Ep 6 - How Will We Train the New Skilled Brick & Block & Stone Masons?

Have you ever asked the question: Where are the skilled masons of the future going to come from? Who’s going to train them? How do we even recruit them?

About a hundred years ago when I was a kid in high school, we used to have industrial arts. Shop class. Auto, metal, wood. I learned leather carving and tooling. I really enjoyed lapidary, cut, polished and created several pieces of stone jewelry. Some of us remember learning those skills, using with our hands. LIFELONG LESSONS!     Many of us don’t.

Have the skilled trades been rejected by the kids and young adults of today, and been replaced with career thoughts of video game creation and computer programming? Maybe.

That’s not so good…at least in my opinion. To fix it,  all of us really should pay attention to the next several minutes of this podcast because these things affect your life,  the well being of your companies, communities,  and families.

I did say,    MAYBE-- YES,  and maybe IT’S THE FAULT of the parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles of today, who have pushed kids towards college as a first   or only   choice when it comes to careers. Maybe, we have made getting a degree seem like the only way to get ahead, have saddled our kids   and us!   with a mountain of college debt, often for worthless degrees from prestigious universities, yielding unsatisfying careers--for which our country and our kids are paying dearly.

One of my favorite radio personalities , Dave Ramsey, tongue-in-cheek--often speaks of such degrees as German Polka History—implying that there are virtually no jobs to go along with those degrees. Debt stacks up.

Every year, college recruiters are invited to speak on campuses. Pick your numbers, but a college education might cost anywhere from ten or twenty thousand dollars a year to triple or quadruple that. A mountain of debt, creeping up on unsuspecting parents and children, and saddling their futures for ten or more years.

Another of my favorite radio/TV/podcast personalities is Mike Rowe, the star of the old series, “Dirty Jobs”, and the voice of shows like “Deadliest Catch”. Mike is a big proponent on the value of the skilled trades. In fact, he puts his money where his mouth is, with the Mike Rowe Works Foundation, offering training scholarships for blue collar jobs like welding to  automotive…to   you name it.

You know…at high schools and colleges,  thankfully,  military representatives are invited to speak. Good for that! Rarely, though, are any representatives of the skilled trades. This is a shame. This should not happen. This stops now!

Cutting edge, real time training for those in high school or early adult years is the solution, and Bonnie O'Connor of the Masonry Industry Training Association (MITA) gives us her insight in the first of her visits with the Brick and Block Podcast.