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A few months ago, we started watching a series of videos promoting the skilled trades posted on LinkedIn by Andrew Brown. “What if all the skilled tradesmen actually disappeared,” he asks in one recent video, which then goes on to show him making a half-hearted attempt to clear a clogged toilet only to quickly lament that he needs a plumber.
“Basically, we’d be all screwed,” he goes on to say. “Modern day life would come to a screeching halt.”
Too farfetched? Well, maybe. But then again he shares a statistic any PHCPPro knows all too well: For every seven to eight skilled tradesmen retiring only one tradesmen is coming out of a trade school.
“Do the math on that statistic and you have a trades gap of millions of jobs that cannot be fulfilled,” he says. “Let’s promote the skilled trades for the younger generation in our schools.”
Otherwise, what seems farfetched may become a reality.
All that in a well-produced message that clocks in at just 46 seconds. And there’s more where that came from since he usually posts every day.
We hadn’t ever crossed paths with Brown so we couldn’t help but wonder, who is this guy?
We found out in a recent Zoom call. Brown shared his experience being at Ground Zero on 9/11 and how that motivated him to leave an IT job behind and help the trades by first co-founding an online tool and equipment provider and then stepping in front of a camera to get the word out on common trade industry issues.
PHC News: We don’t know too much about you, but we do know that what motivated you to give back to the skilled trades started on 9/11. Tell us about this experience.
Brown: So if I could take you back to the day of Sept. 11th, 2001. I’m 23 years old living in New York City, and the planes had just hit the buildings. And I had a friend in one of them. He luckily made it out. But I just had this feeling that I couldn’t just sit there. So I got this crazy idea that I was going to go down there to help. A couple of days after the attack, I convinced a friend of mine from Rhode Island to head down together. He shows up in his big blue truck with an American flag on the back. He’s wearing a hardhat and overalls, and he’s got a hard hat and overalls for me, too. And we start racing down the West Side Highway. There were a lot of checkpoints and people ask me, well, how did you get through the checkpoints? I call it divine intervention. Something was pulling us down there to do what we could to help.
There’s a lot about that day to remember, but the big thing for me was to realize that there were all these tradespeople working side-by-side with first responders doing whatever they could to help. I don’t think people realize that tradespeople are often right there with emergency workers when a disaster hits and people need help.
Seeing that commitment changed everything for me. After that day, I put my two week’s notice in. I was a tech guy. I wasn’t a trades guy. Afterward, I spent months and months racking my brain trying to figure out how I could give something back to the trades. And that’s when my brother and I co-founded one of the first online tool and equipment businesses named ToolFetch. And that business is still going strong.
We sell tools to the skilled trades such as plumbers, electricians and welders. Those are the heroes to me – the type of professionals who were at Ground Zero and are doing the hard work everyday of maintaining and rebuilding our infrastructure. And we reach them by offering one of the largest online tool catalogs with more 2 million products from 600 different vendors.
PHC News: Did you have any trade experience in your family?
Brown: My father worked in industrial distribution. But I can’t say that was my path. I was like a lot of kids who go to college. I switched majors about three times and came out more confused than when I went in.
PHC News: That’s probably a good segue to talk about your LinkedIn videos, which make the point that college isn’t the only option and that a career in the skilled trades can be just as rewarding as a four-year degree. How did you start making these videos?
Brown: As you can imagine, I speak to a lot of tradespeople around the country while running ToolFetch. And all of them had plenty to say about the labor shortage, how they literally had to pass up on work because they just didn’t have all the people they needed to do it.
So about a year ago, I just figured I needed to say something. I’m more of an introvert than an extrovert, but one day I just turned the camera on and I started talking. It’s amazing to see how many people in the skilled trades industry are on LinkedIn and we get plenty of shares, likes and comments from the videos. It just another way I can give back to the trades. There’s plenty to talk about, but I think the biggest thing I can do is highlight that working with your hands is still a viable career choice for young kids. College is, of course, an option. But kids need to know that it isn’t the only option.
PHC News: We enjoy your videos, but what else are you planning to do to promote the trades?
Brown: I’m a founding member of the Skilled Trades Advisory Council. This a group of eight passionate, like-minded people who want to promote the skilled trades through education events, construction camps, fundraising and scholarships. We’re in the process of becoming 501c3 organization and we want to work with other groups to put the spotlight on trade education. But we’re just in the very early stages of setting the stage for all this work so I can’t talk about it too much.
PHC News: What do you think that the PHCP community can do to promote the trades?
Brown: Anything to bring the message to high school students is vital. I think the feedback I get is that when kids sit down to decide what they’re going to do with their lives, they hear about the college path. But do they also hear about the trade school path?
I always say guidance counselors and teachers are the best marketers for college.
And what’s being presented to high schools kids who like to work with their hands? We’ve heard a lot about shop classes disappearing from high schools. We did a video on it and got plenty of feedback on the matter. Just think how transformative it is for kids who like to work with their hands to actually get the chance in shop class to do just that!
If professional tradespeople or someone just coming out of a trade school can go in front of a class and talk about their lives, all the better. Kids need to hear these success stories.
Our great skilled trades industry really has a PR problem. A young plumber can make six figures a year. Of course, like anything else, they have to put in the time and do the work. But do high school students know about that financial opportunity? And do they know they can earn a good salary without going into debt for college? Do they understand the sense of accomplishment that comes from building something? Every tradesperson I know takes great pride in saying, I built that.
Everyone who is in the trades needs to talk about all these advantages because kids may not hear about any of this news from parents at home or teachers at school.
I’ll give you a prime example. I have a family member who after college worked for a large supermarket chain, and he’s now in his 30s. But what he wants to do is be an electrician.
Now it’s not too late for him to get into the trades, but he’s also lost a lot of years, too. All this time has gone by and the route he took – attending college and getting a white-collar job – just wasn’t for him. He’s got his work cut out for him, but he’s more satisfied and happier being on this path.
But maybe if someone sat down with him years prior, he would’ve been in a different position and become an electrician sooner. He’s living his dream now, and I just want to make sure that kids have that option as soon as they can rather than later on down the road.
PHC News: Do you think that things are getting better?
Brown: I think they are. Just consider what can be done with social media to get a positive message out there about the trades. There are plenty of influencers putting their messages out there that can reach a very large audience that would have been hard to do without social media.
I also think that schools and parents are waking up to the fact that college isn’t necessarily what it used to be and that a trade school education is just as valuable to the right students.
PHC News: How can readers keep up with what you’re doing?
Brown: You can read a lot of content on our YouTube channel, “Andrew Brown Skilled Trades Education.” I’m working on getting more individuals to come on to do live streams. We just ran one with the American Welding Society on, naturally, how to get into the welding trade. It’s archived on the site. You can easily find me on LinkedIn by searching for my name or by going to https://www.andrewbrown.net. And you can Google Skilled Trades Advisory Council.