Soften your senses, ways to become a better speaker, listener and follower.
This episode brought to you by Explore the Trades, supporting and promoting the next
generation of tradespeople for plumbing, HVAC and electrical.
Learn more at explorethetrades.org.
All right everyone, thank you so much for joining us at the 2024 National HVACR Education Conference.
So we are spending time with 1200 of the top educators and trainers from the industry learning
about the different opportunities and transitions that we're going through.
And we're spending some time with Explore the Trades.
Thank you ladies so much for joining us.
How are you today?
Good.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
You want to introduce yourself while we're getting started here?
Sure.
Yeah.
So my name is Maddie Sorensen.
I'm the project coordinator with Explore the Trades.
And I'm Toni Bower.
I am the donor engagement specialist.
All right.
So a lot of people may not be aware of Explore the Trades.
And we've spent some time in the past talking about your role in the industry that's rapidly
growing and expanding and making connections.
You know, Howard Weiss from here at Esco, he always talks about Esco as kind of like
a dating service.
And I feel like that's kind of how Explore the Trades is turning into in the industry.
It's like a dating service for professionals, right?
It's like connecting the dots.
It's like, what are you doing?
How can we help you?
And let's move this industry together.
And I just absolutely love what you're doing.
So tell the world a little bit about Explore the Trades, where it came from and where we're
going.
Yeah.
So Explore the Trades is a nonprofit.
Our mission is to bridge the technical talent gap to the trades of plumbing, HVAC and electrical.
Kind of primarily how we do that is we work really heavily with that K through 12 audience,
so students and educators and counselors in particular, and just to kind of give them
a foundational knowledge about these trades.
Because from a lot of the conversations that we've had in the past, especially with educators,
they know that these careers are viable and they have students that would be a really
great fit, but they just don't know themselves how to talk about the industry well, so the
students can get a good picture of that.
So we have a couple different programs that we operate to bridge that information gap.
I'll just talk about one really briefly.
One is our poster kits have been really popular.
I've seen a lot of those out there here recently.
Yeah, yeah.
Great to hear.
Yeah, I have.
They keep popping up.
I'm like, ah, there's another one.
There's another one.
Yes.
Yeah.
So those have been really popular.
And just a brief description of them, there's five posters included, plumbing, HVAC, electrical,
and then we've also included kind of that customer service dispatch career path as well,
just to kind of illustrate that world also.
And then last post, there's just kind of a general why consider occurring the trades.
But all of these posters just provide a visual of what a career path looks like in these
trades.
So starting from kind of apprenticeship or right out of high school and then going all
the way up to owning your own company, because a lot of students, when they can kind of see
where they would start and where they would go, it's just a really good visual for them
to understand and then especially for the teachers as well.
So a lot of the feedback that we've gotten from educators, especially who have requested
the kits and put them up in hallways and classrooms is students have come up and said, well, you
know, I see that I can make like six figures in the trades and I could own my own business.
I did not know that.
Yeah.
Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
And so then, you know, they can go to our website and find a bunch of additional resources
as well.
But you know, that's just one program of ours that has been popular.
And I see that being very important because when we talk about that gap of communication,
especially in K-12, our instructors have a difficult time communicating with like counselors
and advisors.
Yes, of course.
And that's changing.
And that's that role that you're helping fill right there is the industry in the world is
starting to recognize that, wow, there's really good, high paying, high quality, high value
jobs that we haven't talked about in a few generations.
But without seeing it, you just don't know.
Like you can walk into any high school and you can see what a doctor's job would look
like.
You're going to see photos of a doctor.
You're going to see classes that would get you towards that degree.
You're going to see a path.
But when we talk about jobs that have potential equivalency in the trades and everyone goes
shop class pays that much.
There's a big disconnect.
Sure.
And that's really what we have to do.
We have to focus on the awareness of what is available in the industry, especially as
we're making all these technological changes.
Our industry has a lot to offer somebody.
Love it.
OK.
So what else in the pipeline with Explore the Trades for 2024?
Yeah, we have a lot of exciting things coming up.
One that we're definitely excited about that will be coming up here the 1st of May.
We're going to announce the winners of our skills lab initiatives.
I've seen that.
Yes.
So just a brief background on that.
Explore the Trades and Ferguson have partnered to build plumbing and HVAC labs in middle
schools and high schools across the country.
It's been a wonderful program.
We're currently in our third year and applications close on March 31st.
So if there's anyone out there that wants to...
Yeah, there's still some time.
So if anyone wants to apply, we'd certainly encourage you to do so.
Last year we had 11 schools, Tony.
I'm blanking.
Eleven schools.
There we go.
OK.
I lost it here.
So 11 schools total last year.
So that was our second year.
Our first year we had three.
So we've just seen some tremendous growth, which has been amazing.
So we're excited to announce those winners on May 1st and then just see how we can build
those classrooms.
I will say there's funding available for schools who are building brand new skills labs or
if they currently have an existing training space, but it just needs some new equipment,
a little bit of love.
There's funding there as well.
Really?
Yes.
I think any school is welcome to apply.
We would love, you know, obviously the opportunity to get the skilled trades conversation back
into schools.
And that's what we're trying to do.
OK.
I actually was up last night doing video editing with one of our instructors and a group of
us were kind of doing a recap from yesterday.
And that was one of the big things that came up was there's a lot of new technology coming
to the industry.
My lab is a little dated and I don't know where to begin.
I mean, maybe there's Perkins, maybe there's putting applications in for the school.
I don't know where my resources are.
Here's a new resource.
Yep.
All right.
So if someone is interested in becoming a part of that and learning more about what
you're doing, where would they begin?
Yeah.
So I just would encourage anyone who's interested in any of our resources or impossibly partnering
with us.
You know, just go to our website, you know, everything, you know, posters, videos, handouts,
everything is on there.
And then we have a ton of information as well about, you know, possible partnership or sponsorship
with Explore the Trades.
Tony, I'll kick it over to you just briefly if you want to just talk about a little bit
of what we have on the website in terms of like industry partners.
Yeah, absolutely.
So again, I'm the newest addition in the team.
So we kind of have a little bit more bandwidth to be able to reach out and connect with industry
partners and we're really excited about the potential that there is there.
Yeah, we're exploring what that looks like.
We're always, you know, of course, open to sponsorship because we are a nonprofit.
So we rely on those donations.
But we're certainly, you know, open to creative ways that we can work together in the future.
And we're open to any and all, you know, manufacturers, distributors.
We're really eager to, you know, get in front of that audience and connect with them, develop
those relationships, as well as home service companies.
There's a lot of opportunity, a lot of missed opportunity out there because we get that
question all the time.
So we have a portal that we will help educators, the educator resource network.
But a lot of times they're calling me on I would I need equipment.
I need just used damaged equipment.
Where do I where do I even go?
Who do I talk to?
And so now it's an opportunity to start making those connections because you've got distributors
out there that may have scratch and dents or things that are going to scrap pile.
You may have contractors that have equipment that is very usable in the classrooms.
So a lot of times when we talk about needing tools and equipment for the classroom and
we don't have the funds available.
Well, what if there's options?
What if we have industry partners that are trying to get rid of things and they don't
know who to give them to?
And so you're helping make those kind of connections.
Yeah, I feel like they're essential for like the success of the industry.
Like everyone needs to partner and work together and we can all kind of fill each other like
the gaps for one another.
Exactly.
So we went to a contractor here at the conference.
We were talking about inverter technology because all of our classrooms need to be teaching
inverter technology.
That's where everything is going in HVAC and refrigeration in a very, very short period
of time.
And I was talking to this contractor and said, you know, I got like 25 warranty pieces of
equipment that are all inverter driven that are going to go into scrap pile.
They've all had problems, different things with them, but they're all there and they
have the components that could be cut out, shown, torn apart, shown how they actually
fit and where they go.
What do you do with things like that?
And I go, well, you're one of 1200 people out here that would like to have conversations
like that because there's not enough of these connections like Explore the Trades is now
doing.
There's all of these different pieces of the puzzle and they're all moving and they're
not shifting.
So I see Explore the Trades as being that, that function in the middle that is helping
make those connections, bringing that awareness to not just our trade, but HVAC, plumbing
and electrical as well.
Do you see all three of the trades utilizing those resources?
Do you see all three trades going, we got to be better at what we're doing?
Yeah, definitely.
You know, we, you know, working with all three of those trades, you know, everyone is looking
for new technicians, new people to come into the industry.
Yeah.
And so we've seen one trader over the other, you know, have more, you know, more interest
in that.
It's definitely, yeah, everyone is, everyone's looking to bridge that skilled labor gap.
So isn't that good feeling?
Yes.
I love it.
I feel like it's a, almost a generational shift.
Yeah.
You know, we had a conversation earlier about the, almost there was like a stigma a couple
decades ago because we had a significant supply of technicians.
And so people didn't communicate very well.
And so there was this lack of communication that just kind of became a standard.
And we don't know why, except for people are just trying to protect their own roles.
You know, it was just a way to secure your own position by not sharing and not communicating.
But that is, that has changed.
The world is changing.
People are becoming much more aware of their resources.
Technology is making it more, I mean, look at this, we're sitting here talking about
things that is going to be shared with the world that we really couldn't do very easily
20 years ago.
So I absolutely love what you're doing.
Anything else we want to dive into while we're here today?
I guess we could talk a little bit, you know, about, we attend the ASCA conference, which
is the American School Counselor Association Conference.
And that's been extremely valuable for our outreach as far as connecting with educators
and school counselors.
It brings together thousands of them.
That's been essential for our outreach just because we get a little bit more insight about
their knowledge of the trades, as well as, you know, being able to provide our resources.
Yeah, that's essential.
We usually go, I believe it's every July.
Yeah.
And that's been great.
So how are you received there?
Are we starting to see administrations looking at the trades more now?
Yes, very much so.
Yes.
Yeah, I would definitely say so.
You know, I've gone, I went my first year with Explore the Trades and even, you know,
back in, that would have been 2021, 22.
Anyways, we definitely saw, you know, just like an uptick in not only, you know, the
people that were coming by our table and wanted more information while we were there, but
just additional outreach after the fact.
You know, schools are reaching out to us more now a little bit, I would say, you know, just
looking for additional information, you know, not only, you know, physical resources that
we can provide, but just information because yes, you know, administrations definitely are
now turning more towards, you know, we need to talk more about these skilled trades careers
versus only pushing that four year, that four year college path because, you know, it's
not not for every student and they're just wonderful opportunities, obviously, in the
trades that schools are realizing a little bit more now that they need to talk about.
Nice.
And I was just adding to, I think recently we got a lot of insight from educators about
how these younger generation is very open to the opportunities beyond percentage.
So that, you know, mentality, I think, is shifting a little bit with the younger generations,
which is making the opportunity ripe, if you will.
I spent a lot of time studying Gen Z and Alpha trying to understand what their perspective
is on education.
And so I myself, I have a 18 year old and a 16 year old stepdaughters and they both
have the same perspective.
They both want to help change the world and make a difference.
One has went to four year college.
The other one has almost no interest, wants to do more of a, not that I don't know if
she'll do trades or if it's going to be more like in the culinary, but something non-traditional,
what we call non-traditional.
Now it hasn't always been called non-traditional.
It used to be called essential.
Now we just call it non-traditional.
Right.
But we have a generation that is looking at the world going, everyone says this is the
thing that you should do.
Tell me why.
They're challenging it.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
I think it's the coolest.
I think that's what's making our industry right now so ripe for education and interest
is people are actually challenging the norm.
Yeah.
So I look around in this conference and I see people who in the industry are typically
competitors and don't like to go to conferences and rub elbows here going, Hey, how you doing?
I know that we're selling products that are the same, but let's talk about education and
what we can do together.
And so we're taking stigmas and we're challenging them.
And it's an interesting thing.
I actually keep saying, I kind of like to be in a Gen Z because it's a good generation.
Any opportunity for folks in the industry or companies within the industry to kind of
partner on their aligned goals.
I think everybody benefits from younger generations being interested in these quote unquote non-traditional
careers.
So yeah, I mean, I think it's a great opportunity for the industry as a whole to work together
to help facilitate that change and that shift.
I guess what we're doing.
All right.
Well thank you so much for joining us.
So a follow up, they're going to go to what website?
Explore the trades.org.
And then you can find you on LinkedIn and all sorts of social media.
That's where I catch up all the time and make that connection and see if they can help you
make your own connections.
All right, ladies, thank you so much.
Thank you.