isn't as great if you're
in the construction industry versus a reporter or an actor
or some other performance type industry.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, okay, that makes sense to me. I just wanted
to make sure that I wasn't missing something, you know
what I'm saying, because that was my part.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Roll And one of the sort of things that people
tend to focus on when they talk about construction is,
you know, there are all these concerns that you know,
AI will shift the jobs away, or outsourcing will shift
the jobs away. But you know, yes, you could build
steel and pieces and parts in China or India, but
you can't put those pieces and parts together in a
(21:14):
country across the ocean and then bring ship them here
and then put the job site together. So these jobs
really can't be outsourced today.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Right. I'm obviously just a really curious person, and you're
the expert. Is there anything that the audience needs to
know that I just haven't thought to ask you about.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I think that you know.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
One of the things we've talked touched a little bit
on is you know, how construction has changed, but I
probably would talk about that a little bit more. A
lot of times when I talk to groups about construction,
they focus on aren't those jobs all hard? Heavy, dirty,
difficult to do? And sure some of them are, right,
a lot of you know, it's real work. But you
(21:55):
also have the advantage of being outside. If you like
being outside, you have the advantage of using your hands,
if you like using your hands to build things, you
have the ability to learn lots of different you know,
skills and crafts and trades and you know, and things
within the industry that aren't just defined by you know,
one thing. And I said earlier that technology changed a lot.
(22:16):
So a lot of times when people think about my
kid's going to go into a construction career, well they
think that's what you know, uncle Jerry did twenty years ago,
thirty years ago, or forty years ago. And those jobs
are a lot different now than they were twenty thirty
or forty years ago. So looking at the industry as
it's changed and developed, I think is interesting, and then
also looking completely at the career paths you know, just
(22:38):
because you start in the field today, and you might
have a fantastic career your entire career in the industry,
you know, working as a skilled construction mechanic or a
skilled construction worker and maybe being a foreman and a
superintendent or supervisor. But your paths are endless. You could
own a company someday, you could become a project manager,
an estimator. You could go get an engineering degree and
(22:58):
be a designer.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Or an architect.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Right, So the flexibility of just starting, I think could
take you a long ways.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
And not to mention the value specifically to your own family,
I mean, for me, that's one of the greatest things
about my husband being such a jack of all trades.
He's been a mechanic, he's been in construction, he's remodeled,
he's done you know, special events and all this kind
of stuff, and made furniture. He there's nothing that man
can't do. Like if I want something around the house,
(23:28):
or something goes wrong and it breaks, he knows what
to do. I don't have a clue, but he does.
And that's valuable too.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think I think that's hugely valuable. I mean, I
share a lot of that skill set. And there are
certain things I know I can't do well, so I
would hire someone else to do them, but I could
muddle through them. And I'm sure your husband is the
same way. And then you can impart that knowledge to
your children, right, and you know, teach them how to
maintain their own house or you know, fix the equipment
or the thing that's broken in the house. I mean,
I think that, you know, one of the greatest things
(23:55):
my father and my grandfather gave me.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Was that knowledge.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, this amount from them and my first house, my
wife and i's first house was a eighteen eighties Victorian
that we completely restored, oh wow, with my father's and
mostly my father's from some of my grandfather's help. And
you know, that's not a project I could have done
as a twenty three year old, but as a fifty
year old I could do that project now on my
own because of the things I learned while I.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Was doing it right, right, I just love it.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
My grandfather was in construction, and my dad was never
a mechanic by trade, but he just had that mechanical
brain and he was my mom bless his heart, would
call him an idiot savant when it came to cars
because he would just do things and it would just work,
you know. But yeah, I think that not only is
it valuable to the rest of the world, like we
(24:43):
talked about at the beginning, because we desperately have a
shortage of those people doing those things and doing them well.
Is the other issue I've learned too. I don't know
what happened in COVID, but I've seen a lot of
contractors and heard a lot of stories about contractors who
are still in the business who are not doing it well.
It's like, I don't know where the quality work went.
(25:05):
And I'm sure it's still out there, don't get me wrong,
but I just know I've heard a lot of stories
about people the job is only halfway done, or that's
too small of a job. I'm not even going to
come out and quote it, I guess because they're so busy.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So you've got a couple things that are happening in
there that are in part demographic and national trends as
well as what happened during COVID. Right, So, first on demographics,
one of the reasons we have so many jobs open
in the construction industry, aside from increased demand in terms
of large projects, which we'll talk about in a minute,
is the fact that the baby boomers are retiring. The
(25:38):
oldest baby boomer's ever been retired for ten or fifteen years,
but the younger baby boomers are now retiring at a
high clip, which opens up a tremendous number of positions,
and the industry is losing.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Your point about quality.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
A lot of very highly skilled crafts people who really
know their trades, and it's hard to replace them on
day one. It takes years to build a skilled construction worker.
So just you know, magically hire somebody and you know,
flick a switch and have that have that new person
as good as the old person who's been there for
thirty or forty years and then learned all the tricks
and skills that they have to get them at that level.
(26:11):
And of course during COVID, you saw this giant spike
in demand because no one could travel, and you know,
everybody was home, and you had more money because you
weren't spending your vacation budget and you weren't going out
to dinner because the restaurants were closed.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So what did you do.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
You renovated your house, right, Yeah, and you know, lots
of people said well, I'm bored, I'll be a contractor
or I need to you know, do something. And you know,
these contractors, I'm sure many with great intentions, took on
way too much work than they could finish. In some cases,
you know, smarter one certainly didn't do that, and then
they're left with, you know, projects unfinished or things that
weren't complete. I don't think you really saw that in
(26:45):
the commercial side of the industry, which I've been part
of it for a long time. You know, we never
shut down during COVID. We really just kept going, and
our project demand I think was pretty solid and consistent
during COVID.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
If you look at today's.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Industry, you know, a few years out of COVID, there
is a tremendous amount of commercial construction work that is
driven in part by COVID. You know, the reshoring of
American manufacturing, bringing these plants home to make the supply chain,
to lower the supply chain risk, or in the case
of you know, electronic cars and battery or electric cars
(27:18):
and batteries, you know, building these facilities in the United States,
whether it's for the chips that go in the cars
or the actual battery plants themselves or the car assembly
plants has led to a tremendous amount.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Of work today.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
There are we track with Smart, which is our labor partner,
fifty four mega projects typically a mega projects product that's
of value over a billion dollars that are ongoing right
now and some of which have just finished, some are started,
but we actually have one hundred and ninety on the
total list.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
So that spike in demand means that there's a series
of long term employment which we think is going.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
To last a while.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, it sounds like we definitely need to get those
positions filled fast.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And it's exciting because they open up a lot of opportunities.
You know, your traditional in the industry might take some
time to get to in terms of education and knowledge,
but you know, when we see these large projects, and
a lot of them are in areas that you know
have very low population density and of course low union
density as well, you know, the recruiting and the training
for them look very different.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
You're bringing in.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
People who you know, have never had a job as
probably well paying as they're getting in the construction industry,
but who also have never been on a job site.
So you're teaching them how to be safe, how to
do some basic skills, and you know, if they succeed
and want to be there longer, they learn more skills.
And I like to call this group of people recruiting
future apprentices and future journeymen, because they're going to become
(28:37):
long term players in the industry.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
And that's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, that is very exciting. I know we've come to
the end of our time, but I want to give
you a chance to plug your website and if there
are any other resources that people can use to learn
more about the tool belt generation, sure.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I think specific to SMACKNA, you can go to SMACKNA
SMACNA dot org and learn more about our association and
all the great things we do for our members. You're
interested in becoming a sheet metal apprentice, I encourage you
to go to Smartsunion dot org, which is our labor
partner that you know helps run programs throughout the country
(29:10):
and the US and Canada. And if you're interested just
generally in the construction trades, you can you know, google
your local building trades and learn more about them. And
each market is different, each market is unique, and you know,
we strive to serve the needs of the contractors in
each of those areas.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Awesome. That was perfect. Thank you so much for your
time today. I really appreciate your time and your knowledge
sharing your knowledge with us.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be
with you today.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I hope you've enjoyed today's show. Thanks for tuning into
the show on your favorite local radio station. You can
now listen to this show or past shows through the
iheartapp or on iHeart dot com. Just search for Virginia
Focus under podcasts. I'm Rebecca Hughes with the Virginia News Network,
and I'll be here next week on Virginia Focus.
Welcome to Virginia Focus. I'm Rebecca Hughes of the Virginia
News Network, The Wall Street Journal and other media are
picking up the story that gen Z is being called
the tool belt generation because they're disenfranchised with the college
track and see rising pay and more jobs in the trades.
Aaron Hilger, CEO of SMACKNA, the trade association for the
(00:26):
sheet metal and HVAC industry, can help us understand more
about this trend. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad
you could join us today. We're talking about the tool
belt generation and I'm looking forward to hearing what your
your perspective is on this.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Thanks Rebecca, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Why don't we start by explaining to people what you
are the president of because SMACKNA is a nice way
of saying it, but it really stands for something a
lot more lengthy.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Of course, So I'm Revecca. I'm the CEO of SMACKNA,
which is the Sheet Metal and Air condition Contractors National Association.
SMACKNA is a trade association that represents union HVAC contractors
across the US, Canada, Australia and Brazil. We have about
three thousand members. And one hundred chapters in that footprint.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Wow, that's awesome. So how did you get this job?
Speaker 3 (01:19):
You know, it's kind of a long story. So I
have been involved in the construction industry since I was
a kid. My family was in the roofing and sheet
metal business in Buffalo, New York. I had no intention
of ever being a commercial building contractor, but was for
a little bit a little while after college. But I
started managing associations professionally in two thousand and three and
(01:40):
ran a group of mostly construction related associations in Rochester,
New York. And then a couple of years ago I
got hired as the CEO of Smacking. And I had
been involved with Smackna really throughout my entire construction career
as a roofing contractor, I used the architectural metal manual
that Smackna produces, and then of course as an association manager,
we had a couple Smacking chapters. So great organization to
(02:00):
have been part of the family.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Awesome. So let's talk a little bit about what they're
now calling the tool belt generation that is considered Generation Z.
Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That is correct?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Yeah, So it's exciting to see the interest that younger
people are starting to have again in the construction industry.
And it isn't just the sheet metal contractors. It's the
electricians and the plumbers and the carpenters, the labors and
the masons, you know, all the different trades that are
part of the building trades and all the things you
need to build a building. You know, this idea that
(02:33):
we have jobs that you know, can't be outsourced, that
you can start doing right away and learn while you're learn,
while you're getting an education in it, I think has
become more attractive.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I think so too. And I feel like technology and
all this stuff came around, and we had these degrees
and it became a very attractive thing, and so schools
started pushing it really hard, and then before we knew it,
you know, more people than I think they expected were
going into college degrees and it almost made it. The
underlying feel of the marketing, so to speak of that
(03:05):
was that anything less than a college degree is lesser
than And I think that's a shame. I think it's
a shame that we took a lot of occasional things
out of the schools. Can you speak towards that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Sure, you know, I think I'm just old enough to
have still had a wood shop class in my little
high school and outside of Buffalo, New York, but almost
all of those programs are gone now. And I think
you're absolutely correct that, you know, college became the thing,
and I certainly don't want it to sound like I'm
negative on, you know, going to college or university. I
have a bachelor's degrees and two master's degrees, so clearly
(03:40):
that worked well for me. But along the way, we
lost this idea that there are lots of different jobs
out there, and those jobs aren't lesser, they're just different.
And I think some of that stems from, you know,
how we measure things. High school principal, school superintendents aren't
measured by you know, how many graduates get a job
or join an apprenticeship program. They're typically measured by how
(04:01):
many kids go to college. And until you change that metric,
there's probably going to be this bias with an education
to push kids towards colleges or universities, which you're starting
to see. You know, parents counter a little bit as
the cross go up so much.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I agree with that. I actually have a child
who just graduated, and it's my youngest of three, and
all three of them. I have sat through the mandatory
senior meetings, and you know, they push so hard on
college and here's how you apply, and here's how you
get transcript and here's how you set up a visit,
and here's how you do this and that and the other.
(04:36):
And if you dare ask about a trade school, you
almost get dismissed. I mean, they'll answer the question, but
it's one sentence tops maybe two, and it's treated as
if it's the red headed step child. And my son's
interested in trade school. He's not interested. He's part of
this tool bell generation. He's not interested in more school,
(04:57):
you know. And we're seeing colleges, you know, adding things
like construction majors and things like that. What do you
see the future being for these industries? Do you think
we're going to see trade schools become for your colleges
or do you think it's gonna stay where you can
just use an apprenticeship to get into it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
I think it sort of depends on the path you're on.
There are fantastic college programs that are typically two year programs.
Alford State University comes to mind in upstate New York,
that have really strong programs in HVAC or carpentry or masonry.
I think they have an electrical program as well, But
(05:38):
there are two year programs. Those kids work, you know,
in the industry just about every summer, and they get
jobs immediately afterwards. That is a very viable path into
the industry. Lots of other entry workers join an apprenticeship
program right away, or some just simply get hired by
a contractor. There are advantages or disadvantages to each one
of those paths that we can explore. The other route,
(06:00):
a lot of four year schools have construction type majors.
They're typically construction management or construction operations type majors, which
are really designed more for office positions as opposed to
field positions. So you see a couple of different paths
in there.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Okay, So how does a youngster who has no life experience,
how do they make the decision what is the best
path for them?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
And that's probably a question that the answer depends on
each kid, right, But if you have the opportunity to
get a job in the industry, you know, the construction
industry is always busy in the summertime, regardless of where
you are in the country certainly busier, and maybe areas
like the Northeast that have to deal with winter and
construction slows down. But we're always hiring, you know, summer
(06:45):
or seasonal help. So there's a lot of ways. You know,
once you're eighteen years old, they actually, you know, try
out a little bit of the industry, whether it's working
in residential or commercial, to see if you actually like
working in the field and working with your hands. If
you're more academically inclined a natural path, maybe you know
the traditional college application process and you know whether you
want to do a construction major and explore that from
(07:07):
that direction. And of course, if you had experience and
already liked the industry, your two year programs or your
apprenticeship programs are by far the best path.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Okay, And I know some say that this generation coming
up is entitled and dare say lazy at times, they
just don't want to put in a lot of work.
They just want to play video games and sit in
the basement of the parents' house. Have you encountered that
as as the leader of this industry, have you heard
(07:35):
rumors of things like that? Or what ways are y'all
marketing yourselves to this younger generation to get them motivated.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
So I always laugh a little bit when you know,
people talk about generational differences, because they almost always start
with this generation is different than us. They don't work hard,
they don't want to work, they don't want to show
up at the office early.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And I'm sure we heard that about the Gen xers.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
And then the Millennials, the Gen z s, right, Yeah,
every one of those has had part of the same story.
And you know, perhaps they're perhaps they're all true to
some extent, but there are people of all age categories
that really want to work hard and work in the
construction industry or whatever industry they're in, and there are
people who don't, right, And you know, obviously we're interested
in the you know, people that are comfortable getting up
(08:20):
early in the morning and you know, being on a
job site, you know, fifteen minutes early, because that's you know,
if you're not fifteen minutes earlier late, right, Yeah, sort
of the traditional joke about the military or construction or
other things. And you know, the summertime, a lot of
our projects start at six in the morning, so you
have to be motivated to get up and be there
and that.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Really self selects itself pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Okay, So there's not any specific campaigns or anything like
that that you guys are using to target these younger
people specifically.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
So I think broadly speaking, the yeah, short answer is yes,
but it's really more broad than that. There are about
four hundred thousand open positions in the construction industry today
on the sheet Mental. Just looking at the sheet Mental
side of that industry, there are probably thirty five thousand
positions open in the next four to five years. So
obviously we're constantly recruiting to find people of all age categories,
(09:09):
but especially younger people because they've got the longest time
horizon to be in the industry. You're starting to see
a lot more receptiveness from high schools, despite the fact
that we just talked about them a little bit negularly
earlier about having representatives of the construction industry show up
and engage with students. Now get invited to the career affairs,
whereas you know, ten or fifteen years ago you might
not have. You can also use social media and all
(09:31):
the different platforms, whether it's Instagram or TikTok to really
target target younger folks and show them the things that
are interested and exciting about the industry. You know, Smackna's
Instagram feed, for instance, has a lot of fun content
that you know, gets very engaging for younger folks.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Okay, I love that, And I know in places I've
lived before, there was a high school they actually incorporated
a heavy machinery class and so you got to learn
to run all the have machinery types of things. Do
you think things like that might start coming back.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I would love to see it if they started coming
back to give younger folks of better exposure to life,
not just the construction industry. Whether it's learning heavy equipment
or learning about basic electrical or how to do simple
home repairs, carpentry, whatever it might be. Those are really
good life skills that I kind of feel that we've
gotten away from unfortunately, and it's good for kids to
(10:28):
learn them.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
I'm hopeful that they suess start to see a little
bit of a resurgence.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. So do you have
children yourself.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
I actually have triplets that are nineteen years old. They
all just finished their freshman year in college. My son
goes to American University. One of my daughters goes to
the Eastman School of Music. She's a voice student, a
vocal performance student.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
And my other daughter.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Second daughter or multiple daughter, can I want to phrase that,
goes to the University of Rochester. So none of them
joined the trades, although they had lots of exposure to it,
but they each picked the path that they wanted.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Okay, awesome, Yeah, that was gonna be my question. You
were reading my mind there. I was trying to find
out if anybody followed your footsteps, because you basically said
that's how you got into it was family, right.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
So I grew up in the industry and my father
and my grandfather ran a commercial roofing company in outside
of Buffalo, New York, where I grew up, and I
was exposed to construction at a very young age when
I was you know, a little I can, you know,
very much remember going to job sites with my father
and especially in the summertime or you know, after school
when I was picked up and seeing what was you know,
seeing what the what we were building we were working on.
(11:40):
When I was a little bit older and you know,
allowed to work, I worked in our warehouse and loaded
trucks and unloaded trucks. When I had a driver's license
in the summertime, I would do, you know, deliveries to
job sites and you know, you know, limited work that
we were allowed to do in the field, which is
a lot before you're eighteen. And then as I when
I became old enough, I also worked in the field
and learned both sides of the trade, both roofing and
sheet metal. So had quite an exposure that my kids
(12:03):
didn't have the same level of exposure because I don't
run a construction business, but they certainly knew a lot
about the industry. They have a lot of connections with
a lot of the labor leaders picklar An upstate New
York where we worked, as well as a lot of
the contractor leaders, so there they had a great, great
exposure to it, and for whatever reason picked the past.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
They picked.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, everybody has to follow their dream.
I guess.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
The funny part is of the three, my daughter, who's
a music major, would probably be the one who would
be best in construction, so.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh wow, far away from where you could be.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Oh wow. So why don't we talk about a few
of those pros and cons of the different ways to
get into the industry if you don't.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Mind, no, absolutely, So, you know, let's talk about apprenticeship
programs first. And obviously the building trades have been doing
apprenticeship programs for you know, hundreds of years, thousands of years, right,
Apprenticeships a very old concept. I view that as one
of the best ways to get in the trades because
you're education is paid for. You're going to do a
period of classroom instruction each year for three, four or
(13:05):
five years, depending on the program that you're in and
the trade that you're in, and at the same time,
you're going to work. So the second part of that,
you know, of that training is actually on the job,
getting paid, you know, making a good wage and likely
having healthcare and retirement from day one. To me, that
is the best learning path that actually costs you the least.
(13:27):
So I find that to be the most interesting and
most effective path, but of course not for everyone. I
think the second path, joining the two year programs that
a number of schools have, is very viable. You get
a great education, particularly in the more technical trades. Most
of those kids, almost all of them get jobs right
after they finish their program, or even during their program,
(13:48):
and then roll right into it afterwards. The downside is
they do have to pay for that, but your typical
two year program tends to cost less than for year
private school. A lot of them are community colleges or
state institutions.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
And then your other path that.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We had touched on a little bit was, you know,
if you're interested in a more traditional college environment, you know,
joining a four year program in construction management or engineering.
You know, it's a really different career path from the
field workforce, but one that's you know, very viable and
I think something that our listeners are probably more familiar
with on day one.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Yeah, I agree. Is there any disadvantage to starting, say
at that first path where you go in with the
least amount of cost out of pocket cost, and then
as you're working, I assume you can still do the
college things, it just takes that much longer. Is that
(14:41):
the best way to see that?
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (14:43):
So you can always go to college. You can go
to college at any age you want, to write. So,
whether you're joining an apprenticeship program on day one, or
join an apprenticeship program after you go to school, which
a lot of people do, you know, those are just
life choices and paths you can take. I mean I
knew a brick layer with a pH d in mathemat
Oh wow. So you could see a whole range of
people in the industry. Some never finished high school and
(15:06):
they've finished tenth or eleventh grade and you know, got
a job and I had a very successful career.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Okay, now do you know computers have been playing a
role in construction for a while. I tried to teach
myself CAD in college back in the late nineties and
that didn't go well.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
That would have been hard back then.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah, it was u it was rough. It was rough.
My husband now, he kind of went into the trades
out of high school and has never been formally to college.
But he deals with a lot of college engineers who
have only gone to college, and he finds that because
they don't have that mix and that blend of hands
on experience and the computer stuff, he gets really frustrated
(15:48):
because they'll say, well, the computer says it works, and
he's like, well, it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And you can't put the legos together even though the
computer says they.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Fit together exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
I very much agree with your husband, whether it's engineers
or architects or other design professionals. I would love it
if it was mandatory that everyone has to work on
a job site a little bit and interpret the drawing
they have in front of them to say, can you
actually build that?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
So he's not wrong. I think that it is a.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
It is more difficult to draw, you know, whether it's
architectural drawings or engineering drawings, if you've never done them,
never put put it together. Not mandatory. A lot a
lot of great design professionals who managed to figure that out.
But I do think the combination of skills is by
far the most powerful.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
And you see a lot of.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
People who started in the field in whatever trade they're in,
you know, moving into office positions, sometimes getting a college
degree sometimes not, or other industry certifications so they're familiar
with technology, and they become very successful project managers and
estimators because they actually know how to build things. I
do think one of the things that is misunderstood about
(16:59):
construction is is the level of technology that's involved. There
is an incredibly high level of technology, whether it's simply
using things for estimates or project management to you know,
AI generated computer models that we might use on a
job site, or scanning of things that build into a
model we use technology every day. It isn't construction in
(17:20):
the nineteen tens. While you're you're putting things on your
shoulder and you know, walking it up the stairs. You
know that the technology space has changed so much in
the last one hundred years, or even the last fifteen years,
that I'm sure occasionally we all scratch our head on it.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
But while I never thought you could do that right.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
And that was exactly where I was headed, because I
did see you on your trade website that you guys
are using AI. So can you talk a little more
about how that plays a role in the industry and
possible jobs for that as well well.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
I think we're all just learning about AI and how
AII is going to impact our industries over time. There
are some really obvious uses for AI and the construction industry,
things like document management, reading and understanding and having a
better feel for risks within a contract. For instance, there's
a number of AI tools you can use to analyze
(18:10):
construction contracts as well as specifications to make your life
easier from managing a company perspective. I think over time
we will figure out how to use AI better to
plan jobs, to plan projects, to lay out designs to
build things on job sites, to manage safety risks on
job sites, and really probably anything that you can think of,
(18:33):
whether it's the trucking to get all the materials there
to the actual putting the pieces together.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Having a different.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Data view of what we do and how we do
it will probably make construction more efficient. But I started
this as we're all just kind of figuring that out.
So I see a tremendous amount of potential and a
lot of uncertainty at the same time.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
I know, is it the same kind of uncertainty that
I like in my industry? People are like really said
about it. I mean not, some are more than others, obviously,
as is everybody. But you know, feasibly they could take
my voice and replicate it and now they don't need
me anymore. Do you think it'll ever get to that point?
Because I have seen where like three D printed buildings
(19:16):
and stuff like that, which I never thought would be
something possible, but I've seen videos and it was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Oh they're really cool.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
I mean the videos that you see online of the
three D printed buildings are really really interesting. Now you
still need people to come in and actually fit them
out with everything that you need to live in the buildings,
So building structures with three D printing is cool technology,
but it's long ways to go to replacing the people
who actually build things. So I do think it's different.
You know, I very much agree with the concerns that.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Reporters or actors are expressing about.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Well they you know, AI can just take my voice
and take my image and rebuild it, and all of
a sudden, you've got this new entity that isn't me
doing something right. Construction, you know, we're a long ways
from construction robotics that can actually build things. There are
robotics tools, for instance, that make things easier on job
sites that are great to use. For instance, if you
had to lift eighty pound masonry blocks all day long.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
There are robots.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
They're actually one is called a mule that helps you
pick up those things and put them in place. You
see exoskeletons or things like that that people are playing
with to make jobs that are very heavy easier. But
the unique thing about construction is at least with today's technology,
and who knows how we'll develop over time, but it's
going to take a while to get there. I would
think is that these jobs can't be outsourced. Someone still
has to show up in the job site and put
(20:34):
the pieces together or do the finishing work to make
the buildings work and function as we want them to.
So the concern I think isn't as great if you're
in the construction industry versus a reporter or an actor
or some other performance type industry.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yeah, okay, that makes sense to me. I just wanted
to make sure that I wasn't missing something, you know
what I'm saying, because that was my part.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Roll And one of the sort of things that people
tend to focus on when they talk about construction is,
you know, there are all these concerns that you know,
AI will shift the jobs away, or outsourcing will shift
the jobs away. But you know, yes, you could build
steel and pieces and parts in China or India, but
you can't put those pieces and parts together in a
(21:14):
country across the ocean and then bring ship them here
and then put the job site together. So these jobs
really can't be outsourced today.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Right. I'm obviously just a really curious person, and you're
the expert. Is there anything that the audience needs to
know that I just haven't thought to ask you about.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
I think that you know.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
One of the things we've talked touched a little bit
on is you know, how construction has changed, but I
probably would talk about that a little bit more. A
lot of times when I talk to groups about construction,
they focus on aren't those jobs all hard? Heavy, dirty,
difficult to do? And sure some of them are, right,
a lot of you know, it's real work. But you
(21:55):
also have the advantage of being outside. If you like
being outside, you have the advantage of using your hands,
if you like using your hands to build things, you
have the ability to learn lots of different you know,
skills and crafts and trades and you know, and things
within the industry that aren't just defined by you know,
one thing. And I said earlier that technology changed a lot.
(22:16):
So a lot of times when people think about my
kid's going to go into a construction career, well they
think that's what you know, uncle Jerry did twenty years ago,
thirty years ago, or forty years ago. And those jobs
are a lot different now than they were twenty thirty
or forty years ago. So looking at the industry as
it's changed and developed, I think is interesting, and then
also looking completely at the career paths you know, just
(22:38):
because you start in the field today, and you might
have a fantastic career your entire career in the industry,
you know, working as a skilled construction mechanic or a
skilled construction worker and maybe being a foreman and a
superintendent or supervisor. But your paths are endless. You could
own a company someday, you could become a project manager,
an estimator. You could go get an engineering degree and
(22:58):
be a designer.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Or an architect.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Right, So the flexibility of just starting, I think could
take you a long ways.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
And not to mention the value specifically to your own family,
I mean, for me, that's one of the greatest things
about my husband being such a jack of all trades.
He's been a mechanic, he's been in construction, he's remodeled,
he's done you know, special events and all this kind
of stuff, and made furniture. He there's nothing that man
can't do. Like if I want something around the house,
(23:28):
or something goes wrong and it breaks, he knows what
to do. I don't have a clue, but he does.
And that's valuable too.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think I think that's hugely valuable. I mean, I
share a lot of that skill set. And there are
certain things I know I can't do well, so I
would hire someone else to do them, but I could
muddle through them. And I'm sure your husband is the
same way. And then you can impart that knowledge to
your children, right, and you know, teach them how to
maintain their own house or you know, fix the equipment
or the thing that's broken in the house. I mean,
I think that, you know, one of the greatest things
(23:55):
my father and my grandfather gave me.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Was that knowledge.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Yeah, this amount from them and my first house, my
wife and i's first house was a eighteen eighties Victorian
that we completely restored, oh wow, with my father's and
mostly my father's from some of my grandfather's help. And
you know, that's not a project I could have done
as a twenty three year old, but as a fifty
year old I could do that project now on my
own because of the things I learned while I.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Was doing it right, right, I just love it.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
My grandfather was in construction, and my dad was never
a mechanic by trade, but he just had that mechanical
brain and he was my mom bless his heart, would
call him an idiot savant when it came to cars
because he would just do things and it would just work,
you know. But yeah, I think that not only is
it valuable to the rest of the world, like we
(24:43):
talked about at the beginning, because we desperately have a
shortage of those people doing those things and doing them well.
Is the other issue I've learned too. I don't know
what happened in COVID, but I've seen a lot of
contractors and heard a lot of stories about contractors who
are still in the business who are not doing it well.
It's like, I don't know where the quality work went.
(25:05):
And I'm sure it's still out there, don't get me wrong,
but I just know I've heard a lot of stories
about people the job is only halfway done, or that's
too small of a job. I'm not even going to
come out and quote it, I guess because they're so busy.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
So you've got a couple things that are happening in
there that are in part demographic and national trends as
well as what happened during COVID. Right, So, first on demographics,
one of the reasons we have so many jobs open
in the construction industry, aside from increased demand in terms
of large projects, which we'll talk about in a minute,
is the fact that the baby boomers are retiring. The
(25:38):
oldest baby boomer's ever been retired for ten or fifteen years,
but the younger baby boomers are now retiring at a
high clip, which opens up a tremendous number of positions,
and the industry is losing.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Your point about quality.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
A lot of very highly skilled crafts people who really
know their trades, and it's hard to replace them on
day one. It takes years to build a skilled construction worker.
So just you know, magically hire somebody and you know,
flick a switch and have that have that new person
as good as the old person who's been there for
thirty or forty years and then learned all the tricks
and skills that they have to get them at that level.
(26:11):
And of course during COVID, you saw this giant spike
in demand because no one could travel, and you know,
everybody was home, and you had more money because you
weren't spending your vacation budget and you weren't going out
to dinner because the restaurants were closed.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
So what did you do.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
You renovated your house, right, Yeah, and you know, lots
of people said well, I'm bored, I'll be a contractor
or I need to you know, do something. And you know,
these contractors, I'm sure many with great intentions, took on
way too much work than they could finish. In some cases,
you know, smarter one certainly didn't do that, and then
they're left with, you know, projects unfinished or things that
weren't complete. I don't think you really saw that in
(26:45):
the commercial side of the industry, which I've been part
of it for a long time. You know, we never
shut down during COVID. We really just kept going, and
our project demand I think was pretty solid and consistent
during COVID.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
If you look at today's.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Industry, you know, a few years out of COVID, there
is a tremendous amount of commercial construction work that is
driven in part by COVID. You know, the reshoring of
American manufacturing, bringing these plants home to make the supply chain,
to lower the supply chain risk, or in the case
of you know, electronic cars and battery or electric cars
(27:18):
and batteries, you know, building these facilities in the United States,
whether it's for the chips that go in the cars
or the actual battery plants themselves or the car assembly
plants has led to a tremendous amount.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
Of work today.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
There are we track with Smart, which is our labor partner,
fifty four mega projects typically a mega projects product that's
of value over a billion dollars that are ongoing right
now and some of which have just finished, some are started,
but we actually have one hundred and ninety on the
total list.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
So that spike in demand means that there's a series
of long term employment which we think is going.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
To last a while.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, it sounds like we definitely need to get those
positions filled fast.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
And it's exciting because they open up a lot of opportunities.
You know, your traditional in the industry might take some
time to get to in terms of education and knowledge,
but you know, when we see these large projects, and
a lot of them are in areas that you know
have very low population density and of course low union
density as well, you know, the recruiting and the training
for them look very different.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
You're bringing in.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
People who you know, have never had a job as
probably well paying as they're getting in the construction industry,
but who also have never been on a job site.
So you're teaching them how to be safe, how to
do some basic skills, and you know, if they succeed
and want to be there longer, they learn more skills.
And I like to call this group of people recruiting
future apprentices and future journeymen, because they're going to become
(28:37):
long term players in the industry.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
And that's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah, that is very exciting. I know we've come to
the end of our time, but I want to give
you a chance to plug your website and if there
are any other resources that people can use to learn
more about the tool belt generation, sure.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I think specific to SMACKNA, you can go to SMACKNA
SMACNA dot org and learn more about our association and
all the great things we do for our members. You're
interested in becoming a sheet metal apprentice, I encourage you
to go to Smartsunion dot org, which is our labor
partner that you know helps run programs throughout the country
(29:10):
and the US and Canada. And if you're interested just
generally in the construction trades, you can you know, google
your local building trades and learn more about them. And
each market is different, each market is unique, and you know,
we strive to serve the needs of the contractors in
each of those areas.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Awesome. That was perfect. Thank you so much for your
time today. I really appreciate your time and your knowledge
sharing your knowledge with us.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be
with you today.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
I hope you've enjoyed today's show. Thanks for tuning into
the show on your favorite local radio station. You can
now listen to this show or past shows through the
iheartapp or on iHeart dot com. Just search for Virginia
Focus under podcasts. I'm Rebecca Hughes with the Virginia News Network,
and I'll be here next week on Virginia Focus.
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