Pod Insights The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe 481: Jason Altmire—Trade Up About this episode Former congressman Jason Altmire https://jasonaltmire.com/ has spent years in Washington—and even more time outside it—making the case that America's biggest opportunity isn't behind a desk, but behind a welding mask, a set of tools, or the wheel of a big machine. Now leading Career Education Colleges and Universities https://career.org/, he's on a mission to close the skills gap and reconnect hard work with real opportunity.
In this episode, Mike and Jason dig into why millions of good jobs go unfilled, why the stigma around skilled labor refuses to die, and what it'll take to convince a new generation that "college for all" might not be the answer.
Along the way, they unpack the ideas behind Jason's book, Trade Up: Why the Future Belongs to Skilled Trades and How Career Education is Transforming the Workforce https://tradeupbook.com/—and make a compelling case that the fastest way to achieve the American Dream might be to pursue a skilled trade.
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Transcript 15,096 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Mike Rowe? What an interesting conversation you're about to listen to. This is Micro.
0:08 Speaker 01 Yep.
0:09 Mike Rowe? You're listening to the way I heard it. And, you know, I wasn't sure what to expect Chuck, because as a rule, we don't really have politicians on the podcast. Although this guy is technically no longer one.
0:21 Speaker 01 Former.
0:22 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Yeah, he's a congressman out of Pennsylvania, a Democrat, named Jason Altmeier. But well-regarded, really, by, well, as well-regarded as one can be in that body.
0:34 Speaker 01 In the center, yeah. He's a Blue Dog Democrat.
0:37 Mike Rowe? He's a Blue Dog Democrat, yeah. And he wrote a book called Trade Up. And I skimmed through the PDF enough to realize I liked it enough to write a blurb. You know what? And forgive me if that sounds somewhat lazy, as a guy who runs a work ethic scholarship program. I do intend on reading the book, but it hasn't come out yet in real time. It's out now.
1:00 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:01 Mike Rowe? As you listen to this. But I didn't have a physical copy. And I wanted to talk to the guy, because everything that I saw in the book, I not only agreed with, I agreed with with wild enthusiasm.
1:16 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, the subtitle is "Why the Future Belongs to Skilled Trades and New Career Education is Transforming the Workforce." Now, if that's not in your wheelhouse, you don't have a wheelhouse.
1:28 Mike Rowe? Yeah. True enough. In his book, he mentions what we're doing here at the foundation. He mentions a couple of recipients of Micro Work scholarships.
1:37 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:38 Mike Rowe? Which is great. What I like about this guy is that he really understands what led to the problem.
1:45 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:46 Mike Rowe? And he can talk about it from a political standpoint, because he's been in the swamp. But he's also out of it now.
1:55 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:56 Mike Rowe? And so, he's got a lot of ideas about what private industry can do. And selfishly, it's fun to talk to people.
2:06 Mike Rowe? Who agree with you, especially on this topic.
2:09 Speaker 01 You have overlap in the Venn diagram, for sure.
2:12 Mike Rowe? Yeah, and by the way, for those of you who ask from time to time, you know, why don't you ever have a Democrat on? Well, I mean, it's, it's nothing personal. I don't go out of my way to avoid them. And this guy, it never would have occurred to me which way he voted.
2:28 Speaker 01 I literally found out he was a Democrat today before he came in. I believe you informed me of that.
2:33 Mike Rowe? I did.
2:34 Speaker 01 Which is really ridiculous.
2:35 Mike Rowe? Moments before I learned that the book he had written that I was here to talk about, we don't have it.
2:40 Speaker 01 We don't have it, yeah.
2:41 Mike Rowe? So, you know, we got off to a wobbly start, me and Chuck did. But, but this guy is terrific. Jason Altmeier is his name. Trade Up is the name of his book. It could just as well have been called an homage to my friend Mike Rowe and his hard work at Mike Rowe Works.
2:58 Speaker 01 A hundred percent. This is a conversation that is so in your wheelhouse. Anybody who follows you, anybody who is interested in your foundation will be interested in this conversation. So I want to say this one more time, Mike. You should share this episode with people, with like-minded people who understand that there really is a skills gap and that we need to, we need to close it.
3:22 Mike Rowe? Are you talking to me or to the listener?
3:24 Speaker 01 I'm talking directly to you, but yeah, no, I'm talking to the listener.
3:27 Mike Rowe? Of course I'm going to share it. I share all these episodes.
3:30 Speaker 01 I do love that about you, yes.
3:32 Mike Rowe? Here's the thing. Last week, during a preamble, not unlike the one you're listening to now, Chuck encouraged people to share the actual episode and it resulted in a sizable uptick.
3:45 Speaker 01 People did what I said, Mike. It was very, I felt very powerful.
3:48 Mike Rowe? Right, right. So we're going to try it again. And if it happens again, then God help us. This is all you're going to hear from Chuck for the rest of his life. Share the episode if you like it, and even if you don't. I'm calling it Trade Up because that's what Jason calls his book and it's terrific. We'll prove it right after this.
4:10 Mike Rowe? Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive, pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately.
4:53 Mike Rowe? I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you, or your spouse, or your kid, or your grandkid are looking for a straight path
5:36 Mike Rowe? into a career with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. That's meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. Really appreciate you taking the time, Jason. All the way from Florida, was it?
5:57 Speaker 01 Yes, I live near Jacksonville, Florida, Ponte Vedra Beach.
6:01 Mike Rowe? So you got out of the swamp?
6:03 Speaker 01 I did, I did. I'm on the other coast now.
6:07 Mike Rowe? Very few politicians have been on this podcast. A couple. How long have you been out?
6:14 Speaker 01 14 years I've been out of office.
6:16 Mike Rowe? And you were a congressman for a time?
6:18 Speaker 01 Three-term congressman, yes. So I don't consider myself a politician. I did dabble in politics a little bit, but that's not my career.
6:27 Mike Rowe? You lost a bet. What happened?
6:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:30 Mike Rowe? Three years, so it was Pennsylvania, right?
6:31 Speaker 01 Correct.
6:32 Mike Rowe? And you're on the D-side?
6:33 Speaker 01 Yes, I was a Democrat.
6:34 Mike Rowe? Was?
6:35 Speaker 01 Still, yeah, I'm still a Democrat, yes.
6:40 Speaker 01 I work with both sides, which was part of the issue of my departure, right? Oh, wow.
6:44 Mike Rowe? So that didn't go over well?
6:47 Speaker 01 It goes over very well in the general election. It does not go over well in the primary election.
6:53 Mike Rowe? Primaries eat you alive. What's it say here in my handy dandy AI-generated? No, did I just admit that note? Serving three terms. 07 to 13. Altmaier was known as a centrist Democrat emphasizing bipartisanship. Yeah, you were doing. The National Journal ranks his voting record at the ideological midpoint of the House. He chaired the Small Business Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and had 29 legislative initiatives enacted. That's, no, that's, that's 29. That's a bunch.
7:26 Speaker 01 For six years? That's pretty good.
7:27 Mike Rowe? Yeah. Says your pragmatic record earned you respect across party lines and a reputation for independence.
7:37 Mike Rowe? So here you are.
7:38 Speaker 01 Sounds good.
7:39 Mike Rowe? Independent, as independent as possible at this point.
7:42 Speaker 01 Yes, yeah. Work with both sides. This, what we're going to talk about, as you know very well, is an issue that affects everybody equally. So we're going to need all hands on deck to solve it.
7:51 Mike Rowe? Well, I was so glad to get the PDF of your book. I was honored to write a blurb for it. I'm, I'm flattered, and that's probably not the right word. Some weird mix of relieved, flattered, bemused, and kind of gobsmacked to see so much attention being paid to an issue that, you know, when I came to it in 2008, it was a very tough sell. This idea that college might not be the best path for the most people and that the trades might be something more than a vocational consolation prize. That was a lonesome time to be singing that tune.
8:28 Speaker 01 Right. That has always been the trajectory of American higher education. College for all is the preferred path. And if you divert from that and you end up in the trades, you have somehow taken the lesser option.
8:42 Mike Rowe? Right.
8:43 Speaker 01 And that's no longer the case, thankfully.
8:45 Mike Rowe? Or even worse, it's not that you took it, it's that maybe you didn't. Didn't have a choice. Maybe the only thing left for you was this greasy, grimy, dirty descent into mediocrity. Sorry, here's your wrench. Have a nice life kind of thing.
9:00 Speaker 01 Right, that the people who couldn't hack it in college, for whatever reason, then went to the lower path of the trades. And as you know better than anybody, trades are incredibly important to the future of the country. It's a national security issue that we don't have enough men and women going in that direction. So the fact that for so long, we were discouraging people from taking that path, we really did a disservice to the country.
9:28 Mike Rowe? We did a disservice to ourselves, I think. And I'm curious as to whether or not you might have a theory as to why we, I mean, is it a fault in our stars, this notion to resent almost the very things we rely upon?
9:45 Speaker 01 We researched this book for over a year, my co-author Riley Burr and I. And what you find when you look at the trajectory of the involvement of corporations and foundations and academia, influencers, people like yourself, leaders in the cause, it really has taken off. And it's taken off because I think for the first time, people understand the paradox that exists, which is, we have record numbers of college graduates that cannot find jobs. And we have record numbers of vacancies in high demand professions because employers can't find the workers to fill those roles.
10:26 Mike Rowe? And sidebar, record numbers of college graduates working in fields that had nothing to do with their major, and record numbers of college attendees who didn't graduate, but nevertheless, hold a sizable chunk of the 1.7 trillion outstanding dollars do.
10:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, only 20% of college graduates feel like they're on the path that they went into college to pursue.
10:50 Mike Rowe? Whereas 100% of them paid dearly for it.
10:54 Speaker 01 Right.
10:55 Mike Rowe? Yeah. So, all right, well, maybe rather than just talk so broadly and philosophically about why we would do that to ourselves as a species, what were the politics behind it? Do you have any thoughts on, on why our elected officials would permit such a logical fallacy to take such a? Such a grip and put us in such a fever dream.
11:22 Speaker 01 We have a higher education system that through inertia has not changed in 100 years, more than 100 years. K through 12, high school, maybe college, maybe your career, whatever your path. But we've encouraged people to take that college path. And just because of that inertia, we as a country, not just the politicians, haven't done what needs to be done, which is take a step forward and think about where are the jobs of the future? What do we need? Now with data centers, cell, chip manufacturers, all the things happening with infrastructure, shipbuilding, nuclear, transportation, construction.
12:05 Speaker 01 52% of the nation's commercial inventory was built before 1990. Right? Half. So we're going to need some huge infrastructure repairs, just modernizing the electrical grid, all of these things that are facing the country. And now there's this realization, oh, we need the, who's going to do this work? Where are they going to come from? Where are the electricians? Where are the plumbers? You talk about this all the time.
12:31 Mike Rowe? Well, and you mentioned in a divided country where virtually everything is either owned by one party or the other. This issue still, I mean, I see the politics in it, but mostly I see 330 million people with skin in the game. I don't care how you vote. If your toilet doesn't do what it's supposed to do when you hit the flush handle, you get bipartisan real fast. Nobody, nobody cares about your plumber's thoughts on geopolitics.
13:03 Speaker 01 You learn, there's a good joke that a lawyer had a plumbing issue and he called a plumber and the plumber fixed it, was there for an hour, handed him a bill for $500. And the lawyer said, I don't charge $500 in my law practice. And the plumber said, yeah, when I was a lawyer, I didn't charge that much.
13:22 Mike Rowe? Larry Fink at BlackRock told me that between now and 2033, he reckons the infrastructure build out, not the cost of tending to the current crumbling edifice we have, but the new stuff is going to be a $10 trillion spend.
13:46 Speaker 01 Right.
13:47 Mike Rowe? And, you know, it's very strange for me. Like I said earlier, it's gratifying to see the books come out. But what's super odd is to get calls from the C suite of companies similarly situated. Wells Fargo is probably our biggest supporter right now, you know? And historically, it's been the, you know, Caterpillar, Ford, Kimberly-Clark, whatever. But it's like a memo went out, you know? Those guys are paying a level of attention. I mean, the BlackRock portfolio alone is talking about 400,000 electricians over that period.
14:30 Speaker 01 Right.
14:30 Mike Rowe? And they have no idea where to get them.
14:32 Speaker 01 Well, OpenAI, just OpenAI, has said that for the next five years, for them to complete their plans to build out the data centers and the infrastructure needed for the AI plans, they by themselves could use a quarter of the nation's electricians, plumbers, HVAC, by themselves.
14:55 Mike Rowe? That's OpenAI plus Grok, plus Anthropic, plus Gemini, plus three or four yet to be introduced players that'll probably wind up dominating the whole space, right? Because it always happens that way.
15:10 Speaker 01 Right.
15:11 Mike Rowe? It's just very difficult to handicap the future. But it does seem clear. It does seem clear that the pinch point is going to be skilled labor.
15:20 Speaker 01 There's no question. Now, healthcare is a part of it, too. There's a huge nursing shortage, and with our aging population, that's going to become even more of an issue. But as it relates to infrastructure and the nation's advancement with regard to the AI job losses and the fact that if you want to find work in this country, your safest bet with regard to white collar versus blue collar is to choose that blue collar route, because we need those workers. There's huge shortages. I think the best mathematical example that I have seen is there are 2.9 million vacancies across all the skilled trades annually. This was a lightcast research.
16:02 Mike Rowe? Oh, yeah, I know those guys. They're terrific.
16:04 Speaker 01 2.9 million vacancies, and the sum total of our training and education in this country produces 1.25 million each year.
16:15 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
16:16 Speaker 01 People in those skilled trades professions, which leaves a vacancy of 1.7 million vacancies every year. It gets worse, and then in 2030, according to the Department of Education, it's going to be 2.1 million vacancies. That's the gap between what we're producing and what is needed, and they estimate that is a $1 trillion loss in economic output to the country because we just don't have enough workers to fill those jobs.
16:46 Mike Rowe? In 2008, when I started my little adventure, the number that got me to pay attention, that I kept hearing from the lightcasts of the time, was five over two, like for every five who retired, two come in.
17:01 Speaker 01 Right.
17:02 Mike Rowe? You know, and that, at the time, just seemed like that's an aging workforce, and it was. But there's now, there's also this sort of population collapse thing that a lot of people are talking about, and of course, the stigmas and the stereotypes and the myths and the misperceptions that have bedeviled recruitment in this space for the last 40 years. That's the stuff where I feel like we can chip away a little, but I don't know what to say about the demography. I don't know what to say about that math.
17:30 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's very intimidating when you think about that five to two ratio retirements to new entrants into the field. That's hard to get around. What's even harder to get around is there is a 3% increase annually in people over the age of 65. There is a 0.2% decrease annually in people 18 or under.
17:53 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
17:54 Speaker 01 The math doesn't work if that's the trajectory of the country.
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19:45 Mike Rowe? So how do you think about tech? Is tech gonna save us from this by making us more effective, more efficient? Or are we going to be, what is it, foisted on our own petard? Or is it hoisted?
19:59 Speaker 01 Well, there's two things. There's AI, which everyone understands and talks about. We have a whole chapter in the book about that. But there's also robotics. And robotics is where, when you think about, well, AI is not gonna touch the blue collar workers. That's where you start thinking into the future, well, maybe it can. And there's a company not far from here, Hadrian.
20:23 Mike Rowe? Have you heard of it? Sure.
20:24 Speaker 01 They do robotic manufacturing for defense projects, for shipbuilding and, you know, defense contracting. And the CEO, you probably have met Chris Power.
20:36 Mike Rowe? I know his name.
20:37 Speaker 01 Yeah. He has said that even though his business is robotic manufacturing, he encourages children, parents, to send their children into welding. Because there's just not enough welders in the country for all the projects. Even though his business model is, he has robotic welding. So that should say something.
20:58 Mike Rowe? It does, you know? And there's a corollary, ironically, I think, in the liberal arts mindset and the humanities, right? I mean, it's, there's not a lot you can do directly with the Socratic-Aristotelian approach to education. But if you do study it, and if you let it absorb you, it can inform, I think, in a positive way, everything that you do. Well, in the trades, if you master welding early on, I can't tell you how many people who've gone through my foundation and who I've just met out in the world, you know, normally with cameras pointed at us. But they all tell a version of the same story.
21:40 Mike Rowe? They picked up a torch when they were 17 or 18.
21:46 Mike Rowe? And suddenly, things started to make sense. And I think part of the problem that we have in this country, and I'd love to get your take on it, is in the same way we look at education as this monolithic thing, we do the same thing with work. It's like, oh, you're a welder. Period, the end. Enjoy the next forty years welding. But of course, it doesn't work like that at all. Welders become HVAC guys, and some of them become electricians, some of them become plumbers, and some of them open a mechanical contracting company and hire a couple dozen people. And so, back to our earlier riff, you know, the idea of minimizing, or marginalizing, or demonizing those trades, it's just like pulling the bottom pieces out of a Jenga tower.
22:30 Speaker 01 You're twice as likely to own your own business if you pursue the trades rather than traditional higher education. The path to success is not just you're going to find work if you pursue the trades because of all the things we've just talked about.
22:45 Mike Rowe? It'll find you.
22:46 Speaker 01 If you're entrepreneurial in mindset, you can be very successful running your own business.
22:52 Mike Rowe? What about the other component? An entrepreneurial spirit, the mastery of a useful skill, and I didn't think this would ever become such a thing in our lifetime, but the willingness to go to where the work is. How did we get so sedentary as a, you know, as a people who populated a massive continent? The whole dream was built on moving, you know?
23:21 Speaker 01 This is actually a really interesting point. The biggest vacancies, the largest gap in supply of workers, exists in the areas where the projects are ongoing. Texas, California, Arizona.
23:35 Mike Rowe? Wyoming.
23:36 Speaker 01 The southeast, Wyoming. Louisiana has two enormous projects. One of them's larger than Central Park, data center project. And Georgia, there's a hundred and eighty thousand shortage of workers in the trades, just in Georgia, and they're struggling to deal with it. And there's also a public movement now, again... Data centers, people who don't want, you know, the NIMBY thing.
23:59 Mike Rowe? Oh, yeah.
23:59 Speaker 01 So you have that going on. But if you're a high wire lineman, like I told you, I live in Florida, right, where hurricanes happened occasionally. When the Weather Channel shows those hundreds lined up at the state line of trucks waiting to come in to save us when the electric goes down, we're grateful that they're willing to travel. I've heard you talk about the data centers in Texas and the electricians and how much money they can make. And that's largely because of overtime, the fact that there's so much work that's driven there. So if you are willing to travel to where in Arizona is where the chip manufacturers are, if you're willing to travel to those areas, you can do very well for yourself.
24:40 Mike Rowe? I just, in the same way, we over promoted one form of education at the expense of all the others. It really seems like we've under promoted the very definition of what opportunity is. Like, when people say opportunity is dead, I think what they're saying is, I've been all over the favorite parts of my zip code, and I can't find the job that I was promised.
25:10 Speaker 01 Right.
25:10 Mike Rowe? The job that I've dreamt of my whole life. And I don't know how we got to that place either, but it does feel like so much of this is kind of in our control because it's perception. And your book, of course, is, I think, primarily written to change the way we think about work. Is that fair?
25:31 Speaker 01 We do a lot of things. We want to raise awareness of the issue, and there's no shortage of people doing that. But we also want to talk about the statistics and talk about why you see such a vacancy, what can be done. We talk about what does workforce development look like now in the future? What are some innovative ideas? What can we do through policy to impact it, to get more people in it? What's the role of getting more women into the trades, the impact of AI? We have an entire chapter talking about what it's like to go to a trade school. What does it mean? What's the experience like of going to a trade school and what happens? And what do the different professions do? What if you choose that path?
26:13 Speaker 01 But I think the most gratifying part was we have an entire chapter, 10,000 words, which is a long chapter. It just skims the surface of all of the organizations and people that are working to make a difference. You mentioned BlackRock, JP Morgan Chase, I would put at the top of the list.
26:32 Mike Rowe? They got one and a half trillion set aside for this?
26:34 Speaker 01 Yes, yeah, and they have done research, Accenture, McKinsey, everybody, Deloitte.
26:41 Mike Rowe? You know Jamie Dimon?
26:42 Speaker 01 I have, when I was in office, we talked because I served during the financial meltdown 2008.
26:48 Mike Rowe? Congratulations, that must have been exciting.
26:50 Speaker 01 I did get to speak with them then, but not since.
26:53 Mike Rowe? Well, give my regards, I'm dying to meet him. We seem to be singing out of the same hymn book. And I do think that, you know, I mean, I don't think the government can save us from this, but they sure as heck have a role to play. And I don't think the billionaires can save us, but they sure as heck have a role to play. And it's really interesting now to see all these, these different verticals come together. Somewhat grudgingly, maybe, but they all got it, man. Whether it's the metaphorical memo I just mentioned, or the book you've written. Trade Up: Why the Future Belongs to Skilled Trades and How Career Education Is Transforming the Workforce. Sorry to free associate for a minute, but I didn't ask you, what exactly is the organization you're running right now?
27:38 Speaker 01 I lead the National Association that represents private post-secondary trade schools and career colleges. We're called Career Education Colleges and Universities. We have about 920 campuses across the US. All the trades you can think of, high wire lineman, underwater construction, everything in between, all the healthcare, nursing, medical assisting, cosmetology, culinary, personal service, business programs, IT, all the things related to cybersecurity, everything you can think of when you think of trades. That's who we represent.
28:16 Mike Rowe? Where you been all my life, man?
28:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, we're kind of on the same path.
28:21 Mike Rowe? I mean, what a kick, cosmetology.
28:26 Mike Rowe? You know my friend, Win Clayball?
28:27 Speaker 01 Yes, good friend.
28:28 Mike Rowe? Yeah, so, you know, I had him on here a couple of months ago. It was a completely random meeting. Did you catch that episode?
28:36 Speaker 01 I did.
28:37 Mike Rowe? Oh.
28:37 Speaker 01 How could I not? The first thing he did was send it to me and say, "Hey, tell me what you think." And if you don't, if you don't tell him what you think, you're gonna hear back.
28:46 Mike Rowe? You will hear back.
28:46 Speaker 01 It's not one of those things you can set aside.
28:48 Mike Rowe? Oh, look, man, he is a jagged little pill, that guy. I hope he's listening to this, because he's hitting me up now to speak at their thing, and I'd love to do it. But, you know, I'm only riffing on it because I started this effort not with the idea that part of what our country was suffering from was a citizenry plagued by bad haircuts, right?
29:12 Speaker 01 Right.
29:12 Mike Rowe? I'm not focused on that. But the number of people who are feeding their families, raising their kids, and making a decent living in cosmetology is amazing. So they're like one, like, our third biggest category now. And so, you know, you can learn a lot by accident from a quirky little bald guy who puts the arm on you and asks for the sale, which Win Clayball will do. He's running Paul Mitchell Schools, right?
29:39 Speaker 01 Correct, yes. They have, I believe, it's about 95 schools across the country, cosmetology schools, excellent schools. I've visited a number of them. I've visited over 200 trade schools myself, just across the country.
29:51 Mike Rowe? So, in your estimation, what are the myths and the primary misperceptions held by the citizenry that have made it difficult for trade schools to recruit more effectively?
30:09 Speaker 01 I think I would put at the top of the list, these are generally non-traditional students. People who've tried something else. Maybe tried community college first, traditional college didn't work out, maybe skipped higher ed in the beginning, downsized, looking for something else, gone through a divorce, something in their life has moved them to change direction. And for some of them, many of them, this is not a second chance, this is a last chance. So when you think about the student, we have a whole section of the book talking about Gen Z and the need to get women into the profession, and a lot of those are non-traditional women.
30:49 Speaker 01 But when you think about people pursuing the trades as a career, it's not just right out of high school. It's often people changing careers. So I think that is a big misperception. And then the other would be the sustainable, family-sustaining wage and the living that you can make in those professions. I don't think people understand that.
31:10 Mike Rowe? I was really surprised, this has probably been 11 years ago now, I shared an article in the journal. I think it was called "The Six-Figure Welder." And it was the first time I had seen that in headlines, but I'd met hundreds of people doing real well welding. And I shared that and anecdotally talked about what I had seen out in the world, and the pushback was extraordinary. Like, real skepticism, adjacent to real anger, "How dare you even suggest such a thing?" My kid right now is trying to figure out which college to go to, and he's gonna read this kind of thing, and God knows what's gonna happen to him. I mean, real fear. That's when I realized, you know what?
31:53 Mike Rowe? It's not just a question of people not quite understanding what the opportunities truly look like. That kind of bias is seen as a clear and present threat to whatever it is you think you want for your kids, and it does not go over well.
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33:46 Speaker 01 Well, it's interesting. So part of it is about what you want for your own kids. And there was a great survey that was taken where something like 94% of parents said the trades were a good route for somebody else's kid. But only 30% or so said it was a good route for their own kid.
34:04 Mike Rowe? Yeah, cross out kid and write in data center.
34:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, exactly.
34:07 Mike Rowe? It was the same thing.
34:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, but you know, one of the things we hear all the time, if you go to a graduation ceremony, I presume you've probably spoken at higher ed ceremonies. I have too. And when you're there, it is inspiring to see the faces of the students go through. And if you're at a traditional higher ed, it's generally college-age young adults that you're seeing cross the stage. And you'll hear from the crowd, people yell, "That's my girl, that's my boy." And they're proud, and that's great.
34:35 Mike Rowe? Sure.
34:36 Speaker 01 But if you come to one of our graduation ceremonies at our trade schools, you'll hear, "That's my mom." That's my dad.
34:44 Mike Rowe? Wow.
34:44 Speaker 01 Because they and the family.
34:47 Mike Rowe? Such a good point. I'm gonna steal that.
34:49 Speaker 01 Please do. And it's raucous. And you see the joy. These are people first in their family to do any kind of higher education credential. It's a huge achievement. And they did it with three kids while working a part-time job. That's very different than the traditional college experience.
35:07 Mike Rowe? You know, I mean, it's right in front of me. The majority of people we assist are out of high school and looking. But the best stories are the ones you're talking about. We featured a woman, Tracy Wilson, in a number of ads for MicroWorks. And she was cleaning houses seven years ago. Single mom, raising two kids.
35:33 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
35:34 Mike Rowe? And just she'd just had it. She wanted a do-over. She's doing the electronics on fighter jets today.
35:40 Speaker 01 Wow.
35:41 Mike Rowe? And so this other message to the country, to quote Robert Plant, "At the very end of stairway to heaven," you know, "There's still time to change the road you're on."
35:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
35:52 Mike Rowe? There's still time. And I think a lot of people don't believe that. And I think showing them examples, exactly as you're describing, that I love that. That's my dad up there.
36:04 Speaker 01 Right.
36:04 Mike Rowe? Reinventing himself right in front of me. I mean.
36:08 Speaker 01 And the whole family cheers. And the opposite of that, that's just as impactful when you observe it, are the people for whom nobody cheers. Because they're by themselves.
36:20 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
36:20 Speaker 01 They did it alone. And now they're improving their lives.
36:24 Mike Rowe? Wow.
36:25 Speaker 01 That's incredible.
36:25 Mike Rowe? That makes me want to applaud.
36:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
36:28 Mike Rowe? I mean, that that is the this word dignity. It's such a it's a politician's word, you know, and it's an ad man's word. Because it's just so loaded and rich. But when it's not being used for cheap manipulative purposes, it is real, you know, and it's almost always quiet, as you've described.
36:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
36:53 Mike Rowe? And part of what makes it poignant is there's there is no crowd celebrating. There's nobody marching on your behalf. It's just you and sort of the, oh, I don't know. Satisfaction is probably the wrong word, but it is deeply satisfying to master a skill, whatever it is. And there's real dignity in doing that. And that, that to me feels like the province of trade schools more so than any other.
37:21 Speaker 01 I always, I assume you're the same way because you're so passionate about it. But when I, when I speak at these tours that I do, they'll sometimes bring the students together in their hard hats. And I always say, you know, I'm jealous that you guys get to do this. This is really a cool thing. You get to work with your hands. I've never been, you know, like that, but you get to work with your hands and you get to do meaningful work every day. You can see the product of your labor. That's just awesome and you're pursuing your dreams.
37:52 Mike Rowe? Why? I'm asking you a question, I know the answer to, but why is it awesome? Why are men like you and I enamored of that to this degree?
38:05 Speaker 01 In part because I am the prototypical call the guy.
38:09 Mike Rowe? I got a guy for that.
38:11 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. Oh, you know, oh, the filter doesn't work in the refrigerator. What should we do? I don't know. Call the guy, you know, I just, whatever. That's always been me. So the fact that there are people out there who are able to do that, and we talked about the lineman coming in after hurricanes and, you know, all the infrastructure that's being built. I mean, we need these people. And every day they go home from work and they know they made a difference. They can see the progress that was made and there's just something inspiring about that.
38:39 Mike Rowe? I, Dirty Jobs was hard. It was a hard show to, to host, even though technically I was more like a guest. And part of what kept me coming back year after year after year after year after year after year was to bear witness to that mix of talent, skill and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm, Greek word, forget what it, its etymology, but it, this guy Barton Swaim, who I'm asking you to reach out to, he's a terrific writer. He had a piece in the Journal last week called, I Think We've Lost the Will to Work. And prior to that, a couple of years ago, he wrote an article called The War on Work. And
39:24 Mike Rowe? In it, he talks about these areas that are ascendant and aspirational today. And they include consultancies and advocacies and nonprofits and the like. And he says, "The interesting thing about all those categories is that the work doesn't benefit anyone directly except the worker." It's the whole point. Every job, I'm forgetting the fourth category, but the categories you're talking about are the exact opposite. When he changes the filter in your refrigerator, that benefits you. Now, he'll be paid for it, and as will the lineman.
40:09 Mike Rowe? But the business of having a vocation that primarily benefits somebody other than you, it's kind of Calvinist, you know? It's kind of a work ethic-y kind of thing, but it's a big part of the equation and it's missing from a lot of lives.
40:25 Speaker 01 And I would absolutely put nursing and the healthcare service professions in that, too.
40:30 Mike Rowe? Your chapter, if I remember right,
40:33 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:34 Mike Rowe? really made a point that I want to talk about. I've seen this. Is it really a shortage of nurses? Or is it a shortage of faculty? And is the credentialing system just so hopelessly jacked up? We're in our own way.
40:52 Speaker 01 There is a shortage of nursing, huge shortage. A hundred and ninety thousand vacancies right now, as we speak, in the country. Ten percent of the nursing workforce, those jobs are unfilled. So that exists. The faculty shortage is a cause of that vacancy. It's one of the causes. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Capacity, right? The ability to host and have the technology to bring in new students. And then the ability to pay for and attract the faculty to instruct them. And then, if you're a nurse, if you want to be nurse faculty, you have to be a nurse
41:33 Speaker 01 An advanced nurse, you can make a lot more money and have more flexibility and better career trajectory if you're practicing nursing rather than if you're in faculty in most cases. About 120,000 average as a practicing nurse income, 90,000 if you're faculty. So finding a way to attract people to go into more faculty. But there is an issue, right here in California, for example, UC Irvine and UCLA combined in 2023 to receive 12,000 qualified nursing applicants and they accepted 120 of them because of capacity.
42:16 Mike Rowe? Oh my god.
42:17 Speaker 01 There's a 74% vacancy, need of nurses in California. So when you, or the acceptance rate, 74% are denied qualified applicants. So when you think about the need that exists and the fact that we have qualified applicants, but we don't have the capacity to train them, that is a huge problem. And then in California and other states, they discourage private and for-profit nursing schools from expanding because they have the ability to do that. They have the resources, they have an innovative mindset, they're able to expand.
42:58 Speaker 01 And often these nursing boards, it's a big problem in California, will deny them their application to expand capacity or limit their enrollment. And that, that just doesn't make any sense if you're trying to solve the problem.
43:12 Mike Rowe? Key bono. I mean, who benefits? It sounds like the bottom part of the funnel is, is clogged. You've got people who are willing, all those people applying, why aren't they qualified? It just feels like we're standing on our own wiener.
43:30 Speaker 01 They are qualified, but there's no, the capacity isn't there, except for the private and for-profit schools that have the ability to increase capacity and have applied to be able to do so, and then it gets denied.
43:45 Mike Rowe? Applied to whom? The state?
43:47 Speaker 01 The state board of nursing.
43:49 Mike Rowe? And the state board of nursing is fully aware of the shortage that currently exists?
43:53 Speaker 01 Yes.
43:54 Mike Rowe? And they understand that they have the capacity to ameliorate the problem. But they're not.
43:59 Speaker 01 Correct. Yeah, we go over this in our chapter on the nursing shortage, but that is the issue, and that's a political issue. Nursing unions are a part of the issue, right? So increased supply is not always something that the unions are happy about, right?
44:15 Mike Rowe? Careful Congressman, careful.
44:17 Speaker 01 I know.
44:17 Mike Rowe? You hear that cracking sound, right? That's the ice under you. Of course, you're not running for anything anymore.
44:22 Speaker 01 That's right.
44:23 Mike Rowe? But look, since you brought it up, I mean, it feels like I get, I don't even care anymore. I used to try really hard to stay out of the middle of labor and management. But it's inevitable, you know, that I, it's not called micro labor, it's called micro works. Work is different than labor.
44:43 Speaker 01 Right.
44:44 Mike Rowe? Works for everybody. I fully respect the right of people to join a union, and I understand the need to negotiate shrewdly and effectively with your frickin' boss. I got it.
44:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
44:58 Mike Rowe? But nothing we're talking about is at that level. And so I find myself constantly, not quite in hot water, but sometimes saying things that disappoint the rank and file. Because I think they expect a level of rubber stampish solidarity from the likes of me. And I can't always provide it, because I feel like the nursing union and the teachers' union and the SEIU and the Rodbusters and the steelworkers, they're different. You know? Do you see it that way, as a guy that used to have a D in front of his name?
45:36 Speaker 01 Well, a guy that had a D by my name in Pittsburgh, right? You want to talk about the steelworkers' union and others? So yes, I mean, I did, over time, come to have a disagreement about a lot of those issues. And as it relates to the workforce issues, I do think it's worth thinking about why are the high-growth areas in the country, Florida, you know, the southeast, Georgia, North Carolina, on over to Texas, Arizona, Utah?
46:08 Speaker 01 And then you look at where the unions have the heaviest presence. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, even California, which is going to lose up to four congressional seats in the next reapportionment because people are fleeing the state. Is there a connection there? I think people might want to think about that.
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47:55 Speaker 01 Right?
47:55 Mike Rowe? I think maybe they will.
47:56 Speaker 01 I'm not trying to generate controversy, but it is a fact.
48:00 Mike Rowe? As I say often on this show, you know, sometimes things just have to go splat before they get better. And I don't want to see it go splat. I don't even know what "go splat" means. I mean, a few miles from where you're sitting, you know, the Palisades burned a year ago. That sure looked like a splat to me. And yet, what, 14 months later, we get four permits issued?
48:23 Mike Rowe? You know, now, I'm not saying the unions have anything to do with that or not. I don't know. I don't think so. But it's awkward, you know? I met the guy who runs the electrical union for the whole country.
48:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:37 Mike Rowe? The same week, I met three electricians in Plano. In that data center you mentioned, all making two forty to two eighty a year. All under thirty, all with no debt, all with as much overtime as they want. The guys can basically set their own schedule.
48:52 Speaker 01 Right.
48:53 Mike Rowe? The thing I didn't mention was that all three of them had been poached three times in the prior eighteen months. Now, what am I gonna say to the head of that union who represents members?
49:06 Speaker 01 Right.
49:06 Mike Rowe? Who are enjoying making a quarter million dollars a year and setting their own schedule? To your point, the shortage benefits the constituency. Keeping the pipeline full is important, but not too full, maybe?
49:22 Speaker 01 That's it. That's exactly it.
49:25 Mike Rowe? Let's not get carried away, fellas. You know, I'm sorry you have to wait three days for Frank to fix your toilet. But, you know, life is hard. So it's difficult to paint. It's easy to paint with too broad a brush, you know? How the hell did you stay in politics for as long as you did?
49:41 Speaker 01 Well, the unions do great work with regard to apprenticeships.
49:46 Mike Rowe? Yes.
49:47 Speaker 01 And training and quality.
49:49 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
49:49 Speaker 01 And craftsmanship.
49:50 Mike Rowe? Yes.
49:51 Speaker 01 That is indisputable. The issue becomes their view of competition from non-union labor.
49:58 Mike Rowe? Right.
49:59 Speaker 01 And their discouraging of whether it be nurses or the trades, whatever it might be. That's not helpful. But the unions do their part with regard to supplying very high-quality workers into the workforce.
50:13 Mike Rowe? Of course. Of course. I only make the point because it is very difficult to say a thing that's gonna make everybody nod their heads at the same time with equal enthusiasm.
50:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. But the nursing shortage, that is definitely an issue where that comes into play.
50:32 Mike Rowe? So what do you think of this? I was in Oklahoma about a year ago, little town called Drumbeat. Like in the middle of the middle. And one of the best tech schools I've ever seen was there. It was called Central Tech.
50:49 Mike Rowe? And around 2:00 in the afternoon, I was there for the energy guys. They have an amazing welding program. And Continental and a couple other big employers in Oklahoma rely on them heavily. And around 2:30 in the afternoon, like 18 buses come in from all the surrounding schools that used to have shop class but don't anymore. So all the kids come there. It was amazing to see them all just jump into these different vocations and get busy learning. But during lunch, I walked down to the foreign where they had a nursing wing. And they were on their break. And there were 15 women standing around, a couple of guys and their instructors. And I said, "So, how's it going?" "It's great."
51:33 Mike Rowe? "It's a two-year program, I guess?" And the instructor said, "Well, could be. You know, Carolyn here is gonna do it in two. You know, Fran is gonna do it in more like 18 months. Charlotte, more like a year. You know, Jennifer, eh, three." Point is, there was no term.
51:56 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:57 Mike Rowe? At all. They got the memo on the nursing shortage. And their whole approach to it is the minute you're qualified, you're hired.
52:05 Speaker 01 Yep.
52:05 Mike Rowe? You're out there. Why isn't that happening everywhere?
52:08 Speaker 01 It's a big issue when you talk about solutions. And one of the most often mentioned solutions is that very issue, going to a competency-based graduation program completion versus an arbitrary number of hours of program length.
52:24 Mike Rowe? What justifies the credential? Is it competency? Is it time?
52:28 Speaker 01 Well, I would argue competency is the end goal there. And when you think of apprenticeships, for example, you need 144 hours of educational credits and you need 2,000 hours of on-the-job training. And there's a big movement to look at exactly the issue that you said is when those people are ready to complete the apprenticeship and get out into the workforce, they're ready. And it doesn't benefit anybody, not the student, not the school, not the society, to keep that person behind. So those nursing students that you're talking about, when there's 190,000 shortage of nurses in the country, I think, get them out into the workforce.
53:13 Mike Rowe? There was an expression in your book. I wrote it down here somewhere. Opportunity pluralism.
53:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:20 Mike Rowe? Yeah, what is that?
53:22 Speaker 01 That means that everyone should have equal opportunity to pursue their career of their choice. And in that chapter, we talk about the issues related to why people have been dissuaded from going into the trades, why it's been that college for all mentality, what we talked about at the beginning. So, opportunity pluralism, that entire chapter talks about why that has been the case and why we need to move on and go in a different direction.
53:52 Mike Rowe? So, you were in elected office when the college for all
53:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
53:58 Mike Rowe? really became a trope. How did you process it? What did you say to your fellow Democrats when it started to take hold?
54:08 Speaker 01 I don't know that I, in fact, I can say with certainty, I didn't know these issues that we're talking about now. I hadn't thought of it in that way with regard to the trades. I did see an ideological bias generally on the Democratic side against the private and for-profit trade schools, and I was someone that opposed that as a Democrat, which led to my career the way that it worked out.
54:32 Mike Rowe? Going up in flames, you mean?
54:34 Speaker 01 That's the political career. But the career I currently have was because while I was in office, that was something that I had worked on.
54:42 Mike Rowe? Right. Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah. Yeah, man. I'm often offered to kick the political tires.
54:56 Speaker 01 I see you do it. I see your post every once in a while, you dabble in the issues.
55:00 Mike Rowe? Well, the thing is, in a world where, if I'm going to talk about education and labor, which I kind of feel like I have permission to do vis a vis the foundation, you know, that's okay. When I get in trouble is when I veer out of my lane into some, you know, adjacent thing. But I don't know that there are lanes anymore, and I'm not sure. I mean, I do agree with you, I still think this is one of the very, very few issues that is inherently nonpartisan. And I think a lot of people have worked really hard to change that. Shame on them, you know? But how would you advise your counterparts today?
55:44 Mike Rowe? You know, when you are you still in touch with Congress folk?
55:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, we have text chains that I'm on. People I was a member of the conservative Democrat Coalition, the Blue Dog Coalition. And there's a text chain that exists. And my in election class, class of 2006, there's a text chain. And then people that are in office and out of office that I served with. So, yeah, we keep in touch. And I find two things as it relates to this. I find much greater understanding of the issues. But I do still see an ideological bias favoring the public sector and against private and for profit schools.
56:28 Mike Rowe? Who do you admire in office today? Who's getting it right? What sort of ideas resonate with you?
56:35 Speaker 01 I think, I mean, I'm nonpartisan. I work with both sides. We reference in the book Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona. I served with his wife Gabby Gifford, very good friends. And I think he's going in the right direction as it relates to AI. And looking at some of the challenges, both the politics of it. We talked about the data centers and navigating that. And he's somebody who has higher aspirations. But also in Arizona, they need those workers. They are the prototypical state with the job shortages. So I think he's someone that is definitely going in the right direction.
57:11 Mike Rowe? What do you think about companies who appear unable to wait either for the government or for trade schools to expand? You know, I was talking to Jim Farley over at Ford the other day. Shall we drop that name, Chuck?
57:29 Speaker 01 That's pretty good.
57:30 Mike Rowe? Another CEO that calls me.
57:32 Speaker 01 There's a lot of them.
57:34 Mike Rowe? I think he's going to build trade schools.
57:36 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:36 Mike Rowe? Within Ford. I don't think you can wait. I don't think you can wait for UTI or Lincoln Tech or whatever. It's, I mean, I'm big fans of both of those.
57:45 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:46 Mike Rowe? But what's going to, like Home Depot has a giant initiative now. Lowe's just announced a $250 million in-house training program. FedEx is training truck drivers. UPS probably will too. So how do you think about that as a kind of, I don't know, stopgap?
58:05 Speaker 01 I think about it all the time and we're speaking the same language. I have this conversation with our members. Our members are the trade schools. So we have our board of directors and then we have our larger membership and I talk about that very issue. The competition in the past has always been community colleges, the regulatory environment, you know, fighting those fights that we just talked about. That's not where the competition is going to be in the future. High schools now, they're not creating the old shop classes that we remember from when we were young. They're in, I talk in the book, in White Plains, New York, they had 75 acres that they redeveloped to build a trade school. And now they're funneling
58:47 Speaker 01 students through there. In Massachusetts, there are thousands of students on the waiting list to go through their vocational ed programs. Father Judge High School in Philadelphia has a welding program that graduates about 25 students a year that go directly into the workforce as welders. They don't need to go to trade schools because they finished it in high schools. Companies are forming, they're saying, let's just eliminate the middleman. We'll do the training ourselves.
59:16 Mike Rowe? If you were Jensen Wong, you were running a $4 trillion company, you're not going to wait?
59:22 Speaker 01 Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart, Ford, yeah. You're not gonna wait. They're all doing it. And then you have innovative entrepreneurial folks who can see the stuff that you and I see, which is the need and the trajectory of the issue, who want to start training, becoming training providers. And the community colleges, you know, who I think had been fairly criticized as being a little slow to react to some things and maybe being part of the problem of funneling people into careers or degrees that weren't necessarily going to pan out, they are now refocused on this. And they're getting a ton of funding, both from private philanthropy and the government. And now they're getting their act together in a way that is very good for the country.
1:00:05 Speaker 01 But if you're just sitting back thinking that this is all going to flow through trade schools now, you're not going to fare very well.
1:00:13 Mike Rowe? I don't think so. And I'd be nervous if I was running a trade school. And again, I'm a big fan, but there's, the economies of scale are what they are. And UTI charges what they charge and they, they will turn out a very qualified diesel mechanic. But if you're desperate to hire a very qualified diesel mechanic and you have the means to train them internally, why wouldn't you? At, at what point, right, do you just start to do that? I, I really wonder. And I, I suppose the same thing could happen in the university system as well. I mean, my, if you've got an internet connection and an iPhone, I mean, you've got access to 98% of all the known information in the world.
1:00:55 Mike Rowe? There's your Stoics, there's your Aristotelian Humanities degree. It's in your hand.
1:01:00 Speaker 01 At your fingertips.
1:01:01 Mike Rowe? Free lectures from MIT, you can, right? So, I mean, that's where I am optimistic about the tech and the AI. I think once we put sides on it, the genuinely curious cat.
1:01:15 Mike Rowe? Is just, it's already happening, you know, you can see, I'm not talking about just scrolling on reels, I'm talking about, you know, getting into something, you know, more substantive than cat videos and large people falling down.
1:01:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, dance videos, right?
1:01:30 Mike Rowe? Yeah, which, you know, are fine.
1:01:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, we have a whole section in the book about trade schools, as I talked about, and if you're innovative, and so many of them are, and you're thinking and you have a forward vision, you're going to do very well. But my point was that if you are not of that mindset and you're kind of, let's keep doing it the way we've always done it, that's not going to work out, whether you're a trade school, community college, wherever it might be. I think one of the things that gives me the most hope, optimism, we talk about women in the trades. Less than 5% of people in the skilled trades are women currently. If you look at welding, Instagram, the top 50 welding accounts, top 50 Instagram accounts
1:02:15 Speaker 01 that focus on welding, 32 of them of the 50 are run by women, influencers.
1:02:22 Mike Rowe? That's amazing.
1:02:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, because they're getting into it and there's an interest. And I have seen that, I've been in this role for six years now, traveling the country, and I've seen a difference. I see more women on the shop floor when I travel.
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1:03:56 Mike Rowe? I'm glad to have the company on the podcast. Camel city mill.com. Use code row. Get 10% off my favorite work socks. Camel city mill.com code row. That's the interesting thing. We're a big tent, but they came and the welders in particular, their stories are incredible. I guess maybe it's still dominated, obviously by men, but the success stories of women, TIG welding in particular, you know, precise for almost a kind of surgery, you know, and the irony of using Tik Tok or Instagram, you know, to tell that story and ultimately wind up making a more persuasive case for the very vocation than the trade schools themselves.
1:04:41 Speaker 01 And you know, the funny thing, 100% of the time when I go into a school and I see that there's some women there, maybe more than had been in the past, I'll say, how do they do in the program? Every time, oh, they're our best students.
1:04:56 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:04:56 Speaker 01 And the reason is because if you're a woman and you go into that environment, you go into a welding class, you go into an electrician program, you do it because you have a passion for it and you're good at it, but you also want to show your peers, you want to take it seriously. And this is my thing and I'm going to do the best I possibly can.
1:05:17 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:05:18 Speaker 01 And if you're a guy, you just have a different mindset. You're going to do okay, but those women are solely focused on outshining everybody around them and they do really well. And then they get out into the workforce and they kill it.
1:05:29 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:05:30 Speaker 01 Because they're, they did so well in school.
1:05:32 Mike Rowe? How, so how do you explain that? Like, what do you account? Is it? I remember Larry Ellison said, somebody asked him, you know, sum it up, man. How'd you do it? Like, really, how'd you do it? And he's like, well, growing up, I had just the right amount of adversity. You know, to be challenged.
1:05:50 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:05:51 Mike Rowe? You know, I think that's a really important thing. And I know that's Chloe Hudson. She was one of our first, uh, first recipients.
1:05:59 Speaker 01 We talk about her in the book.
1:06:01 Mike Rowe? Chloe, specifically? Yeah.
1:06:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:05 Speaker 02 You must have missed that part when you read it.
1:06:07 Mike Rowe? My lawyers will be in touch. That's great. No, yeah, I did a full, you know, I skimmed through the PDF. I missed Chloe Hudson, but she's like our rock star. She was gonna be a plastic surgeon and decided, you know, $400,000 in debt.
1:06:24 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:24 Mike Rowe? Freaked her out.
1:06:25 Speaker 01 But she's become a rock star. Yeah.
1:06:27 Speaker 02 I just saw her two Saturdays, Saturdays ago, uh, in Pomona at the, at the drag races.
1:06:33 Mike Rowe? At the racetrack?
1:06:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, uh huh. Cause she does, uh, social media for Tony Stewart, uh, Tony's wife, uh.
1:06:38 Mike Rowe? Ms. Stewart?
1:06:39 Speaker 02 No, her name's Laura.
1:06:41 Mike Rowe? No one cares.
1:06:41 Speaker 02 She's always.
1:06:42 Mike Rowe? Nobody cares.
1:06:42 Speaker 02 And Matt Hagan.
1:06:43 Mike Rowe? And Matt, yeah, people care about Matt.
1:06:45 Speaker 02 Funny car.
1:06:47 Speaker 01 So, you know where we met her? Was in Atlanta. And if you haven't gone to the Skills USA conference in Atlanta.
1:06:56 Mike Rowe? I was, I was there last year.
1:06:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay, so that, uh, we, we were too, and that's where we met her. That is an unbelievable setting. And she, they have, I, I forget that 14,000, some incredible number of high school students. They come in and they are products of a nationwide progressive competition in their trades. And this is the finals. And then there's all of these employers that are there and they often hire on the spot. And there's job interviews and everybody's nervous. And Chloe was there. And what amazed me in that environment, everybody knew who she was.
1:07:30 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:07:30 Speaker 01 They were coming up, they were taking pictures with her.
1:07:32 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:07:33 Speaker 01 It was just incredible.
1:07:34 Mike Rowe? Yeah, I, um, I've said out loud, and I'll, I'll say it again. I think Skills USA is. The most consequential youth-based movement in the country today. And I say that as an Eagle Scout. With all due respect to the Boy Scouts and future Farmers of America and the 4-H Club. What Skills USA is doing is essentially truly filling the gap that was left when trade schools vanished high school. And you're right, you know, to see Allstate walk down on the competition floor and hire a kid for 92 grand, straight out of high school, right there. That, I mean, I got frustrated with them because I was like, whoa.
1:08:19 Mike Rowe? How, if I put 100 people in a room, show of hands, who's heard of the Boy Scouts? Every hand goes up. Who's heard of, you know, the 4-H Club? Most hands. People still don't understand what Skills USA is. They're 480,000 members now. They're trying to get to a million in five years. I do what I can to help. I'm glad you brought them up because I think they're a piece of the puzzle in the same way, you know, private companies and public companies are going to be a piece of it. Do you know what Palantir is doing? Are you following any of that?
1:08:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, at the World Economic Forum, he was speaking about that very issue that you were saying, that this is the largest infrastructure movement in the history of the world. I think the number he threw out was $75 trillion worldwide of infrastructure that's going to be built. And again, we just don't have the workers in the world to do this.
1:09:16 Mike Rowe? Well, he's, you know, he's taking kids right out of high school. I think he took like 30 and put them on these big engineering projects, big consequential hands-on projects. But at the same time, he's doing something internally with the Western Civ thing. They're getting exposed to a liberal arts degree while they're learning a useful skill. And in two years. These kids are going to be making 300 grand and they're going to be able to talk intelligently about Nietzsche and Kierkegaard.
1:09:48 Speaker 01 It's another thing you're going to see, we were talking about the competition that's existing, is there is a movement for trade programs to be implemented in traditional higher education, sometimes with residential going along with that.
1:10:02 Mike Rowe? Yeah.
1:10:02 Speaker 01 So you'll have the trade students and the traditional students walking together on the campus green.
1:10:07 Mike Rowe? Well, that, you know, optics matter. That's so, back to your earlier point with the graduations and the, and the color of collars, which I think is going to end. And I hope the same thing happens in politics, you know, it's blue and red and with the workforce it's blue and white, obviously, but it just, it really just feels like we're going to have to just jam everybody together and smear it all up.
1:10:32 Speaker 01 AI is forcing us to do that as a society. And when you look at the fact, I think it's 85% of jobs are going to have 50% or more of their tasks become obsolete because of AI. Right? Think about that.
1:10:52 Mike Rowe? I am.
1:10:53 Speaker 01 You need to be really good at the other 50% if you want to survive.
1:10:57 Mike Rowe? Listen up, Chuck.
1:10:58 Speaker 01 It doesn't mean you lose your job, it just means your job changes. And if AI can't do those tasks, at least not yet, that makes them really valuable and that makes you really marketable. And that's what our education system has to train and educate people and point us towards, rather than just doing it the way we've always done it.
1:11:20 Mike Rowe? Interesting. You know, I feel like, not to pick on the Ivies, but I'll just say, I feel like higher ed has ignored the fact that much of what they impart is now available for free online to anyone with internet connection.
1:11:36 Speaker 01 Right.
1:11:36 Mike Rowe? I don't want to see the other half of the workforce make the same mistake with AI, simply because in the near term, you're going to be the prettiest girl at the dance. Right? Great, but don't stick your head in the sand. Figure this tool out.
1:11:53 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:11:53 Mike Rowe? Figure it out. I don't care what you think really about data centers. You know, two thirds of the country has a negative reaction to them. But we're in the fight of our life. We're in the race of our life. The stakes are high, man. And China is involved in this thing in a big way. We don't have to like it, but we can't just sit down and go, no, I'm not going to run in this thing. You're running. You might as well win.
1:12:21 Speaker 01 We talk in the book about the people who used to put out the lights before electricity came along. It was their job.
1:12:29 Mike Rowe? It's a job.
1:12:30 Speaker 01 To turn them on and turn them off. Gas and then candles before. And eventually those jobs went away. All of the infrastructure related to the horse driven carriage.
1:12:39 Mike Rowe? Bye bye buggy whips.
1:12:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, and then cars come along. This is not the first time there's been a monumental shift in technology that has changed the workforce in America or the world. It's how we adapt. And we use the Sputnik as an example, 1957. So when the Russians beat us to the satellite orbiting the earth, that was a wake up call for America. And President Eisenhower and the Congress worked together and they fundamentally changed the way we funded higher education and what our national priorities were to catch up and exceed. And of course, that was 1957, 1969.
1:13:22 Speaker 01 We land a man on the moon because we funded math and science and changed our education. That's the moment we're in right now. We are in the Sputnik moment of our time. And how we react as policymakers, as philanthropies and foundations and businesses and trade schools and everyone in this ecosystem is going to determine whether or not we are going to be competitive with the rest of the world. Because China's going to figure it out. The issue is, are we going to be able to fill those workforce shortages to build and continue to advance in a way, in the same way that in 1957, we responded to Sputnik?
1:14:03 Mike Rowe? What do you think? Are we up for it?
1:14:05 Speaker 01 The math is daunting. It's, I mean, it's almost impossible when you think about it. We're losing the, the young population. I told you about the losing 2%. In high school, we topped out 2025 high school population in the country. So from now until 2041, we decrease the number of people who are in high school. There's 15% fewer kindergarteners today than there are high school seniors. And that number gets worse every year through 2041. So there's that. I do think moving women into the trades and getting them excited and interested is going to make a difference. Getting people generally interested in the work that you and so many others are doing
1:14:48 Speaker 01 to promote and take away the stigma that used to be associated with the trades. That is all making a big difference, but it is hard to get around having one and a half million fewer people entering the workforce than there are jobs available.
1:15:04 Mike Rowe? Yeah. The math ain't mathin'. I should probably ask you for some advice before I let you go, too. I've been to the Pentagon a couple of times, right? And, you know, for what it's worth, I, I offered my foundation and my own services to President Obama in 2009, when the 3 million shovel-ready jobs thing, you know, the argument was simple. You're going to have a much easier time selling those jobs to people that feel great about picking up a shovel, you know?
1:15:37 Speaker 01 Right.
1:15:38 Mike Rowe? Like, we need some sort of national effort to reinvigorate the trades. I've been to Congress. I've told that story a bunch. I don't know if it's this administration or, or just this time we happen to be living in, but there's interest now.
1:15:57 Mike Rowe? Here's a crazy idea. What if there was an academy out there that paid students to learn instead of the other way around? Specifically, men and women who want to work in the skilled trades. And what if this academy not only paid for your training, but also covered all the expenses associated with your training, like travel and food and lodging? And finally, what if this academy guaranteed you a job at the end of the training period? Well, that's exactly what's happening at America's Workforce Academy by Meta. This is a five-week, highly immersive pre-apprenticeship program that gets you all the necessary certifications you'll need to start a career in the skilled trades immediately.
1:16:39 Mike Rowe? I'm talking about AI-proof, six-figure jobs, helping to build out the new infrastructure that our economy is depending on. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC techs, welders, fiber optic technicians, these jobs, they are all in demand like never before. And again, every graduate of America's Workforce Academy is guaranteed a job on a Meta website. I first announced this program a few months ago, and I have been watching the response ever since. It's extraordinary. This is a nationwide, unprecedented fast track to a long-term career in a skilled trade. If you, or your spouse, or your kid, or your grandkid are looking for a straight path
1:17:22 Mike Rowe? into a career with no cost at all, check out the opportunities for yourself at meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. That's meta.com/america'sworkforceacademy. Because our government, it's not just private industry that's freaking out. It's our submarine makers, you mentioned ships. There's so many great jobs. You mentioned, is it Hadrian?
1:17:47 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, they're in Torrance, right up the road.
1:17:50 Mike Rowe? Yeah, I mean, the big five, Lockheed, Raytheon, Thyacall, you know, obviously Palantir and Andurall. So they've got so many great stories to tell, and I think the government is down with shining a light on those. I'm game to do it. Am I gonna regret it?
1:18:08 Speaker 01 No, there's a few things they're doing better. The Skillbridge program, which in the last six months before you leave the service, they allow you to go into the private sector, is a lot better now at allowing folks to explore trade careers than they were before.
1:18:23 Mike Rowe? That is so, riff on that a minute. That's basically reverse boot camp.
1:18:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, so there is a recognition that the transition, I think it's 200,000 men and women per year leave the military, transition from that to civilian life. And if you don't assist with that transition professionally, they're gonna struggle to find work. So for the last six months, you're able to go and explore your job opportunities, work on site, and then hopefully, once you leave, to be able to transition into that career. And to be able to do that with the trades is really important. And we have a whole section in the book about the transition of veterans and how it just fits. You know, they're looking for, especially folks that have been in, you know, overseas
1:19:10 Speaker 01 and been in battle, and so they want excitement, and they just have a different mental disposition than most folks do. And when you get on a construction site, that kind of fits with what they want out of life and what they're used to doing. So I think encouraging that rather than discouraging it, which I think may have been happening before, I think that's better for them, but it's also better for the country.
1:19:34 Mike Rowe? I think, yeah, that's a big part of it. You know Workshop, Workshops for Warriors down in San Diego? Tanner, what was his name? H? Hernan? Yeah, he's, I mean, this guy was a medic and just decided to pivot, and he basically has taught, I mean, a couple thousand, mostly Navy.
1:19:59 Mike Rowe? How to how to weld and gotten them jobs. It's just it's just another one of those little thousand points of light that really ought to be amplified.
1:20:08 Speaker 01 It's just because they have that. Well, it's not only because, but they have the base there. It's one of the reasons. But San Diego is a hotbed of innovative thinking. The Prebuss Foundation and the San Diego Foundation both prioritize workforce development. It's a huge issue because there are fast growing, a lot of development there. I would put San Diego with Georgia and Arizona and some of the, you know, best states with regard to the collaboration of employers and trade schools and funders. When you have the brightest minds and the deepest pockets all pulling in the same direction, it makes a big difference.
1:20:42 Mike Rowe? Well, and clarity of purpose. I tend to look for the silver linings and, you know, all the conflict that's going on, all the uncertainty in the world. It does have a way to of sharpening one's focus with regard to stakes.
1:20:56 Speaker 01 And if you look at the GI Bill and how veterans use the GI Bill, they still huge disproportionately use it towards traditional higher education.
1:21:06 Mike Rowe? I know.
1:21:07 Speaker 01 Rather than going into the trade. So I think that having an effort, you know, it's not necessarily for everybody, not saying everybody has to do it, but there should be more of an appreciation among folks who are helping advise people on maybe what their next step in their career could be to, if they're going to use GI Bill benefits, maybe think about the trades.
1:21:27 Mike Rowe? You know, I'm really encouraged, actually, when I when I think about all the different things private industry is doing in their own verticals to address this, when I think of all the different foundations that are out there, you know, I I'll take a little credit maybe for being a little early, but man, they're like the Marine Corps Scholarship Fund is doing amazing work for sons and daughters of Marines, folds of honor.
1:21:56 Mike Rowe? I think they've done $270 million in scholarships, but to your point, we're partnering with them this year because they want a big chunk of that cohort to kick the tires on the trades. And they don't know how to get them to do that. We've just got to meet them where they are somehow, but it seems possible.
1:22:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, there's a Heroes to Hard Hats program.
1:22:21 Mike Rowe? Yep.
1:22:22 Speaker 01 You've probably.
1:22:23 Mike Rowe? Helmets to Hard Hats.
1:22:24 Speaker 01 Helmets to Hard Hats.
1:22:25 Mike Rowe? Yeah, that's still around. I think Monster bought them at one point, but there's so many well-intended people who are trying to build vet-friendly on-ramps into industry, who are trying to close the skills gap in whatever way they can. And I know there's so many politicians too, who, you know, all the jokes aside and whatever, you know, they're striving to make a difference. Do you know, Chuck, what's his name, West Virginia, Riley?
1:22:56 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, Riley Moore.
1:22:59 Mike Rowe? Riley Moore, Republican, West Virginia. He's got a bill. It's in Congress now. It's called Jump Start.
1:23:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, I know the bill. I did not serve with him, so I don't know him, but I know the bill, yes.
1:23:13 Mike Rowe? What do you think of it?
1:23:14 Speaker 01 I think it's good. I think it's exactly what we're talking about, to be able to have government support, to be able to funnel people in the direction that is best for them, that's most important, has to be a good fit, but it's also best for the country to have people go in.
1:23:30 Mike Rowe? Yeah, if people are just struggling to keep up, Jump Start is, it's like a 529. And to be fair, you can take, 529 is pre-tax money that you can spend later on education. And you can take some of that money out of a 529 and use it on a trade school. What Jump Start does is it opens that up and lets you spend that money on things like tools.
1:23:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:23:55 Mike Rowe? You know, because a tradesman in many cases has to buy his own tools. And this seems like such a common sense thing that every, I mean, who's not behind that?
1:24:06 Speaker 01 Well, there's a few things. So, one is, the 529 programs did not always include trade schools. That's a fairly recent addition, which was very positive. The idea of tools, that especially comes into play on something like an apprenticeship, because you can get that apprentice. As an employer, you can offer that, but you're not required to pay for the tools and the uniform and whatever else might come. So, that's going to be part of it. The US Chamber of Commerce advocates, and we support, skilled savings accounts, which is kind of like you have with savings accounts for healthcare now as an employer. You could allow the employee to set aside tax-deferred funds for their education related
1:24:49 Speaker 01 to trade schools and so forth. So, all of these together are moving in the right direction.
1:24:54 Mike Rowe? What should people know about the incredibly complicated title of the organization you're running right now? Remind me of what that is again, and how can they get involved, learn more, help, etc.?
1:25:04 Speaker 01 Career, education, colleges, and universities. Our website is career.org. You can learn about what we do, the types of schools and students that we serve. If you want to learn more about the book, that is tradeupbook.com, and we get into all of these issues. And you can, if anyone wants to reach me, I have a website. It's just my personal website, jasonaltmeyer.com, and there's a contact me form on there. Feel free to reach out. Would love to talk to anybody about these issues.
1:25:34 Mike Rowe? Great. And your personal phone number?
1:25:35 Speaker 01 Nah, not going to do that part.
1:25:37 Mike Rowe? I would not do that. And who's Riley Burr, and how come he's in second position?
1:25:41 Speaker 01 Riley, it's a she. Riley is an amazing researcher. She leads our research foundation, the CQ Research Foundation. She's also Vice President of Policy and Research. She has an incredible combination of being a very smart and savvy researcher, but also a great writer and thinker, and intuitive thinker. And the way that we work together was, she helped run the data and come up with ideas, and we worked together in writing the book. And I think it worked out really well, because we have a good combination of telling the anecdotes and the stories and the reasons why we have this issue, and then explaining through data and research what some of the solutions are.
1:26:23 Mike Rowe? Do you still get up to Pennsylvania?
1:26:25 Speaker 01 Occasionally, yes.
1:26:27 Mike Rowe? A couple hours ago, right before you got here, I just learned we're going to be doing an event there, maybe around Carnegie Mellon. I was there last July for their infrastructure energy thing.
1:26:39 Speaker 01 With Senator McCormick.
1:26:39 Mike Rowe? Yeah, McCormick and Fetterman.
1:26:41 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:26:41 Mike Rowe? They were both there. The president was there. A lot of CEOs were there. 93 billion was pledged in the room, right? I was the guy who raised my hand and say, hey, you know, carve off a little tiny slice of that to help me make a more persuasive case for the very jobs you're talking about creating.
1:26:59 Speaker 01 Yep.
1:26:59 Mike Rowe? Well, as it turns out, they might do that. So we're doing another event there this summer. Wells Fargo's involved. Maybe Thomas Tull. Do you know Thomas?
1:27:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, he was on your podcast.
1:27:10 Mike Rowe? He was?
1:27:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, I saw that.
1:27:12 Mike Rowe? You know what? You actually really listen to this thing.
1:27:14 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:27:14 Mike Rowe? I'm actually gonna have to read your book now.
1:27:16 Speaker 01 [laughing]
1:27:20 Mike Rowe? No, look, man, I'm so glad you wrote it. And I would say long overdue, but that sounds like you've been putting it off. And obviously, you haven't. You've been in this fight a long time.
1:27:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:27:29 Mike Rowe? But I hope if I can be of use to your organization, don't hesitate to reach out.
1:27:35 Speaker 01 We will. And thank you for what you're doing. You have made such a difference. And I know you know this, but you were out there before anybody else. And everyone has now caught up to you, but you led the charge and you made a big difference.
1:27:48 Mike Rowe? You know what made me laugh, man? I was in the course of conducting the extensive research I do for all of these recordings. I was walking over here this morning from the hotel, and I was listening to you. I think it was C-SPAN, you know?
1:28:04 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:28:05 Mike Rowe? Some riveting stuff there. Riveting stuff. Actually, I love C-SPAN, because it just reminds me of some hybrid, like NPR got together with PBS and had some kind of public access baby. And so-
1:28:23 Speaker 01 I don't want to interrupt you, because I want to hear where you're going. But did you know, before there were streaming services, when it was just cable in the 80s and 90s? This is a true story. There were markets in this country, if you didn't pay your cable bill, instead of just shutting it off, they would put C-SPAN on all your channels.
1:28:43 Mike Rowe? On instead.
1:28:44 Speaker 01 And you paid. Where do I pay? Where do I send the bill?
1:28:49 Mike Rowe? That's the kind of incentive, you know, that people respond to.
1:28:52 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:28:53 Mike Rowe? Make it stop. No, like, I actually love it. You know, I make fun of it because they never got the memo that, you know, TV's changed in the last 40 years. The fact that, you know, Fred can still call in from Kalamazoo.
1:29:06 Speaker 01 Right.
1:29:06 Mike Rowe? To vent his spleen and they'll let him talk for three minutes and you just have to kind of sit there and listen. I mean, it's awesome. But the point was made, I think by your interlocutor, that in 2008, a third of the country, maybe a little less, thought that college might not be worth the cost. And today, as in a couple of months ago.
1:29:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:29:35 Mike Rowe? It's two thirds of the country. We started MicroWorks in 2008, so I'm not saying that... But look, and again, and this is where we should land the plane because I think it is important to stay at least as centered as we are. I'm with you. I got a guy for that. I'm not the guy.
1:29:55 Speaker 01 Right.
1:29:56 Mike Rowe? But I got a guy for that. I am the product of a liberal arts education and I have a degree from a university and it served me really well. But, and I know what they say, everything before but is bullshit, but it's not. But a valuable thing isn't priceless. And at some point, the cost of all of this, it's just got to stop. And so, you know, hearing that on C-SPAN of all places, it did make my puny little chest swell up with pride because college is valuable today, but it's too damn expensive. And if we don't do something, I don't know, how are they ever going to get to the point where they lower the tuition?
1:30:40 Speaker 01 And the issue is, who's going to pay? No one says if you want to study anthropology, or film, or theater, or sociology, whatever it might be, have at it.
1:30:51 Mike Rowe? Follow your bliss.
1:30:52 Speaker 01 That's fine, but should the American taxpayer fund your education? That's the fundamental question.
1:30:58 Mike Rowe? What am I thinking, Chuck?
1:30:58 Speaker 01 No.
1:30:59 Mike Rowe? That's correct.
1:30:59 Speaker 01 Hell, no.
1:31:00 Mike Rowe? Hell, no. Hell to the no. All right, look, it's... It's getting boring because we're in such violent agreement on every point. But I'm gratified, seriously, to know that you're out there. I'm glad you got out of the swamp and I'm glad you're running this organization. I'm going to learn everything I can about it and I'm at your disposal if I can be of use.
1:31:18 Speaker 01 Thank you for having me, Mike. I appreciate it.
1:31:20 Mike Rowe? The book's called Trade Up: You Ought To Think About Doing That Very Thing by Jason Altmeier and Riley Burr. See you next week.
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