Skilled trade career opportunities

- So I didn't discover the trades until I was about 24 years old. By that point I had fumbled my way through some college. I eventually found a job working as a bike mechanic when I realized that I needed to be working with my hands. It didn't occur to me that I could actually make a livable wage and retirement and health care as well by working with my hands and not having a college degree. So I was looking for any kind of hands on work that I could do, and I kept seeing these job listings for journeyman this journeyman that, and I had no idea what a journeyman was. You know, I saw one for journeyman sheet metal worker, and I thought, that sounds super cool, but I have no idea how to get involved in that. - So I think a lot of what draws people is the opportunity to earn and make a living while you're actually learning a trade, a skill that's going to carry you through your life. It's also a lot of it is ongoing training and education opportunities because that's what apprenticeships starts out at. It's learning, on the job training. You're working with a mentor or a journey person who's teaching you their scope of work, and then you're also backing it up with technical training in the classroom. So the benefit of on the job and technical training really at no cost to the person is fantastic. Earning that progressive wage. So the more they learn and the more proficient their skill set gets, they actually earn a higher wage, and then at the end, they have a really excellent, portable credential that they earned, and oftentimes it also provides college credits towards an Associate's degree. - Trades are a very respectable profession. I think a lot of times somebody sees somebody in a hard hat, and a reflective vest, and they're covered in dirt, and they're maybe looked down upon a little bit because they're not wearing a white lab coat or high heels or carrying a brief case, (laughing) but the truth of the matter is the trades offer amazing wages, amazing benefits. It's really a family supportive career. - The advice that I would give anyone who applies into our industry, make sure it's what you really want to do. Like I said, this is a career. Come in with a good attitude. Positive, to show up on work on time, and to work hard. - If you think about driving across a bridge, do you really think about the person that built that bridge? Or the people that built that bridge? Did you ever wonder, I hope that person knew math really well, and I hope that that person really knew how to do proper load calculations and how to build this thing, so when I drive over it I'm not worrying that I'm going to fall to my death. It's amazing the amount of precision, training, and technical know how that goes into putting up a structure. So that it's structurally sound. So that it's protected from, if there's a fire, or any other kind of an emergency, so that the electrical system operates without causing any fires or hurting somebody, that the plumbing is working well and providing sanitation throughout the building, that the air is being recycled and fresh so that you're not sitting in a 30-store office building, breathing really stale air. It's just amazing how much people rely on the building trades to be safe, to be healthy, and to be prosperous, to have really prosperous lives. So it's really important to me that young people, or even just people who are a little bit older and are looking for a career change, that they're aware of these possibilities because it really truly does provide you with a really quality life, benefits, and retirement with dignity so you don't have to worry about how you're going to take your kids to Disneyland or keep your lights on. So it's just really important that other people are given the opportunity to explore these options that they're not relying on hearing about it kind of out of the blue which is how I found out about the trades.