Q & A Episode 58 - From Sweeping Floors to Six Figures: How Young People Are Crushing It in the Trades

Sep 10

Episode #58 | Q&A with Mark D. Williams | How Young People Are Crushing It in the Trades

In this Q&A episode of The Curious Builder, Mark Williams talks about why we need more young people in the trades and how social media is actually making these careers look cool again. He shares why trade jobs are a great option—think good money, clear paths to grow, and that awesome feeling of building something real. Plus, he offers some down-to-earth advice on how business owners and schools can help get the next generation excited about jumping in.

About The Curious Builder

The host of the Curious Builder Posdast is Mark D. Williams, the founder of Mark D. Williams Custom Homes Inc. They are an award-winning Twin Cities-based home builder, creating quality custom homes and remodels — one-of-a-kind dream homes of all styles and scopes. Whether you’re looking to reimagine your current space or start fresh with a new construction, we build homes that reflect how you live your everyday life.

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Mark D. Williams 00:00
For those that have been listening to curious builder podcast, you know how much I love the contractor coalition Summit. It's been the single biggest force multiplier in my business over 21 years. We're excited to announce again that we're coming back to Chicago November 7 through the 10th. All the details can be found at the contractor coalition summit.com and under the promo code for a $2,500 discount, type in curious builder we'll see in Chicago.

Mark D. Williams 00:28
I think part of it is, is you get in on the entry level, whether it's electrician, plumber or HVAC, and as you go, if you decide that you want to get your master's license, like there's a clear path forward of what that looks like. And a lot of it is hours on the job, so you're getting paid to get your license, which is amazing.

Mark D. Williams 00:51
Welcome to cures. To our podcast. I'm Mark Williams. Your house today is our 20 minute Q and A and it was interesting. Over the weekend, I was looking on social media and Mike Rowe, who is the host of dirty jobs. Most people know him from that he was actually on modern craftsman maybe six months ago, and it was an awesome episode. If you haven't listened to it, I'll have the link in our show notes, just because it's a really good one. We're gonna try to get Mike on our show. Mainly, I want to ask him two very specific questions. One is most owners or people that listen to this podcast from the construction the construction industry. They're architects, they're builders, they're designers, and a lot of them are entrepreneurs, most of them, it seems like, and we're a huge fan of trying to further the industry, getting youth into it. We need everyone. We are facing huge shortages, as we've talked before on the podcast, I think I've shared stats, like, for every seven Master Plumbers and electrician that leaves, only one is taking their place. And so Mike was just having a interview where someone from the National Defense Department was just saying that they need 140,000 welders in the next five years for submarines and for ships in general, and they needed like 80,000 this year. And I love the way he said this. They said, where are those people? He said, I know exactly where they are. And they said they are where he goes the eighth grade. And I love that message that really what we all need to be doing is sharing this message of what the future is with our kids, with my kids, with the audience at large, that the pathway to owning a business and really good jobs. Another avenue for people to take is in the trades, and obviously, we're going to be a big fan of that. I've been around it my entire life, and I've seen, you know, people start their own business. They start, you know, I mean, honestly, several of my neighbors, you know, my neighbors, for instance, were they started a framing on my dad was a builder. They started framing sweeping homes. Actually, they were laborers. So they swept. I used to sweep as a kid. You know, you sweep the job sites. You get to know everyone. They started out their own framing company after a few years, working with another framer for 20 years, they had their own framing company. And you know that, you see these people continue to branch out. And you know, back when I went to high school, there was shop class, you got to do a lot of these things and get exposed to it, not only because I was the builder's son, but I also got it in high school. And one of the goals that I have for 26 is to actually interview high schools that have shop teachers, and interview, you know, curriculum directors, and just talk about, from a education standpoint, you know, what are we doing to sort of, you know, get this message out there, and also technical schools. So those are some things that we're going to be working on in 26 to try to bring them on. This is just kind of a teaser episode over the weekend on the Star Tribune. There was actually a interesting article called Social Media reinvigorates the reps of the trades. And it really went through how social media is having a huge impact to the next generation. And they talked about a, you know, a young kid in Atlanta, and so basically he was just videotaping his day. What it was to get up in the morning. They talked about him tying on his boots. In this case, he was reading his bible, reading some books, going to his first class, going to a bonfire without alignment and training. And he's got several 100,000 followers. And I just saw recently, he makes more money on his social media feed than he does at his regular day job. Regular day job. And now he's a lineman, and he's out there working, owning his own business, and all because he just started documenting his day, there was such an appeal of people that want wanted to basically do that. And another little stat that was interesting was talking about trade school enrollment, which is very encouraging. They started doing research, recording this data. 1992 according to the article in STAR TROOP and in 2024 it hit the highest enrollment in its history. What was double what it was in 2000 so we're definitely trending in the right way. I think kids in general are a lot faster at adapting than probably adults or businesses are. So they're probably getting this message from their peers that, you know, I'm not saying again, I'm not against college, or even that education line, I think is very valuable. But there's just so many other options out there as well. And so it was just basically, the main appeal was the ability to be your own boss at your own schedule. And it was talking about in this country in general, we're going to need 440,000

Mark D. Williams 05:00
Construction Workers this year to complete the projects that are currently underway. That's half a million people. That's crazy. Again. Where are these people coming from? Also an article it talked about, you know, regardless of how you feel about immigration, the fact remains that we do have an immigration problem. I think, personally, we need more people in our country, because we need more people, our birth rate has declined over the last several decades, which is very well documented. I think, if you want to get into this, which is way above my pay grade and knowledge, I mean, look at the baby boom generation, one of the things that led to America's greatness and all the job creations was the amount of, you know, family values and the amount of children that were being had. I mean, we just simply had a population surplus that really helped us, whether we knew it or not at the time. There was huge benefits to that. And so they were just talking about that. Even since March, there's been 1.6 million foreign born workers that have left the workforce. So we need 500 we need a half a million to complete the construction jobs, and we just took away 1.6 million that were essentially deported or have left the workforce for whatever reason. The article didn't say that is a massive gap. Put that together, that's 2.1 million. I don't know if they correlated that together or if there's some overlap there, but regardless, we're facing a huge shortfall in labor. And I think one of the things that I want to ask Mike Rowe, if we can get him on the podcast, is, and if anyone knows him, please send him this episode. Is my two questions to him really are not his origin story, like a lot of times, which I do find very interesting and understanding how he went through that path, but that's very well documented. I want to know what can business owners like myself, what can we do to help impact this change? Yes, I have a podcast. I probably have a more of a platform than many others. But how can we get this message out there? How can we help? Is it going to local high schools and speaking, is it obviously I already hire all of these people to work on all of my homes, so continue to do so like, what are actual things that we can do? You know, in some ways, it's a little bit like politics. We all complain about politics, but what do we actually do to change the politics of our country? Some people want to run for office. That's my personal not my cup of tea. But can I impact my own family? Can I impact how I interact with my neighbors on a smaller scale? I absolutely can. So I believe that all of us as owners can probably do something about this messaging, talk about it. And so again, I'm still would love some direction on what to do with this. I know that there are local entities like Housing First Minnesota, here locally in Minnesota, where I'm located, you know, they do have outreach programs. You know, they do have a way to sort of get through an apprenticeship. There's tons of tech schools. You know, here locally, what can local builders do to sort of partner with them? What can we do for maybe, as local builders in the summer? What can we do a better job of marketing, you know, short term help? You know, this summer, we had our first intern. She was going to architecture school, and my project coordinator, it's her niece, and she asked if she could help out for a couple months. I said absolutely, she was amazing. Now she wants to get into architecture, but seeing how business of residential construction is being run, I have to imagine, is really valuable experience. So I think a lot of it's just opening the doors. One of the things I was just going to go through, and we won't have time to talk about all that in this particular episode, but I'll get through as much as I can, is really just, I threw into chat GPT, what are the top 10 paying construction jobs and what are their average salaries? I would imagine that this is across the country. Each state is going to be, of course, different, and these are just sort of intro. And before I do here's just some, some overall stats. In general, I can't remember what year it was. I want to say it's in the 60s or 70s. Education really changed, and I don't know if it was being lobbied by college, obviously, is being paid by student. Same with high schools, they're being paid by the state per student that they have enrolled. And so it's in their best interest to get people into four year degrees. I'm again, not I'm not anti College. I'm just simply saying that there's a lot of other options out there, should you wish to and so a lot of vocation training was gotten out of high school, we lost the ability to see how welding was or the smell of sawdust as you walk from your English class to your gym class, as it were, and I have very fond memories of making toolbox or making CO two racing cars, or doing some painting project in shop class, or even home et class, having these young kids make breakfast or make a cake, or just some basic stuff about life. I just think we've lost some of that. The average student debt, actually, this is across the country, is $1.7 trillion owed. That is no joke. That is a massive number. You also look at that there right now, there's 7.6 million open jobs that don't require college. That's a lot of jobs. I sometimes have a hard time when people say that there's that they can't find a job. I guess the question is, is, what are you going to do? And I think if we make if we make work the enemy, then that's a real problem. And so I think we I think as you get older, you hear people get kind of nostalgic about, well, back in my day, we did this, I don't know. How helpful that is to the young generation. But I think if we could be more encouraging and just encourage people like, don't be afraid of hard work. It's actually quite rewarding. I've spoken about Johnny, a framer. I had, you know, for a number of times on the podcast, and he was so proud of the homes that he would frame. Every single home that he would frame, he'd take pictures of it. He'd post it on Facebook. Between him fishing and framing homes, that was pretty much what was on it, but he was so proud of it. And I do think there is something about the construction industry that you leave after a day and you can visually see how much you've done that day. That's very rewarding. So here are some of the top 10 trades in terms of what the salaries are. So number one was construction labor or helper, the entry is going to be roughly around 46,000 within three to five years, you're going to be at 55 to 60,000 obviously, that's pretty good. You don't have you don't have debt, you're making pretty good money right away. And that's not a lot of skill, like zero skill, like you're learning on the job. That's great. It's really kind of a I think that really benefits people that learn by doing I was kind of this way. I think if you tell me how to do something, doesn't go really well, but if you show me how to do it, I do much, much better, kind of like I need to practice before I know what I'm doing.

Mark D. Williams 11:18
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Pella makes it easy to find the perfect fit for your next project and their team to support it. Build with confidence, build with Pella. Visit pella.com to explore products and connect with your local rep. Today for more information, you can listen to episode one or listen to episode 109 where we bring on Pella owners and founders at Pella Northland, as well as their innovative team behind the steady set innovation, a carpenter, you know, I think entry level, you know, you've got, you know, maybe 33 to 43,000 and then within just a handful of years, three to five, you're At 45 to 80,000 I think this one is, in particular, really helpful, because, you know, if you know how to build something, you you're doing a lot of things. You've got work ethic, you obviously were under somebody in apprenticeship. So you're learning how to do something. You're willing to take, you know, direction, which obviously is be super crucial on any sort of team environment. And then as you progress with your skills, you're doing layouts, you're leading, you can see a path forward if you want to start your own business. I just got a call. I get calls all the time, and I usually try to return them. And you know, a lot of times I'll tell them, I Hey, I've got too many trimmers in this category, too many framers, and I've got to keep the ones that I've got happy. But every once in a while, a story will get through, and I'll say, You know what? We'll bid you out. We'll bid you out. We'll kind of see what you got. Maybe we have a smaller project we can try out on. And I'm very encouraged when I hear I got a call the other day, and it was a trimmer. He's like, Hey, I've got two or three guys under me. We're just starting out. We worked for a decade for a larger trim crew, and just letting you know we're willing to do anything. I like the fact that he called me. I like the fact that he was very open and honest, saying, hey, it's not like I'm expecting to do some multi million dollar project, but I'm willing to do whatever you need me to do. If there's an opportunity, would you please give me consideration? I think that's great. What more could you ask for? And I think you need to keep if you're out there, and these are the types of questions or companies you're calling on, I think the biggest thing is to keep calling. I've had people. There's this one Painter at some point I've got to give him a try. I've got three just rock star painters. So it's kind of like, if I'm racing the Kentucky Derby, there's only so many horses I can race, and I've got to keep the ones that are great going. But this one painter, probably for five years, every quarter, he's sending me pictures of his homes, of what he's doing, and all he's saying is, give me a chance. And I gotta be honest, like, at some point I'm gonna give the guy a chance. I mean, he's been just relentless in getting in front of me, and it's just that I, the people in front of him have just been I'm pretty loyal. I'm pretty steady. When I've got my I've got my team, it's hard for me to change, and I'm just a small company, but I really appreciate you know how out there that this company is going to keep on, you know, trying to get on our radar. I think electricians are, I mean, I think if it was me personally, I think I would choose HVAC or being an electrician, maybe HVAC, because I think there's probably more parts, although if you're electrician, you can get to AV. So there's a lot of Upswing there. But an entry level electrician is going to be 52,000 a year, and within just a couple of years, that are making 60 plus. You. Got a highly skilled I mean, who doesn't need electricity? You're constantly working on stuff, and whether it's remodeling our new homes, you know, obviously high voltage. Who knows what those guys can make? I think they can do really well, and they're always going to be in demand. I mean, we're going to need electricity. So I think one of the premises here, especially with AI, this, again, was out of Mike Rowe. He had talked about AI is AI is not coming for any jobs in construction. He's like, you know, for the last two decades, we've been telling, you know, college and kids have been saying, hey, get into coding. Get into coding. Get into computers. He goes, AI is coming for coders. He's like, he goes, You know what they we know what AI can't do is dig a hole, you know, wire a house, you know, install plumbing. And so it was just kind of talking about, you know, these essentials. And here's the thing, supply and demand is always going to be a factor. If you have seven less plumbers, guess what happens to your wages? They keep going up, unfortunately for construction and just overall home ownership, homes just continue to get more and more expensive. I'm not happy about that. I would love to find ways to make our homes more affordable, especially for our first and second time home buyers, it's so difficult to get into home ownership. But again, I don't see how you've got a supply and demand issue, and now you've got a real problem with people and in absence of labor. You know, you own a plumbing business, you can kind of charge whatever you want. You do good service, you do good work. You can charge a lot because the competition isn't there yet. It's going to take a decade until those eighth graders, I guess they're gonna have to be a little bit more than eighth graders, you know, start owning their own businesses. There's about 1015, year window where hopefully that message changed and we get them in, but in the meantime, it's gonna we're gonna feel a squeeze. I think, you know, same deal with, you know, here we got a first line supervisor. So you got three to five years that are making 70,000 a year. I'm looking at like, you know, as I talk to other builders and ask them, you know, I think in this is totally dependent on which area and but, so this is probably more for Minnesota. I think if you're a site manager, you're probably 50 to 75,000 if you're, let's say a control, let's say a project coordinator, an expedite or something like that. You're probably in the 60 to 85 range. Project managers, depending on what level of qualifications, experience and strata of home, you're probably 65 to 120,000 I mean, that's a huge range, depending on what you're responsible for. Operations managers, again, with experience, you're, you know, maybe you're in a company that's building 5060, homes a year. I mean, you they're probably running, they're probably running, they're probably running one project manager to probably three to four homes, depending on the scale of the house. And you've got whole teams. But then you have operations manager that probably been in the business for 1520, years. I bet they're making 150 190,000 a year. That's a lot of coordination and a ton of responsibility. So there's definitely some I mean, most of these jobs eventually get you to six figures, which is very impressive. HVAC tech, I think you're starting out at 52 to 60,000 and again, you're learning a really valuable skill. I think part of it is, is you get in on the entry level, whether it's electrician, plumber or HVAC, and as you go, if you decide that you want to get your master's license, like there's a clear path forward of what that looks like, and a lot of it is hours on the job. So you're getting paid to get your license, which is amazing, and then when you're done, you command a higher salary, or you can start your own business. I mean, that part's really, really great solar I thought this is kind of interesting. It'll be, you know, right now, the next couple of years, there's going to be a lot of subsidies that are let go, and that's way above my pay grade. That's on a federal level, on a state level, because solar industry is about to get rocked right now by the sounds of it. I know they're repealing a lot of EV laws and a lot of solar stuff, and I'm a good friend of a solar company here locally in Minnesota, and they're obviously trying to pivot. They're getting into other industries, just to sort of have belt and suspenders approach to other revenue streams. Should solar completely dry up. But for you know, entry level solar installer, you could be making 50 to $65,000 a year. That's pretty darn good. And then here's the real thing with just in terms of green energy in general, they're looking at 22% job growth projected. This particular administration is not is seems to be abandoning a lot of forward looking technologies. I don't think that'll last forever. I do think people are going to be incentivized to continue to find ways to produce energy as our populations grow, as energy gets more and more expensive. I think, or they always say, necessity is the mother of invention. I think we're going to continue to find ways to to get creative. I will say, as a home builder, that for the last 21 years, my homeowners have not been that interested, at least in Minnesota, in geothermal and in solar. So I personally have also not adopted a lot of those things, not because I don't want to, but because my clients have said no. So for me, it's more about economics and what my client I mean at the end of the day, I have to do what my clients want. Now, I do think wellness is super important, and I do think that clients are willing to pay for things that are in the wellness sector, and we're seeing huge growth in anything that has to do with. Wellness, both personally, professionally, kind of everywhere you look, which I think is great. I can't wait to talk more about that the future. Anyway, these were just some some high level things. Oh, this one was kind of interesting. Elevator installer, within three to five years, $106,000 that is highly specialized, high salary. That's probably usually union it sounds like because it's more of a commercial thing, and then it's a little known gem. I mean, you think of these big high rises or big buildings, who's servicing these elevators. The code isn't forcing you to have them. If it's I think it's like three or four stories or more. I'm not into commercial buildings, so I don't know the code on that, but that's a great salary working on elevators, Boilermakers. Now, this one, I know for sure. I live in a 1919 house, and we have radiant heat through a boiler. They're one of the top in the market in terms of resident residential construction, 90 to 110,000

Mark D. Williams 20:49
for Boilermaker or industrial mechanic, it's tough. Big payoff, industrial backbone. I mean, you think about it's so efficient. Water heat, whenever I can in my residential homes, I'm trying to do a boiler, or whether it's electric or gas, I'm trying to do in floor heat with hydronics. So almost, I'd say, the last 10 years, almost 90% of all the homes I've built, I've have hydronic heat in the sub slab of the concrete, underneath the tile. It's really efficient way to heat. It's also just really a nice comfort thing for people. But knowing that, especially in the older homes and remodels like there just isn't that many companies that specialize in boilers and radiators. So again, some of these things that were very commonplace and everyone knew how to do it, that skill set is departing, which means that their that their cost of service keeps going up and up and up. Yeah. So anyway, I think the other reason to get into trades is financial freedom. I mean, you can work when you want to work, especially if you own your own company service work. I know that there's a huge needs for handyman services. I've considered for myself starting a service company, but like anything, there's only so much time in the day, and it just haven't devoted that much time to it. I think it'd be a great so many custom home companies across the country, or remodelers. They just basically either self perform the service and they just kind of do it. They most of them, probably don't even charge for it, which is a great value add to their clients, but they also probably don't market it very well. So I think all of us, all myself included, would would benefit greatly from really spending some time and thinking about, what does service look like? I know there's builders out there that are that do this a lot, and sometimes they don't market it. They just say, this is just for my clients. It's a way to keep your clients happy. But they're essentially servicing. They're organizing the service on their homes. And it's something that I haven't had them on the podcast, but Andrew Patterson, Patterson, custom homes out in California, talks about this all the time. He had just said that, you know, in Minnesota, let's say you have to warranty your homes for 10 years. So you're already have to warranty the home. Why wouldn't you want to be paid for doing it? And I think that's probably one of the most compelling reasons to start a service company. Is you're already saying that you're gonna, you're gonna own the service on this home. Shouldn't you be paid accordingly? Because most of the times, our clients, especially after they're like, I just got an email that from a long time one of our best clients who built their home 10 years ago, and they're asking us for some recommendations on some water heaters or a service check, or this, that, or another thing. And I'm happy to give them recommendations of all the people that we use, and they'll take it from there. But if I kept it all under one roof, a, we could charge for that be the client would be happier for it, because now it's just super easy. And then from a longevity standpoint, you know, they're the clients are going to come back to you to build again, to remodel again, to, you know, they're at a party. They tell their friends, oh man, you know, Mark and his company are just amazing. You know, I would definitely build with them. So it's just, it's just good business all the all the way around. It's just that we need to take the time to set up the structure and really buy into that message. So anyway, hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you know anyone that you think would benefit from this, please send to them. And if anyone knows Mike Rowe, send him our send them this episode and have his team reach out until next time. Thanks for tuning in. The curious builder podcast. If you liked this episode, do us a favor. Share it with three other business owners. The best way that we can spread what we're doing is by word of mouth, and with your help, we can continue to help other curious builders expand their business. Please share it with your friends. Like and review online, and thanks again for tuning in.