Fixing our trades and skills gap with Andrew Brown

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[00:00:24] Andrew Brown: And I'm not going to go into that, but. To make them feel comfortable, to make them feel supported. There are women that I know on LinkedIn that I'm good friends with that doing amazing work, and they're inspiring others and other women to get into the trades. But again, that is too, that's.

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[00:01:03] Andrew Brown: Welcome to the round

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[00:01:22] Eric Goranson: com. Those guys have spikes that put water right into the roots and not all over the top where it runs down the hill and doesn't end up where you want it to. If you want to save money, go to RootQuencher. com. Today, we are going to talk about something that is this massive tidal wave. That only a handful of people are talking about.

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[00:01:49] Andrew Brown: Eric. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it,

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[00:02:05] Eric Goranson: They've removed them completely. Out of so many programs, kids get forced to go to college cause it's the right thing to do. And after spending a hundred grand in a college education. They get out and say, Hey, I'm going to go join the electrical union, or I'm going to go drive the Mason union. And they get into the trades and now they've got a hundred thousand dollar bill that they really didn't need to have.

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[00:02:29] Eric Goranson: crazy. What's your take on this?

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[00:02:51] Andrew Brown: There's a not enough. So there's seven to eight trades people leaving. There's one or two maybe coming in. And it's really what's [00:03:00] being pushed to the younger individuals. What's the message that's being pushed? And it's interesting when the younger generation, when they're sitting down before they sign on that data line for college, is there a guidance counselor saying, there's another opportunity.

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[00:03:36] Andrew Brown: Not every school, but around 100, 000 dollars. Go to trade school and spend less amount of money and for a less amount of time, and you could be working in an apprenticeship and making money at the same time. It is incredible. And

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[00:04:01] Eric Goranson: And I think they're doing such a disservice. And in another show, a couple of years ago, I brought up the concept that I've been waving the flag for a while is that, if you and I go down and get a car loan and you and I walk down or get a house loan and get a mortgage. We have to prove a business plan on how we're going to pay that back.

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[00:04:50] Eric Goranson: I wish they could actually sit there and say, Hey, what's the game plan to pay this back and maybe start a discussion of maybe this isn't for me and maybe I should get into the [00:05:00] trades where I can actually be much better off and live a more comfortable lifestyle outside of my work environment.

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[00:05:13] Andrew Brown: Then when I was in school, I started off as a programmer. I was doing C on the weekends and looking at myself and looking for people around me. It's what are they doing? Why am I taking advanced calculus? Then I went into business. Then I might've been finance. Then I went into IT. And then I had this life changing event on 9 11, which put me in a different path for selling tools to the skilled trades.

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[00:06:03] Andrew Brown: And I see that happening often.

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[00:06:28] Eric Goranson: That I go back and, I'm in my early fifties, but I go back and say, when did you figure out, oh, it was woodshop because I loved what I was doing. I was creating something or it was the mechanic shop or whatever metal shop welding, whatever that was back in, in that middle school slash high school age that we've just yanked that out of the schools and made those things, computer labs or whatever else.

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[00:07:07] Eric Goranson: Homeowner that have to hire the electrician go, wow, why is that so expensive?

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[00:07:37] Andrew Brown: Maybe they just go to college and they do something else. So I'm all for bringing shop classes back into schools on top of, if you don't go into a skilled trade, you can use those skills, their lifelong skills, which you can apply to stuff around your house. Because I know people that won't touch anything, right?

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[00:08:27] Andrew Brown: You'll never

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[00:08:50] Eric Goranson: And if you're a kid right now and you're, let's say if you're a parent, listen to this show right now, or a grandparent, this is something that should be explored because I tell you [00:09:00] what, you can go out and be an electrician. And in a few years, You're making more than the school teachers are

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[00:09:07] Eric Goranson: lot less, with a lot less

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[00:09:14] Andrew Brown: So you spend 4 years, maybe 5 years in college. You're ahead of the game. With less debt and not just in volume. And then, I always say, eventually maybe you buy a home, you get a mortgage, that's more debt, and you just can't get out of it. So it's a great opportunity for someone who really wants to be in go that path.

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[00:09:56] Eric Goranson: And they call it the Viking house. Cause it's the Vikings that's the school [00:10:00] mascot, but every couple of years, they're building a home. That is a beautiful model. We have a forestry program down here that is in a little town called sweet home out here, which is just the base of the Cascade mountains, where they've had a guy that's been doing YouTube videos, manly jobs, Blake Manley.

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[00:10:34] Eric Goranson: And I'm like, I've never seen climbing gear. And like pole climbing gear in a high school and the kids are walking across to the sports field over there where they put a bunch of poles in and they're out there getting ready to go to class and they've got, what I thought was cool is they get logs donated.

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[00:11:11] Eric Goranson: It's not that hard.

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[00:11:32] Andrew Brown: Because it's not working. We're getting better. We're making an impact through your podcast, your TV shows, right? Through my messaging, through videos and other people's podcasts. We're doing, everyone's doing their piece. But we need more of an impact overall, whether it's the administration.

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[00:12:09] Andrew Brown: It's wonderful. You want to spend money on buildings and bridges and tunnels and roads and everything in between. That's wonderful. Do you need people to do the job? And you need to work on the messaging side and you need to get to the younger generation to be interested. In the trades, because I think they have a depiction or a thought or an old adage that they keep hearing.

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[00:12:48] Eric Goranson: I want to address Andrew the dirty part of it, because it's such a myth. I know plumbers out there that for the last 20 years, all they've done is go out and build new homes and [00:13:00] they're out there, outdoors, they're outdoor people. They're out there, plumbing up new houses.

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[00:13:21] Eric Goranson: So you can also be a drain person and get in there and get dirty every day if you want to. So really you're in control as the student of where you want to go. Because the jobs are there, right?

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[00:13:43] Andrew Brown: That's not necessarily true. There are a lot of different options and paths that you can take and you can figure out if you want to be a welder, an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, and so on. But it goes back to that old outage of, you think of skilled trades, you think of dirty [00:14:00] hands, dirty fingernails and working with your hands and that seems to always be looked down upon.

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[00:14:19] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And I think part of that has been that it goes back into schools, it really does.

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[00:14:38] Eric Goranson: And the principal sits there to the plumber and goes, All right, kids. So we got the plumber coming up next to talk to you. If you don't do your schoolwork you could be a plumber. And the plumber walks out and goes, Hey, by the way you got to see my truck out front. I actually make more than your principal does every year.

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[00:14:58] Andrew Brown: Wow. That is a great response. [00:15:00] It

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[00:15:04] Andrew Brown: Yes. Yes. There is that feeling. But when you also, when you tell, like you said, you tell someone you're a plumber or an electrician.

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[00:15:32] Andrew Brown: And if they disappear, they disappeared tomorrow, you'd be in a really bad spot. And you can't take for granted the people that provide the most value. And on top of it, keep our economy going.

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[00:15:51] Eric Goranson: Skills gap. Looking forward, it's growing quickly. It's not getting smaller, even though people like you are out there waving the flag, it's, [00:16:00] this is a tidal wave that's coming at us. It's just unaddressed by many people out there. And there's a lot of great people talking about it. Don't get me wrong.

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[00:16:31] Eric Goranson: How that has shifted so much recently.

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[00:16:57] Andrew Brown: There are women that I know on [00:17:00] LinkedIn that I'm good friends with that doing amazing work, and they're inspiring others and other women to get into the trades. But again, that is too, that's. Looked upon is that women, are not the feeling of the women are not supported in that we need to do a better job to support women, make them feel comfortable, give them the skills that they need to do.

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[00:17:31] Eric Goranson: And the funny part of this is too, is that we're starting to see not only the funny part, but the good thing that's happening now is you're starting to see work where companies address it.

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[00:17:59] Eric Goranson: Brings more [00:18:00] opportunity for women out there because, I'm not going to speak for women in this at all, but the last thing they need to see out there is pink vests and pink clothes and stuff like that. They want to be treated as equals and we're making progress, but we've got to do better.

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[00:18:15] Andrew Brown: And that's just a combined effort. And that's just, that's a work in progress. And then it's just piece by piece and slowly changing that old adage over. It's just, it's not 1 thing that's going to make it work. But what you said, these little things all help and all, it all comes together and we'll get us to that, that next step of that next level.

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[00:18:58] Eric Goranson: They're making more than most of the [00:19:00] guys are that have been there for 25 years.

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[00:19:04] Eric Goranson: They're doing well. Yes.

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[00:19:20] Andrew Brown: That's just inspiring and more women were out there showcasing what they were doing. More women would eventually be inspired and say, wow, I can do that. And that's just, it's amazing to see that and it's inspirational.

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[00:19:40] Eric Goranson: And people go, Oh, women can't, she is like four foot 11 and out there carrying around big pieces of large format tile and doing the job that a lot of guys can't and doing a wonderfully skilled job doing it. So a lot of those things that people go, Oh, they just can't [00:20:00] know. Luckily, those days are getting over.

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[00:20:08] Eric Goranson: amazing. I'm just like, I'm just

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[00:20:28] Andrew Brown: That's what you need. Yeah.

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[00:20:53] Eric Goranson: Bending sheet metal, creating duct work there. They're doing electrical projects. They're building stuff. And we're not [00:21:00] talking just Hey, we're going to do the home depot birdhouse, but they're actually out there building stuff. And they do a trades camp for a week. It gets sold out in hours.

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[00:21:18] Andrew Brown: Yeah. I also see there's a woman by the name of Jamie McMillan. She's mostly on LinkedIn. She's up in Canada. She's an iron worker and she's so inspirational just watching.

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[00:21:42] Eric Goranson: And we have to give a shout out to some of the guys out there, like our buddy, Roger Wakefield, Rogers out there just trying to promote the trades as, as much as he can out there.

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[00:22:14] Andrew Brown: It's interesting you say that because I'm a big I have a lot of respect for Roger Wakefield. And actually we'll be on his podcast a little bit later in the year. And he's just, I've seen him grown, grow from 20, 000 followers on YouTube to five or 600, 000. He's just amazing. He showed

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[00:22:41] Eric Goranson: And I was down at the design and construction week and he was an audience member and I just, he stuck out to me. And I'm like, This cat's got something different going on here. And I went over and started talking to him and we've been friends during COVID, I had to go down to Dallas. To pick up our puppy from our old next door neighbor who had their dog, had puppies, and this was [00:23:00] smack dab in the middle of COVID you could get on a plane, but like when I stayed in downtown Dallas, I was the only person in the hotel, my wife and I were, we had the whole hotel to ourself, but we went up and did videos with Roger in his place up at there at at green plumbing.

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[00:23:27] Andrew Brown: It shows what you can do above and beyond just being someone in the trades and giving back.

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[00:23:52] Eric Goranson: And talk about taking a skilled trade and then just expanding it. And, making it 20 times what it was, he just keeps [00:24:00] getting bigger and bigger. And I think there's going to be a lot of great things coming from him in the future. And we need about, about a hundred more of those out there to make this happen.

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[00:24:22] Eric Goranson: will. So what's your, what is your take on how do we get this started? How do we get this cruise ship turned around in this little canal?

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[00:24:47] Eric Goranson: If I was, I'm looking for a job and they'd ask me when do I start?

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[00:25:08] Andrew Brown: You could maybe do that with women and get more women involved. You can do that on the message. Look, we still need to get everyone else on board. I again, this goes back to the messaging in schools. We need to guidance counselors need to be sitting down with kids and laying down the options, not just college and I am a supporter of college, but maybe it's, I want

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[00:25:32] Eric Goranson: I want my surgeon to have the best degree known to mankind. But I just don't think my plumber needs that humanities degree.

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[00:25:49] Andrew Brown: And it says in the instructions that you're more likely to make more money with a college degree versus. Someone with just a career. And it's funny, there was [00:26:00] no plumber, there was no electrician, there was no welder in that whole like set to talk about. I was like, Oh my God. I was like the game of life is telling you that.

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[00:26:30] Andrew Brown: I don't think there is 1, but we all need to identify that this is a much bigger problem than we think it is. And it will in the next couple of years, if we don't, at least, it's like moving this big ship with a little rudder and you're slowly turning it and we need to turn it quick.

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[00:26:52] Eric Goranson: I hate to get government involved, but is it going to take the unions and the trades people out there? To get involved with, [00:27:00] policy makers that say, Hey, as part of a school curriculum and as part of the guidance counselor program, they need to be giving all the options, just not some of them.

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[00:27:21] Eric Goranson: It is with the unions, right? You pay your union dues and you're become a apprentice.

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[00:27:36] Andrew Brown: Yeah. Look that's an option, but I am all for suggestions out there of how to, close this gap and to make things better again.

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[00:28:05] Andrew Brown: You still need someone to get in there and weld and do the electrical work. It's just not there yet. So we need to find, a better solution, until

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[00:28:25] Eric Goranson: What did the last homeowner do to make this mistake? That's probably not in my lifetime. You know what I mean? It's just not going to happen. And so, you might see in 20 years, a robot hanging drywall on somebody's large commercial project, where it's going to be drywall and over every electrical circuit and every outlet and every sprinkler said something.

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[00:28:56] Andrew Brown: AI is coming for your white collar job. Yeah, it [00:29:00] can't replace. And there was a, there was an interesting on LinkedIn, or it went viral of this billboard, of chat GTP, and it can't replace, people in the trades.

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[00:29:30] Andrew Brown: And it's to some degree, let's

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[00:29:47] Eric Goranson: And yes, there are some years that new construction just blown up. But it never lifts because that energy ends up going over to remodeling. Like we're seeing right now, maybe new construction, how it's, starts her down [00:30:00] right around the corner. People go, wow, I'm not moving better. Fix my house.

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[00:30:36] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I know of a, I know of a contractor right now that's really good in my area. Cause I used to work with him as his designer and him and I worked together a lot. He's a year out right now, booked out. If you want it, if you came in with a million dollars and said, I got a remodel, he's like end of the line.

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[00:30:54] Andrew Brown: Yeah.

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[00:31:12] Eric Goranson: Golden West billiards. They make pool tables. I was shocked at this. I have not been in a building in my lifetime that had this many skilled people doing this level of artisan work. They're handcrafting lions on the legs of the pool tables. And that kind of just insane stuff. They had a guy on this big industrial lathe doing 12 inch round legs.

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[00:32:07] Eric Goranson: But we are such at a spot and that's his biggest fear is we're at such a spot of not having that person one day. And this is stuff that you can't really get with a CNC. This is stuff that you can't get because that hand craftsmanship doesn't exist through the computer that for that level of stuff, you still need to have a craftsperson and we're going to end up finding these people in other countries.

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[00:32:34] Andrew Brown: Exactly. And it's a great example. Another example is my dryer conked out and there's an individual that he's known and he comes and he fixes and he's good. He just, he listens. I know what it is. He's just that guy.

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[00:33:08] Andrew Brown: And this is what happens. He leaves, no one fills the gap. What do you do? Who do you go to? There's not that many people left. And that's the scary thing that this keeps compounding and keeps happening. The individuals that put in 20, 30 years, the tricks of the trade. And then they leave, this is why we need to have some sort of mentorship program of mentoring somebody who's younger, who can come in and learn all this experience, and then it just doesn't go away that there's a plan in place for succession.

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[00:34:00] Eric Goranson: That's cool. I get it, but they don't realize how today it's affecting their lives. Tomorrow, it's going to have even a bigger impact because your example there is just great. That guy that's running his own business. He goes, I can't find everybody replaced me. Hey, I'm closing it down. I'm moving to the beach.

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[00:34:41] Andrew Brown: If we don't curb this skilled trades gap, just like you said, you could wait three, four weeks for a plumber. Can you wait three or four weeks and you're, you can't flush the toilet, something's backed up. Your septic is on the fritz, your dishwasher doesn't work. You can compound that, heaters [00:35:00] out, I'm freezing, my kids are freezing.

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[00:35:22] Andrew Brown: So, well,

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[00:35:40] Eric Goranson: And it is wonderful for the trades that everybody's making good money out there. And it's getting harder and harder to find those people. So those people make more money because you're going, Hey, I got to pay him this. We're going to have less affordable housing down the road when it comes to new construction homes, because that labor rate just keeps [00:36:00] going up and up just because of,

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[00:36:06] Andrew Brown: You keep passing down the cost, right? Eventually, it's the homeowner that just has to pay more for the same item. That could be said for a lot of things in inflation and things like that, but this is what's going to happen. And that we need to curb this and be proactive, not reactive here. The, I want to focus on, being proactive, reactive is it's already happened.

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[00:36:51] Andrew Brown: If you put the time and effort in and learn the skills and learn the trade, we just again, need to work together. [00:37:00]

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[00:37:11] Eric Goranson: And, remodeling right out there that are getting ready to head to the beach and call it a retirement. And we've got to be able to get people in to fill those shoes.

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[00:37:22] Eric Goranson: So, any other tips, man, that we can do to get people going in this? I always love getting your wisdom on this stuff because you're somebody out in the trenches that are just fighting it out every day out there trying to spread the word.

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[00:37:57] Andrew Brown: And it's just, it's a slow burn [00:38:00] and it's not something that happens in a couple of months. It could take a couple of years and you just need to keep showing up, stay consistent with the messaging and to get more people inspired. I feel I've inspired a good amount of people through my videos. That they want to start putting out messages about trades, that's where you get other people interested, like Roger Wakefield, you're watching him, inspired by him, or Jamie McMillan, and with the ironworkers, women, it's just, that's what you need to keep doing and those individuals need to keep showing up because if they don't, that's yesterday's news and that's what we need to keep being consistent.

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[00:38:53] Andrew Brown: I am. And I want to give, I want to provide some context to really why I do this.

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[00:39:16] Andrew Brown: And I convinced a friend in Rhode Island at the time to come in. And he came in a few days after it had happened. He comes in with this He comes downstairs and he's got this big blue truck with an American flag on the back and he's dressed up as a tradesperson. He's got a hard hat on and he's got an extra hard hat and overalls for me.

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[00:39:50] Eric Goranson: you're supposed to be there. You're supposed to be

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[00:39:53] Eric Goranson: park

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[00:39:54] Andrew Brown: And now I'm standing on the trade center where it once stood. And this is only a handful of [00:40:00] days. And I was helping trades people and emergency workers find survivors the entire day. So I was watching the trades people do anything necessary to find survivors. And you talk about light changing events.

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[00:40:33] Andrew Brown: On 9 11. Yeah. So that's where I co founded an online to an equipment business named tool fetch with my brother about 20 years ago. Still going strong today. Still love the business. And we sell tools to the skilled trades. So professionals such as welders and carpenters, plumbers, and other blue collar skilled trades.

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[00:41:10] Andrew Brown: That is my way to get back to the scale trades to what I saw 20 plus years ago. So, every time that I'm talking to someone in the trades. It just, I keep going back, so I'm helping them. I'm the middleman between the manufacturer and the people who I call the heroes, the unsung heroes who are doing the work.

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[00:41:38] Eric Goranson: Man. What a powerful story of kind of finding yourself in your early twenties. Yeah. Divine invention is powerful, man. I love it. I love it. It's such a great success story too, of what you've been doing.

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[00:42:08] Eric Goranson: Buy a coffee to a counselor at a high school. That's telling kids where to go, make the argument. And just one person can put dozens of people in the trades every single year. And I think it's going to be that kind of grassroots effort. That's going to change the ship.

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[00:42:28] Eric Goranson: Thanks for coming on today, brother.

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[00:42:32] Andrew Brown: So I am very active on LinkedIn. It's under my name. Andrew Brown. You can reach out to me if you want to talk about tools. I'm always, I always like to talk shop or if you just want to talk about the skill trades. Reach out to me on YouTube.

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[00:42:51] Eric Goranson: Perfect brother. Thanks for coming on today. This is such an important topic and happy. I had the expert on

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[00:42:59] Eric Goranson: I'm Eric [00:43:00] G and you've been listening to around the house.