Who the hell is Joe Cadwell??

Episode Transcript
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Joe Cadwell (00:08):
Hi, I'm Joe Cadwell, writer, producer, host
of Grit Nation. But in thisspecial episode of the building
trades podcast, I'll actually bethe guest on someone else's
show. Joining me today as I talkwith Nate Wadsworth from the
Essential Craftsman Podcast. Ifyou haven't heard of the
Essential Craftsman, you reallyshould check them out. I'm a big
fan of their YouTube channel,which is hosted by Nate's dad

(00:30):
Scott. In fact, I've beenrecommending his video series to
my carpenter apprentices foryears there as formative
education, educational, andhonestly, it's a lot of fun to
watch. He does a great job ofhis podcast, and I was super
excited for a chance to be onthe show. We opened our
conversation with me talkingabout my experience as a

(00:51):
military and professionalhardhat construction diver.
Later, we get into theimportance of organized labor
unions, opportunities and unionapprenticeship careers in the
building trades to what it meansto be a leader in today's fast
paced and highly competitivecommercial construction
industry. Embedded hyperlinksfor the Essential Craftsman in
the show notes and on the GritNation podcast website, which

(01:14):
you can find at www at GritNation podcast.com.
And now on the show.

Nate Wadsworth (01:27):
Hey guys, our guest today is Joe Cadwell.
Joseph, part of the PacificNorthwest carpenters Institute,
which is the local branch of theUBC, the United Brotherhood of
Carpenters. This is the bigunion that carpenters and a lot
of construction guys areinvolved with. So we talked
about unions. We also talkedabout a big portion of Joe's
career which was in which wasunderwater, not just welding,

(01:51):
but also welding. But I shouldsay commercial diving. This
means installations andinspections and rigging and all
kinds of things that happenunder the water with these
really specialized and highlytrained divers who were making
our world function. And Joe'shad a lot of expertise and

(02:12):
experience in really a wholecareer doing that. So I really
enjoyed this Joe has a podcastof his own grit nation, which we
will link to, which is a goodplace to find out more if you
like what you hear from Him.
Without any further ado, JoeCadwell.

(02:36):
Thank you for coming and takingtime out of your schedule. And
the first I think question Ihave for you is I'd love to hear
more about the NorthwestInstitute of carpentry or
carpenters Institute and kind ofwhat you do there and then
later, let's talk about thetrades, getting into it
apprenticeship programs, allthose types of things. But first
of all, tell us about the thecarpentry Institute there. Yeah.

(02:58):
Well,

thank you so much, Nate for having me on your show.
Again, my name is Joe Cadwell.
And I do work at the PacificNorthwest Carpenters Institute,
which is based in Portland. Weare a regional training center
for the Northwest carpentersunion, which is one of the 23
regional councils for the UnitedBrotherhood of Carpenters and
Joiners of America. And if for alot of listeners who maybe don't

(03:20):
know what the UBC is, it's anorganized labor union that's
been around for 141 years. It'sInternational which means all of
the US and Canada is representedwe have a half a million members
and the UBC has been in thebusiness for again 141 years
bettering its members lives.

Wow. Oh, wow. I didn't not realize it was a it
was a part of a huge chapter. Sois that like the are there other
carpenter unions or trade unionsaround carpentry besides that,
or is that basically it forcarpentry and North America?

That's a great question, Nate. And we are it
when you think of a carpentersUnion. The UBC is the carpenters
union, just like you have theIBEW for the electrical workers
or the plumbers Union or theteamsters for the truckers, or
the iron workers union. We arethe carpenters, the UBC and our
main office or headquarters, Ishould say, is based in

(04:15):
Washington, DC. And we have ourmain training center is in Las
Vegas. And we offer classes inLas Vegas that build leadership
development train the trainers,it's sort of the showpiece or
the flagship of all of ourtraining centers collectively,
they're in Las Vegas.

Oh, that's cool.
Carpentry is such a broad termand it you obviously think about
like I think about eitherframing a house or even like a
carpenter of old times, like youknow making furniture and
shaving wood with like a handplane but I know on your website
in general carpentry actually,at least in terms of the Union
encompasses a lot of otheraspects of construction besides

(04:56):
framing, so What else is a partof the carpenters union and the
trade as far as you guys areconcerned?

Yeah, absolutely.
You know, when you think aboutthe carpenters Union, we don't
really do the the home buildingtype of carpentry. We do have a
very small faction that does dothat. But we're really
commercial construction. And thecraft itself or the UPC
represents a number of differentcrafts from a general carpenter
to someone who does interior andexterior finishes. They're known

(05:26):
as EIS specialists. We work withfloor layers, we work with
millwrights. We work withscaffold erectors, we have a
pile drivers, which were puttingin the foundation's inshore on
skyscrapers or on the waterwhere they do a lot of work on
the water. And then myparticular craft while I've had
been in the UBC for the last 24years, has been commercial

(05:49):
diving. And I worked as acommercial diver for 30 years,
of which 22 Were with UBC. Andit's only been the last few
years that I've switched over toeducation here in the Northwest.
Wow.

So how did you get involved with diving as a
profession? That's not That'snot every other tradesmen is,
you know, has that as their astheir career? Yeah, you

know, that's a that's a great question. I
actually started diving when Iwas 12 years old, I was living
in Northern California. And mynext door neighbors got scuba
certified. They had a son whowas two years older than I was,
and I just wanted to tag alongwith that family. And when I
started doing that, I startedwith just free diving,

(06:33):
snorkeling, so to speak, mask,fins and snorkel. They would be
doing scuba in like Folsom,there in Sacramento, and I
thought it was just magical. Andso I really pestered my folks to
to get myself a scubacertification for Christmas. And
I was 12 years old. And theythought, well, you know, this is
just going to be a passing phasefad for a kid. And it wasn't I

(06:54):
was hooked from the very get go.
As soon as I strapped on a tankand put in a regulator and
started breathing underwater, Iknew that this was going to be
something I wanted to pursue inearnest. And so I did, and I
actually really focused ongetting as much time in the
water as I could, but still notnot being able to do much. But I
knew that it was going to be acareer. And if I wanted to make

(07:15):
diving a career, I would have tojoin the military. And I think
we're going to get into careeroptions a little bit later in
our conversation. But I didn'thave the grades to consider
going to college. I knew what Iwanted to do. I wanted to be a
Navy Diver. And so three daysafter exiting high school, I was
on the delayed entry program.
And I was on my way to bootcamp,which then transitioned to an a

(07:36):
school where I learned the skillof welding. And then I took that
skill set and I went to US Navydeep sea diving school, second
class divers school in PearlHarbor, Hawaii, and pretty,
pretty tough school to make itthrough. But I made it and I was
out in the fleet afterwards as asalvage diver on a ship called
the USS recovery based out oflittle creek, Virginia, the

(07:59):
amphib base in on the EastCoast.

Wow. So I'm sure the Navy and all the militaries
using diving for all types ofspecific applications. Talk
about what some of those are.
And then the what salvageentails what what you were
doing, you know, at that earlypart of your career.

Yeah, you bet. So the Navy you know, when when you
think about diving in the Navy,I think most people
instinctively go to the SEALs,Special Ops, folks, and the sea,
air and land. Special Forces usediving as a vehicle to get to
where we're going and the shipthat I was on for a period of
time we served as a platform forthe seals to use their

(08:38):
underwater vehicles in which toperform their operations. But
the SEALs really again, it'sjust part of their shtick that
the Navy divers are the onesthat actually do the repairs on
the ships. They can also beinvolved in the salvage work.
Oh, and then there's one othercomponent Nate its EOD Explosive
Ordnance Disposal also usesdiving as a vehicle to get to do

(09:00):
their job. But I specialized inhardhat diving we call it second
class dive school after secondclass if you were in the fleet
long enough you would stay in orin the program long enough you
would then go to first classdive school where you would
learn this mix gas theory. Andthen after mix gas there was
always the option to go into satdiving at that period of time,

(09:21):
but I actually did four years inthe military during that period
of time. I was a salvage diver.
And the my claim to fame the onething that I did not have the
opportunity to do but was soclose to happening was when the
Challenger blew up back in theearly 80s The space shuttle
Challenger and my our sistership and my ship were down for

(09:42):
repairs and it was a race to seewho was going to get their their
vessel operational and head downto Florida from from Virginia
and they beat us to it and so Imissed that out of that one. But
honestly I've I've done somereally amazing things in the
water with With construction andlots of adventures to talk about
if you're interested in yeahwhen I point out the Navy

when I think about like repairing a ship
underwater I instantly thinkokay there's a hole and the ship
is sinking and gotta like patchthat hole but I'm sure there's a
lot of other kind of routinemaintenance on these ships are
huge what all like what what issome of that like what what what
does that mean maintaining shipslike underwater you're like like
buying like grease fittings andlike greasing things.

I mean there's there's that aspect there's
whole cleaning is a big part ofit, making sure that you know,
the barnacles are not slowingdown the speed of the vessel.
But when you really think aboutships repair things that can't
be done in a dry dock, or it'snot feasible or it's it's
something that is better suitedto be done in the water could be
pulling off a prop, you know,and doing proper replacements.

(10:49):
Massive props on the back ofnavy vessels can be pulled off
in water and replaced in water.
There's packings that need to berepacked, there's sea chests
that need to be cleaned. So theyhave good inflow of water for
cooling systems, repairs torudders. But, you know, ideally,
you always want to try to get avessel into drydock. And you

(11:09):
literally lift the ship up outof the water. And that's
something else that divers do,they'll set the blocks. So that
inner drydock so when the shipcomes in to line up, it's not
going to crush something that ison the bottom of the ship and it
makes sure that the ship doesn'ttip over into drydock. So

what what is hardhat referred to you right,
you said a hardhat. diver, whatdoes that

feel great. Yeah, again, most people think of, you
know, diving they think ofscuba, and that's self contained
underwater breathing apparatus,it's a tank and it's a
regulator. We actually use thethe helmets that most people are
probably familiar with the oldbrass helmets, the giant Mark
five dive helmet is is a thingof the past and now they've you
know, for the last Jeez 40 yearsor so, Kirby Morgan diving

(11:55):
helmets are the name in theindustry. And it's just a way to
protect the divers head it, ithas a small internal space, you
actually have an oral nasal cupthat your mouth and nose fit
into that that cut down on thecarbon dioxide amount inside the
helmet. It provides forcommunication, it provides a
platform to put lights andcameras on and it's a it's part

(12:18):
of a package. I mean, we callthat the helmet is obviously
what's on your head, you stillwear a bottle on your back a
bailout bottle in case for somereason the surface supplied air
that your is being provided toyou as the diver while while
you're doing your job shouldshould be compromised, you can
go on to bail out and try to getyourself off bottom or buy a
little time until they figureout where the problem went

(12:39):
wrong. You wear a harness thatattaches an umbilical divers
umbilical is your lifeline. Soto speak, you have your air
supply. There you have thestrength member in case you
really need to come up hard andfast on someone in the water,
you've got a strength memberthat's going to be able to
support that you have acommunications cable, you have

(12:59):
something called a pneumo fatometer. And it's an open ended
tube that basically the topsidesupervisor will be able to
accurately monitor your depth inthe water. You have your lights
and camera cable. And then ifyou're lucky enough and you work
for a company that's progressiveenough, they'll actually provide
the diver with hot water. Andit's like hot water is cooked in

(13:20):
a boiler on the surface. Andit's sent down the hose to the
diver and it plugs into anoversized wetsuit with
perforated tubing that run upthe head, the back legs and arms
and you're almost in a personalJacuzzi. And it's it's amazing
because you know, you we work inwater as cold as freezing, I've
actually been in water belowfreezing, but because it was
moving, it hadn't yetsolidified. And when you're in

(13:42):
that kind of water, you know, itdoesn't matter how tough you
are, after a certain period oftime, your mind begins to wander
and go off task. But having thathot water being bathed in in
nice, you know, warm water willdefinitely keep you focused.

I can't imagine the I say luxury but probably
after you experience it, itdoesn't feel like a luxury it
feels like a safety. I can'timagine what an improvement that
would be to those those guys

massive, massive massive and you know a lot of
times we're in the water fromanywhere from from four to six
hours. And if you're in thewater for four to six hours, you
really do begin to appreciatethat you know summer months
there's now in the rivers andshallow waters not really a need
for it. But when when the watergets below 50 degrees and it

(14:28):
sort of overcomes the the theabilities of a dry suit to keep
you warm and comfortable andfocused and on track of what
your what the work at hand is.
You definitely appreciate thathot water.

That's amazing.
So and kind of circling back tothe UBC the union acronym there.

The yeah the United Brotherhood of Carpenters
Joiners of America.

So is underwater welding underneath their
umbrella of trades. It sure islike oil tankers who are I'm
sorry oil rigs, those underwaterWell, there's are, are likely a
part of it, of this union also,

that actually they are not. And, you know, we'll
talk, hopefully, we'll talk alittle bit about union structure
and market shares and thingslike that. But the petroleum
industry down in the Gulf ofMexico is historically a non
union arena. And so we don'thave a lot of union presence. I
think it was post Katrina,Hurricane Katrina that came
through some years ago, therewas a huge vacuum in the Gulf of

(15:26):
Mexico, and they brought in alot of our union contractors to
get get the work done. Buthistorically, the petroleum
industry, one of the, you know,arguably one of the richest
industries in the world isnotorious for not paying their
divers very well. And so we havebecause the lack of a union
presence, so here in the PacificNorthwest, for example, we're

(15:48):
union strong in the divingworld, and most of the
contractors of size and, andability here in the Northwest
are union contractors. Andthrough those negotiated wages,
divers make a really solidliving, you know, and again,
going back to what you weretalking about with underwater

(16:09):
welding? Yes, it is part of theUBC structure. But again, with
half a million members acrossthe US and Canada. I think if I
remember, clearly, we'resomewhere just around 1200
unionized divers withstrongholds here in the
Northwest and the Midwest, likein Chicago area, and definitely
over on the east coast of youknow, Boston, New York,

(16:31):
Philadelphia and those areas,but you start drifting south and
south down into Florida and theGulf and we lose market share
and the wages plummet because ofthat. Yeah.

Interesting. So in the northwest, for example,
again, when I think ofunderwater, not just welding,
but let's just say, work. Ithink of oil, and I think of
military as like the two, Idon't know, areas where there's
probably I can imagine, like alot of work needs to be done,
what other types of places andpeople are hiring underwater

(17:01):
welders for, you know,construction?

Okay, great question. And again, you know,
the romantic notion. Nate of adiver welding underwater is
really just that it's a romanticnotion. We don't really do that
much welding, most of the thingsthat are put into the water that
have been welded or weldedtopside, they're inspected,
they're powder coated orpainted, they're sent down and

(17:23):
then they're flashed and boltedup, flashed up and put together
by divers underwater. We reallydo try to get away from
underwater welding because itreally is time consuming. And it
is a very, very specialized I amI can stick metal together
underwater. Don't get me wrong,but it's truly an art form.
Welding in an in and of itselfis an art form on the surface

(17:46):
when you put someone underwater,it's just a long, tedious
process. And not everyone is aPicasso. Not everyone has that
same ability. And so we'd muchcontractors and customers who
would much rather have it weldedtopside, inspected, painted, put
in the water and boltedtogether. So to answer your
question, what else does a diverdo if they're not down there for

(18:06):
hours on end burning weldingrods? We do a lot of work for
the Army Corps of Engineers herein the Pacific Northwest. The
Columbia River and the SnakeRiver have a tremendous amount
of Army Corps dams, startingwith Bonneville which is the
first dam upstream from fromAstoria, and then you have the
Dow's down John de dam, McNaryDam all the way up the Columbia

(18:30):
River. All of those dams overthe last 20 years have gone
through a lot of retrofits totry to make suitable passage for
the small small can fry afterthe salmon go up river and
spawn. Those small small and frywhen they start exiting, or

(18:50):
leaving their spawning grounds,so to speak, heading out to the
ocean to mature have to make itpast these dams. And there's
they only have a couple options.
You know, they either go throughthe turbines, or they go through
the spillways and both of themare just horrible. Turbine is
basically a giant blender and aspillway just disoriented to
Saurian so small, small and fryto such a level that it they're

(19:10):
easy pickings on the downstreamside for birds of prey and
things like that. So over theyears, I've made a fairly good
living on those dams, putting insafe passage that
environmentalists would firstidentify as viable means of
rerouting the fish around there.
We put in prototypes, we'd putin monitoring gear, and then the

(19:34):
studies would go on, we'd pullall that stuff out, they may
revise what they we put in thewater one season, modified a
little bit, put it in the nextseason, and then eventually we'd
put in the full size structure.
And again, it's all aboutallowing safe passage for those
smaller fish to make itdownstream. Headed upstream, the
adult salmon, fish ladders workreally well. There was a period
of time a few years back wherewe were actually helping the

(19:56):
lamp right yields to be able tomake it Safe Passage upstream
because a lamp right yielddoesn't use the same sort of
flying out of the watertechnique that salmon do to get
over these fish ladders.
lampreys have a different and sothey actually made almost like a
sluice gate for them to climbup. Yeah, so it's interesting
work. We do a lot of salvagework there's a lot of work on on

(20:20):
bridges as well salvage work,I'll back up a little bit we do
a lot of salvage work usuallythe bigger salvage work some of
the bigger ships that have hadsome difficulty on the Columbia
River. There's the emergencycall outs as well for the
different tag lines here in theNorthwest. And we do a lot of
just intake work. So if any, anyindustry be it a farm out in

(20:41):
Hermiston, or be it an aluminumplant here in Portland, they're
drawing water in from the river,you can't just have a big open
pipe, sucking in whatever on theriver you have to have some sort
of filtration system. And thoseare what we call intakes and
then a lot of times after theplant or factory or whatever is
has utilized that water andcleaned it up and is getting

(21:03):
ready to go back into the river.
They actually have out outflowsand they're those always need
repair as well installing duckbills, cleaning out the pipe,
things like that. So yeah, thediving community is really a
tight community here in thePacific Northwest I think
there's about 140 to 160 folkslike myself before I retired
from the from the trade whoactually make a living full time

(21:25):
as commercial divers. Wow, that

is so interesting. It's one of these
things that is existing rightalongside me I'm in the
Northwest but everywhere aroundthe world, these these this
expertise and these careers andas critical, almost like
infrastructure work that'shappening that most people just
really don't think about asmuch.

Right? And with diving, we're out of sight out
of mind, you know, dive crewswere usually remote and and then
the divers themselves areunderwater so you only see him
when they come up and switch outand the next person gets in and
you jump in the

water and I see like a structure like maybe it's
like a dock pier or even thebottom of a boat. I just get
this creepy feeling and I'm whatdoes that does that ever like
pass and you ever kind of feelless creepy looking at
structures underwater? Or isthat just part of the job?

It I think, you know, at a certain point, it's
part of the job. I was alwaysfascinated by it. I remember one
of my the very first dive out ofmy recreational dive class that
I took back in the late 70s. Iwas in the Sacramento River. And
my my buddy and I we kind ofhave messed up on our planning a
little bit. And we were divingsolo because we only had one

(22:40):
backpack to hold our, our tankon and here I am 12 years old. I
might my dad's listening nowhe's he's shaking his head. 12
years old, my buddy went downfirst dropped about 40 feet into
the Sacramento River and alittle Eddy there and he goes,
Man, it's gonna be creepy whenyou get down there. And I said,
Why is that he goes all thesalmon that had spawned and
died. It's just like a massgraveyard down there. And I was

(23:01):
like, oh, so again, you know, myvery first dive out of class,
the number one thing they say isalways dive with a buddy. Well,
what am I doing not diving witha buddy, I get this gear on, I
dropped down nice and slowthrough the water column and it
it goes dark pretty quick. Andit's kind of murky until I get
about five feet off bottom. Andthe first thing I see when I get
close to bottom and thevisibility turns crystal clear.

(23:22):
It's just it's just hundreds andhundreds of dead Sam and they're
just they're different. Arraysof decay. And yeah, it was
interesting. So that started meoff. Since then, you know, I've
seen some some amazing things,some some big animal encounters.
After I exited the military, Iended up teaching scuba diving

(23:44):
for eight years in the SouthPacific in the Caribbean, I was
really, really fortunate to beable to work in countries like
Australia, and Thailand andMexico and just in Fiji and just
really enjoyed thoseinteractions with with the
marine life with the big animalsand with the customers as well.

(24:05):
I would literally teach peopleto to feel comfortable in a
completely foreign and exoticworld and enjoy the heck out of
that. But when I turned 29, Irealized when I was in the
country of Sweden, where I hadfollowed one of my students to
her homeland that things weregoing to need to change. And
that's why I had to shift gearfrom from teaching scuba diving

(24:26):
and get back into my roots. Andthat again goes back to the hard
hat diving that I had knowledgereceived in the military.

So that's when it became a little more
commercial oriented in terms ofthe building and construction
underwater work as opposed tothe more recreational side even
though there's a you know, moneyto be made and certainly a lot
of people earning a livingfocusing on that aspect of
diving but you kind of recenterto the commercial aspect.

Yeah, I definitely had to I mean, after eight years
of teaching, diving and allthese remote locales, I really
had a A tan that was fading fastin a bank account that was
fading even faster. So I washappy to have the head had the
opportunity in the military toget a skill set that I could
fall back on. And it turned outto be the best decision I could

(25:16):
have made after having leftSweden as a commercial diver
there for a few years working inland primarily, I ended up here
in the Northwest and stumbledinto my my union job. And I and
I did not know much aboutunions. I think we talked about
this Yeah, earlier. I just likeyou I didn't really know much
about unions. I didn't know whatthey provided and the structure

(25:37):
and, and the opportunity thatwas in front of me. And I'm so
glad that I did recognize it andgrab hold of that opportunity
when it presented itself.

So talk let's talk about unions a little bit.
And maybe your experience is aperfect place to start because
I've always had this conceptionthat getting let's say a union
job, or I don't know, justgetting involved is challenging.
You know, I've always thoughtlike the union guys is like the
highest level expert, they getpaid the most. They are really
well trained. And I just alwaysassumed that those jobs are

(26:10):
tough to get but it How doessomeone go about getting trained
to work for a union? You saidyou kind of stumbled into it?
Which I'm sure there's a storythere. But if someone's
listening to this, and they alsodon't know a lot about unions,
but they, you know, their faultthey're tracking with us. How do
you explain this to him?

Yeah, well, I you know, they are I won't say
they're, they're hard to get,they're hard to retain. Because,
obviously as union carpenters,whether you're a commercial
diver or a general carpenter andEIS specialist, and millwrights,
scaffold director, or piledriver, we do demand a higher

(26:49):
wage of living. Okay, throughcollective bargaining, we've
already negotiated that with ourunion contractors. And so we
right off the bat have a livablewage as a union member, we also
earn benefits medical, dentaland vision benefits for our not
only for the member for the forthe for their families, as well.
Add to that a pension packagethat we are contributing

(27:11):
contributed to access totraining, which keeps us
definitely on the cutting edgeof technology and advances in
construction, we haverepresentation through union
representation that look out forour best interests on the job.
And then we also have saferworking conditions. So all of
those things got all that comesat a premium, and no one is
digging into their pockets acustomer when given the

(27:34):
opportunity between paying ahigher premium for a union
contract, or a non unioncontractor is digging in their
pockets to give money to theUnion contractors, because we're
better looking at, you know,because we, we we roll up in
nicer rigs, no, we are bettervalue for those customers. And
that is the bottom line where,you know, there's people out
there that would just eat ourlunch on a day to day basis, if

(27:55):
we did not provide better value.
And a bottom line, we get workdone on time we get it under
budget, we get it with fewercallbacks, we do quality work
with less accidents. And that'sthat's the beauty of having
training, and someone who canenforce regulations. And that's
basically what a union does. Youknow, our, our carpenters union,
I like to say is been around 140years, not not in the business

(28:19):
of carpentry. But really in thebusiness of bettering its
members lives. Carpentry is abyproduct, everything that we do
is a byproduct of us being ableto focus on our job, and having
the skills to get it done. Andthat is one of the bigger things
and not to speak disparaginglyabout folks who are maybe
listening and not in a union.
But there are a lot of benefits.
And a lot of people have tobeing in a union. And a lot of

(28:42):
people have a misconception thatunions are, you know, all they
want is my money. Oh, they justwant my union dues? Well, well,
absolutely. I mean, unions inand of themselves are a for
profit business, you need tohave income coming in to our
organization to keep it viable.
And I once heard someone say,you know, if you want to help a

(29:03):
few people out, start anonprofit, you want to help a
bunch of people out start a forprofit. And that's sort of the
structure of the Union, it takesmoney to, to hold the
organization together to be ableto work with politicians to pass
laws that are favorable, notjust for union contractors, but
for non union contractors. Andthose are prevailing wage laws,
both on the state and thefederal level. So unions kind of

(29:24):
run deep in their, in theirexpectation that the people that
work for them are going to bemotivated to get the job done,
and work with pride andprofessionalism. And I think
that's kind of where, where I'dlike to go with with the next
question, I hope. Yeah,

yeah. Well, for sure. So talk about getting
involved in a union in terms ofcareer because I really, I'm
past the point in my life whereI'm thinking about my career in
terms of like, what am I goingto do like, I'm turning 40 In a
couple of months. And so thatship has sailed, but I think
often about when I was youyounger thinking about that and,

(30:02):
and how many options there arethat I did not know about at
all. For example, theseapprenticeship programs, like we
have a community college not farfrom here that offers some
apprenticeship programs, and Idid a semester that community
college, but I took like anEnglish class and a German class

(30:22):
and a music theory class. Ididn't know there was an
electricians, apprenticeshipprogram class happening, like
one building over. And I didn'tknow that electricians like come
out of the gate making. I don'tknow what back then. But I'm
sure it was way more than I wasexpecting. I didn't know that.
And so anyways, unions have a dothey have a separate type of

(30:45):
apprenticeship route? Or is itis it the same thing just taught
by different teachers talk aboutfrom

do have an apprenticeship, a structure or
structure to ourapprenticeships. But I'd like to
before I address that, actuallygo into that that more of a
systemic issue with with kids inhigh school, you know, not being
given a viable pathway of thetrades as an option when they're
gearing to graduate everyone,for decades now has been pushed

(31:16):
towards college colleges, theonly way to financial security
and professional success inAmerica. And it's become pretty
glaringly obvious that that is afallacy that, you know, people
that that find themselves in a100,000 150,000 $200,000 debt
can actually literally walk outof a four year program at the

(31:37):
University of Washington orUniversity of Oregon or Oregon
State or Harvard, or whereveryou go into college and actually
find you're holding a piece ofpaper that was rendered
obsolete, that, you know, theweek before because of advances
in technology, or worse yet, hadbeen shipped off shore because
someone found it was easier toget people that could get the
work done, but didn't need thatfancy degree to have it done.

(31:58):
The and that's unfortunate, andI and I've been in contact with
a lot of career counselorslately, who are beginning to see
that they're not quite settingtheir their their charges up for
success that the people thatthey are supposed to be helping
find a future by directing themsolely to colleges is not doing

(32:19):
them any any justice. And soit's become, again, really
apparent that the blue collartrades, the building trades are
offering viable pathways tomiddle class lifestyle in
America that in jobs withdignity, their first choice
careers. So our organization,the Pacific Northwest carpenters
Institute, is one of theseregional training centers for

(32:42):
the UBC that will take peoplethat are green as new mowed
grass, and show them what end ofthe hammer to hold kind of like
what your dad does got to showthem how to mark on a board from
very basic entry folks. And thenafter four years of a tuition
free construction College, givethem a skill set that can't
again, be rendered obsoleteovernight, or outsource the work

(33:03):
that's being done here in the USand Canada is being done by
workers that, you know, have theskills to do so. And so I'm
really really fortunate to haveexited my chosen career as a
commercial diver to find anopportunity at PNC AI. And now I
am the coordinator for themillwrights pile drivers and our

(33:24):
carpenters and EIS specialist inCentral Oregon, like the Ben
Prineville, Redmond area.

Did you say tuition free?

It is tuition free, sir, absolutely. So you have to
apply to the program. And wehave a vetting process. It
starts by filling out anapplication on PN CI dot o RG.
Once your application issubmitted, and you are then
invited to what we call a prehire, it's a way to find out
more about the organization, thestructure of the unions, the

(33:55):
structure of the apprenticeship,the expectations of our union
contractors, you go through thatonline pre hire, the next step
is an interview. And you'reactually interviewed by by two
sides of the table, the unioncontractor side and the union
side and people that have workedin your particular trade. So if
you're interested in being a apile driver, for instance, the

(34:16):
folks that are going to beasking you the questions are
from that that field, andthey're going to try to get a
sense of what your drivingpurposes is pile driving, is
this going to be an opportunityfor you to better your life and
give you a career that you aretruly interested in. There's
just something you're just kindof trying to stick your foot in

(34:37):
the pool, you know, and test thewater and see if that's all
right. The reality is ourmembers this our members
supported apprenticeshipprograms. And so we're really
selective because we want tomake sure that that our members
money's being utilized well, andwith no one wants to see someone
get in and spend a year or twoand decide that this wasn't for

(34:58):
them. So we're selective on thefront. then the work eventually
will weed out, you know, the,the folks that truly didn't want
to be there. And it's adifficult, as you know, Nate,
you know, construction is adifficult industry. But if you
can get that application in thatpre hire, done that interview
done and get yourself onto aunion job through a dispatch,

(35:19):
then you begin yourapprenticeship and it is a four
year long tuition freeconstruction College, the only
thing that you're on the hookfor at the end of four years is
about a little under $300 worthof books and materials.
Everything else is taken careof. It's the best kept secret in
the building trades. So you

have this like skeptical, like, it doesn't make
sense. So because obviously itcosts a lot of money to educate
and hire $20,000. Withfacilities, that's exactly I, I
understand why college isexpensive, you know, because it
costs a lot of money to run acollege and all of the things
all of everything that goes withit. And this is a little
different, but a lot of thosesame costs exist. So in other

(36:00):
words, someone can leave uptheir four year apprenticeship
program, and owe $300 And, andhave a career a career like that
certification or journeymanlevel or whatever the level
before journeyman but they'requalified to apply for
positions.

Yeah, as you you'll you'll have a journey level card
and you have the skills again,you know, your learning doesn't
stop once you exit our trainingprogram. Now you have the next
1520 25 years of your life to tocontinue to refine your craft.
But it is it does sound too goodto be true. But every hour that
a union member works here in thePacific Northwest $1.07 of that

(36:41):
goes to funding our educationprograms either for the for the
apprentices or for the journeylevel workers. So if a member
works 2000 hours a year, there's$2,000 going into a slush fund
that we use to fund theseapprenticeship programs and the
continuing education programsthat are both our apprentices
and journey level workers cantake advantage of to keep

(37:02):
themselves competitive, so thatwe can offer more opportunities
for contractors,

how often are people applying who aren't like,
let's say, like, a little deeperin their career, they're maybe
not right out of high school,but maybe they're in their 30s
or 40s are people kind of usingthis as a new start for a tote,
we get a lot of emails frompeople who are not satisfied
with like a job they have andthey you mentioned romanticizing
underwater welding, well, we seethat and get emails with people

(37:30):
romanticizing every aspect ofconstruction, like I just want
to be swinging a hammer, youknow, in the sun, and it does
like sound nice. And maybethere's moments that are very
nice. There's also a lot ofmoments that are a lot of it's
tough

and grueling and Yeah. But it's a deeply
satisfying when you have thosestepback moments when you and a
crew have finished a project andyou can step back, put your
hands on your hips and andrealize that you have just built
something that is going to bethere for generations. I call it
generational wealth, you know,that bridge, that school, that
courthouse, that stadium, thatis generational wealth, and that

(38:05):
is something that, you know, indecades from now, your your kids
or your grandkids will be ableto point out and say, Yeah,
Granddad built that courthouse,you know, and it's something
that is so many of the the thecollege degrees are not
preparing people for a lot ofthat is that you push a button
and your work goes away. Andmaybe it maybe someone sees it,
maybe someone just brown filesit you never know. So it is it

(38:28):
is interesting this this turnbecause there is a definite
skills gap going and skills gapgrowing in America and Canada,
where there's just not enoughpeople to do that hard work. And
so many people are, areconvinced that, you know, oh,
carpentry or the building tradesare for folks that couldn't cut
it in college? Well, no, noteveryone is designed to for

(38:49):
higher education to that, thatlevel that that college degree,
people that like to not onlywork with their hands, but work
with their head, are the onesthat are out there building the,
you know, the infrastructure ofAmerica. So it's, it's, we need
to start bridging the skillsgap. And one of the ways that we
are really working on it here atin our organization, the UBC is

(39:09):
through development ofleadership and leaders and
through communication,development, and making sure
that we have people that notonly can do the work but can
inspire other people to do theirbest on the job. And that has
been one of the major culturalshifts and construction
industry. I mean, decades ago,and I'm sure your dad knows
about it, you know, safety waswas sort of an afterthought, you

(39:30):
know, production gets done firstand we'll worry about safety,
you know, last, that's changed.
Obviously, we're very litigioussociety, and people like to sue
the heck out of each other. Soit made good sense just try to
cut down on the amount ofaccidents and injuries on the
job. And so safety has becomeone of those major cultural
shifts and in the buildingtrades, drugs and alcohol is

(39:51):
zero tolerance now and so manycontractors again, are really
enforcing that which isfantastic because you don't
Don't be working at, you know,at heights or underwater or
moving heavy steel or, or wiringup anything and have somebody
who's who's not, you know, fullfully cognizant next year. And
then this last cultural shiftreally has been about leadership

(40:12):
development and communication,training and making sure that,
you know, we have the ability torespect each other on the job
that we encourage each other todo their best, and to, to really
meet our customers needs throughthat level of professionalism
that seems to be lacking. Doesthat mean like

in addition to teaching the trade skills that
come out having classes and timelearning these leadership
principles and how tocommunicate better? Is that Is
that what you mean by?
Absolutely? Or is it a separatetype of person you're training
to communicate?

No, we're, you know, I like to start because
again, having transitioned outof the field into my coordinator
position, and an instructor atthe PNC AI, I work a lot with
the first and second term peoplethat are just coming straight
and don't have a whole lot ofexperience. And I started
planting those seeds ofleadership and communication
from day one, because over thenext four years, as they work

(41:08):
their way through our program,it's going to be reinforced, and
their amount of responsibilityis going to be increased, and
they need to be able to leadcrews. So I think it's, it's
super important to start thatfrom the very getgo and not wait
until someone has exited ourprogram and not wait till
they're recognized as someonewho can get the work done. And
then all of a sudden, it's like,Hey, man, that guy really can

(41:29):
frame up, you know, get that getthat framing done, or, or lay
down those weld beads orwhatever, you'd make a great
foreman. And now they're stuck.
You know, they're, they're acraftsperson, who's now been
thrust into this managementposition without any education
and focus on leadership andcommunication. So it's, there's
no better time than the veryfirst day of the very first

(41:49):
class of a four year long.
Construction college. And that'smy, my approach. And a lot of
the folks that within ourorganization, that is what we
pride ourselves on. Now, the UBCis developing leaders in the

school, there's so many jobs that you take, and
I've had a lot where you kind ofget there and you're told, like,
Okay, this is what you do, dothis thing. And you might do it
for whatever a month or yearswithout knowing what comes after
that, or what you could evolveinto by mastering that, you
know, almost like you have likeblinders on. Like, this is what
I do so, and actually thinkabout high school and, you know,

(42:26):
education that way, where we areeducating kids on lots of
things, but some of the basicslike financial decision making
and how insurance works, whichkind of never got mentioned, in
those situations, it kind ofreminds me of that, like these
skills are important. Butwithout these other all other

(42:46):
important skills. You can, Idon't know, put yourself in a
box a little bit and from minuteone for for a kid or a new hire
thinking like, Okay, this wayyou got to do and, you know,
after a few years, you might beoperating that machine or
driving that equipment or Idon't know something else that I
could see that being veryinspiring for someone who's has

(43:09):
like a more mundane part of thejob at the moment to understand
like, oh, I can see a biggerpicture than just a task at
hand.

Absolutely right.
And like you said, just just afew minutes ago, in regards to
opportunity, our averageapprentice that comes into PNC
is 27 years old. So we're notgetting kids right out of high
school, we get very few kidsright out of high school because
they it's a differentgeneration. And again, the the
system hasn't really directedthem towards the trades. So we
get people that may have gone tocollege, maybe liked it maybe

(43:40):
didn't you know and or went outand did some other type of work
experiences. And then one way oranother found out about the
union apprenticeships and so 27years old is our average
apprentice. And it's, it's greatto see the transformation and
people. I see both ends of thespectrum where I work out at PNC
AI because again, I work a lotwith the first and second term

(44:00):
people that are coming straightin don't know much about the
trades. And then I also teachOSHA and CPR first aid which is
one of the very last classesthey get at at PNC AI and the
transformation between a firsttermer and an eighth termer is
remarkable someone is gettingready to journey out the amount
of self confidence the amount ofskills, how they hold
themselves, how theycommunicate, is just really

(44:21):
really impressive. And it makesme really proud to be part of an
organization that can provideopportunity for someone in the
trades and treat it like aprofession and not something
that yeah, I couldn't figure outanything else to do in life.
Now. This is a first choicecareer and a career that again,
is going to provide for you andyour family for decades to come.

(44:43):
If you take care of yourself andyou you put in the hard work man
I've I've profited greatly fromit. And again I stumbled into
it. I did not know what I wasgetting into but I am so
thankful that I have because itnow at age 57 You know I'm just
very close. for being able toretire if I wanted to, which is
phenomenal with a really solidretirement. Yeah, I can't say

(45:04):
enough about the unions and, andthe building trades and the
importance of development ofleaders. And that's why I
started the grid nation podcast,which I'm hoping we're gonna be
able to get into here in alittle bit. About a year and a
half ago, I did start my ownpodcast to address a lot of the
things that we've been talkingabout to shine a positive light

(45:28):
on what it means to be someoneworking in the blue collar
trades in North America, and theopportunities that are available
to us and my podcast. I muchlike yours, I interview people,
industry experts, people thatare have a lot to say about what
it means to to hold a job withdignity, in the in the building

(45:48):
trades. And you've had

a lot of really interesting guests on there, and
a nice variety of just differenttypes of experts with different
views on these things. Has thatbeen? I'm assuming it's been
interesting? What kinds ofthings have you learned and in
what ways has hosting thispodcast and having these
conversations changed how you'veeven thought about, you know,

(46:13):
maybe your own career and yourown things you already thought
you knew a lot about?

Yeah, it's amazing to me, the more I learned, the
more I recognized how little Ithought I knew, or you know how
little I really knew, every timeI meet someone that adds a
little bit more depth to whatlabor history is and the
struggles that it took to getthings that we take for granted.
Nowadays, the weekend, two daysoff Saturday and Sunday 48 hours

(46:40):
back to back is a fairly newconstruct in the in the the
larger arc of mankind. I mean,it's only been really 100 Just
over 100 years that the weekendshave been here yet. We grew up
with weekends. Our folks grew upwith weekends. their
grandparents may or may not knewwhat a weekend wasn't their
great grandparents definitelydidn't know what it what they
were. So you know, understandingthe role that when, when

(47:06):
organized labor bands togetherto to fight for things like time
off safer working conditions.
It's it's huge. I've learned alot about again, communication.
I talked with a lot of peoplethat are leaders in the industry
like Ken Rusk, who wrote a bookcalled Blue Collar cash. And
again, Ken's recently been onwith Mike Rowe from dirty jobs

(47:27):
on a video that is addressingthat skills gap that we talked
about earlier. So having theopportunity to talk with someone
like Ken Ross was amazing. Iinterviewed a motivational
lifestyle coach, if you willnamed Brian Bogert on the show
and Bryan belgard, at the age ofseven, literally had his left
arm ripped off his body in aparking lot of Walmart in

(47:50):
Arizona by a pickup truck. Andin Fortunately for him was able
to have it reattached, andlistening to Brian's story and
how he did not allow thatadversity to permanently stain
the rest of his life and theinspiration that he and the
strength that he drew from thator injury early on in his life
is truly inspirational. And itjust talks about the tenacity,

(48:12):
determination, the grit that isneeded to get through day to day
work, and, and if you're in theconstruction industry to get
through your day to day on thejob.

I listened to that interview, and I've been
thinking about it non stop,because I have kids. And it's
funny how when you listen to aconversation like that, and he
didn't dwell on the accident forvery long, he had a lot of other
important things to talk about.
But isn't it funny how you canhear just something that
somebody might say or somethingthey even heard? That really
just sticks and like I said, II've always been aware of safety

(48:43):
with kids in parking lots, butI'm telling you, I think about
it differently after listeningto that and thinking, wow, and
he wasn't even being like, youknow, reckless running around.
He was kind of to stand up therebeing a kid. Yeah. Yeah, hearing
these things that being able to,like absorb the stories of that
or you know, have that I wouldhave never known had you not

(49:07):
taken the time to put thattogether. It's pretty cool.
Well,

thank you. Yeah, it's been a labor of love. You
know, when I first started thepodcast a year and a half ago, I
knew I liked the listen topodcast I wanted to to be able
to reach a larger audience Ididn't quite have an
understanding of of how wellreceived the show would be so
when it first started it wasGrit Northwest a carpenters
union podcast and I thoughtwell, you know, just to my
students and some some localfolks but you know, when you put

(49:34):
things out on the worldwide weband through word of mouth, the
show began to grow and grow andgrow and and so I figured, you
know, let's rebrand it to gritnation, the building trades
podcast and let's make it moreaccessible to to folks and it's
not just not heavy unionism atall it's about just shining a
positive light on the on peoplethat choose to do the hard work
of building good infrastructureof America. And then I approach

(49:58):
the subjects by what interestFor me, I've listened to a lot
of other podcasts that dealwith, with labor specific
issues. And they really seem toget deep in the weeds pretty
fast. And that I'm sure theyhave an audience for that. But I
like a more well rounded varietyand meeting people in different
discussions of you know what itwhat it means to be a

(50:18):
craftsperson in the US, kind oflike your show here. It's just,
you know, it's interesting, it'sinformative, and like you say,
you don't, you don't have to behit over the head, hard to get
the message, you can pick outwhat you want out of it. And it
sounds like you and an attentionto kids and parking lots seem to
resonate. So I'm happy if I canreach out and, and affect a few
people's lives for the better. Ifeel like I'm doing a good job.

(50:39):
And I'm

not gonna mention just giving people a
chance to get something from thehorse's mouth I got, you know, I
learned a lot about unions fromlistening to your show. And I
came I just really only know andhad know what you hear from
others. And there's just so muchI don't know everybody has like
their own experience that givethem the reasons why they might

(51:02):
have a strong opinion aboutthings which is perfectly fair,
but it's pretty cool to have aconversation or even just listen
to a conversation with someonewho might have had quite
different experience with acould be a union and that topic
but even just trades in generaland and careers like you know
that that is quite differentthan something I could go to

(51:23):
come across on my own andhearing about unions in this way
is pretty i My only otherexperience firsthand with unions
was an my buddy had a next doorneighbor who was a union boss. I
don't know if that's an I know,it's not a technical career.
That's all I knew

that sounds like the mafia there.

I know that he was like, Oh, this he was a
really skilled woodworker. Hewas in his garage, just like
building stuff. And he's retiredand my buddy just Well, yeah, he
was a union boss for a longtime. And a really cool guy. And
I literally all I knew was like,I asked him once or twice, but
what's that? What was that?
Like? He was from back East. Andhe had some interesting stories.
But anyways, I really appreciatethat you're putting this stuff

(52:00):
out there and bringing awarenessthat what you shared about that
tuition program, at your schoolthere of giving people this,
this training and thisapprenticeship program for
basically nothing, obviously,they have to apply and kind of
earn the right to be there. Butwow, talk about talk about a
life changing podcast forsomebody who might with if not

(52:23):
this one, maybe something elseyou're doing where they might go
down that route, and really helpthem out. So yeah, I

sure hope so.
Again, you know, whether it'sgoing to be in carpentry with
UBC, or the Steel Workers Union,the Electrical Workers Union,
the plumbers, union, thelaborers, all have great
programs. I'm particularly proudof the UPC, and again towards
our emphasis and not justgetting people who can do the
work but lead the work. And ifyou're interested going to
carpenters dot o RG carpenterswith an S dot o RG will get you

(52:53):
to the UBCs website. Or you canvisit PNC AI dot orgy or you can
give me a call. And I'd be happyto talk with you.

Yeah, that's amazing. Well, for our
listeners, this is coming in afew months, but my dad's gonna
be on your show. And I think hewas a member of the carpenters
Union for a period of time. Idon't know exactly. I was a
little kid. But when we lived inLas Vegas, I believe for a few
years he was a union, I don'tknow, you have to ask him about
it. So if our listeners arecurious to hear some of that

(53:25):
about my dad and his interactionthere, as well as wherever else,
you take that conversationthat's coming in a few months,
once that post, we will link toit in the show notes. So people
can, if they enjoy hearing this,they can kind of move to that
conversation. And Joe, thanks somuch for taking the time and
keep up the good work. I justlove how you're inspiring
training and and moving thisrace forward. There's a lot of

(53:48):
different ways that that's done.
And certainly, the way you'reinvolved is a critical one. All
right.

Well, thank you so much for having me on your show.
Nate. This has been a lot offun.

All right, we'll do it again soon. Thanks again.

All right, take care. Well, that wraps up this
episode of grit nation, thebuilding trades podcast. For
more information about theEssential Craftsman or how you
could begin a career in thetrades, be sure to check out the
show notes for this episode, orvisit the Grit Nation Podcast at
www.gritnationpodcast.com That'sgritnationpodcast.com. While

(54:21):
you're there, be sure to checkout the prizes and promos page
where you can enter to win greatGrit Nation merchandise. Until
next time, this is Joe Cadwellreminding you to work safe, work
smart and stay union strong.

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