How to Build a 6-Figure Talent Pipeline From Scratch | Podcast Ep. 269 | Toolbox for the Trades

Hello contractors and welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. My name is Jackie Aubel and today I'm speaking with Brett Vacalla, the head of apprenticeship at Encon Heating and AC in Connecticut. We spoke about how Brett and his team created Encon University, an internal solution to the trades labor shortage, and the program success so far. If you're also looking for ways to entice the younger generation to join the industry, check out futureofthetrades.com. There you'll find a ton of resources comparing trade school to traditional college options, including a lifetime earnings calculator. Check that out, and I hope you enjoy my conversation with Brett as much as I did. Brett Vekola, you are the manager of apprenticeship at Encon Heating and AC. Today we're going to be talking about how one HVAC company is solving the labor shortage by building its talent pipeline from the inside out. Welcome to Toolbox for the Trades.

Thank you, Jackie. Excited to be here.

I'm excited for you to join us too. I know a lot of people are going to be interested in hearing what you have to say. And I forgot to mention, you guys are located in Connecticut, correct?

Connecticut, correct. Connecticut, we're in an expansion time in our company, and we actually just recently acquired a company in New York. So we're getting our branding is expanding rapidly right now.

Amazing. Where in New York?

Nanuet, New York, just over the former Tappan Zee Bridge, now the Mario Cuomo Bridge. About 25, 30 minutes after you cross the bridge.

Oh my gosh. So funny. I do pass, I pass that way when I go visit my parents. I might have to like visit you guys next time I'm on the East Coast. That's so cool.

Absolutely. Please do.

Okay. Awesome. Well, let's kick things off with an icebreaker so folks can get to know you a little bit. So when you grew up, you watched two parents who dedicated their lives to serving others. Your mom taught special needs students and your dad was a police officer running community programs for local youth. What's one value from your upbringing that shows up in the way you run EnCon University every day?

I mean, there's plenty that I've taken from my parents and they've instilled a lot in me. But, you know, the focus on serving others, on giving others opportunities, patience, development. There's a whole plethora of things that they've taught me. But really, the way to serve others and give others opportunities is probably the biggest thing I pulled away from them.

That is so cool. When you told me about your parents' backgrounds, I was like, oh my God, these people sound like saints.

How incredible. Yeah, I know. I know. When you hear those two titles, you're like, those are special people. And they are special people.

That's awesome. We're going to get a little bit into your background because your mom, like I said, your mom worked with special needs students and you worked with special needs students. I did. When you came to EnConn 3 years ago, you had absolutely no HVAC background. Just tell me a little bit about what your job and career looked like before joining EnConn.

I worked in a town in Connecticut, Fairfield, Connecticut, with adults with special needs. And then I pivoted to working with the state of Connecticut with the Department of Developmental Services. Working in a community outreach kind of program with adults that came out of the education program and were looking for what their next step was. The schools and the structures that the town creates for these individuals, it's, it's, it's solid. It builds a great foundation, similar to what we do here at Hancock University. But then when real life hits and you're kind of released and you say, what's next for me? That's where I would come in and try to find job placement and help them with career choices, volunteering, things and opportunities that potentially give them purpose. But then I just decided to take a leap of faith and join MDON.

What inspired you to take that leap of faith and what were you hoping for in this next stage of your career?

It was, it was really where I was at that time. I had been recently married, married for about 2, year and a half, 2 years at that point. Just had my first child. It was a very exciting time for my life and I was ready to kind of move into my next chapter. I was really looking for a place that would provide me with 2 words that I use all the time with my Stability and opportunity. I wanted a place that I knew that I was going to be secure long-term. I knew that I could grow there and the opportunity to move up and not be stagnant and not be kind of plateaued where I was. I wanted a place that rewarded hard work and rewarded value that you provide to the company. And it ended up being here at Encon.

That's awesome. Did you have any insight into what kind of opportunity was in the trades prior to joining Encon? Like, did you know a plumber who was like, hey, FYI?

Yeah, I wish I did. No, I didn't. I was kind of, if I'm going to be completely honest, I was kind of just firing off my application and resumes to a plethora of places. I received a call from NCOD and one of the things that really stood out to me was when I came here and I had my interview. I'd been talking to my current manager, Mike Monaghan, for a while at this point, probably 3 or 4 times we met virtually. But I came in here and the 3 individuals I sat with had all been here for 15, 20, 30 years was the other individual. And I came back and I said, if a place is retaining their employees, these employees also gave me a little bit of their background and how they ended up where they were now and how they moved up the ranks. I said, this is a company, this is the stability and opportunity that I'm looking for. A place that rewards hard work, that if you provide the value to the company, if you're a go-getter, this place will feed you.

I love that you talked about how you were looking for stability and you were looking for opportunity. I think, you know, we ask kids a lot when they're, when they're younger, what do you want to be when you grow up? A lot of people don't know what they want to be when they grow up, but they do want certain things in their work. And that could be stability, that can be opportunity for growth, opportunity to own something. And I feel like when it comes to the trades, those are kind of the features of the job that we should lean on as we try to recruit more people. Do you agree?

100%. And one of the big things too is we lean so heavily into the technical aspect of being able to understand the technical side of things. And that's all very, very important. But we're in the process right now at Encline, we've kind of realized that just as important is our culture here, is about how we treat our employees, that we want people excited to come into work, working with people that they want to work with, people that are happy to be here, that's, that show gratitude for the opportunities that are provided to them. We want to really put a focus towards those types of things now too, just as much as the technical stuff.

Awesome. So for folks who aren't familiar with Encon, can you give us a sense of the company? What kind of work you guys do, the number of employees, what the business looks like today, anything that you're comfortable sharing?

Yeah, absolutely. Encon is based out of Stratford, Connecticut. We were founded in 1969. Grown pretty rapidly in the last few years to about 325 to 350 employees right now. I'd say about two-thirds of that is in our fields. We're an HVAC company, but we do residential commercial service, residential commercial construction. We have a hydronics team that focuses on like mechanical piping, things like geothermal and boilers and things of that nature. We have residential commercial sheet metal as well.

Very cool. Awesome. Yeah. And like you said, 1969 is a company that's been around for a really long time.

And— Absolutely.

And when did you join the team?

I will be celebrating my 3-year anniversary in June of this year.

Oh my God. A lot of impact you've made in just 3 years. We're going to get into it.

So that's one of the things that I, that I, I do the onboarding as well. And then I'm in charge of, you know, the apprenticeship program here and hiring and stuff. But this, I, I'm a great example of opportunity that the company provides. Prime example of it being that I've only been here for 3 years and, and the path that I took in into where I am now is vastly different. Different. I've really grown throughout the company. And I tell people that I bring them in regardless of the position that I'm hiring for them. I said, where you are today is not where you're going to be. Biggest step is getting in front of the door, getting yourself known, showing us the value that you could create, and the possibilities are endless.

That's awesome. So let's get into Encom University and its development. So before it existed, what was the problem that the leadership at Encom was trying to solve for?

We could not hire. We were, we were having a difficult time The core problem was just finding skilled labor and licensed techs in the area. It's a small pool, as you can imagine, and it's just, it's happening across the country. We had a really difficult time and it was a very expensive and unpredictable thing of just going out onto the street and hiring anybody. And that's what we were doing for a bit. We, we had the work, the jobs were coming in, we just could not staff them.

You are not alone with this problem. I feel like what I'm hearing too from owner operators is that you sometimes you'll find the tech and then they'll no call, no show for several days in a row. Or, you know, once you get them, like it's, it's kind of inconsi— not to paint a bad picture of all techs by any means on the show. You are pulling from a very small labor pool, a very competitive labor pool. And then on top of that, there could be issues with reliability that maybe folks have been able to work in spite of because the labor pool is so small.

Yes. And they also know their value and, and, and the people that we tend to get and the people that are, that we might be recruiting from another company or competitor, they tend to be chasing the dollar. And it's a race to who can provide the most money to me at any given time. And people are so desperate out here that, you know, we might match a dollar amount that they're looking for and they might sit here for a year and then they know that they could potentially put their flyers out now and another company will offer them another dollar or $2 an hour and they could bounce around as many times as they want until they get to where they want to be. and I understand that completely. The money has to always be right. But those kind of people are chasing the career and what Nkind could provide. And we've always talked about it, but this was our, at creating Nkind University and putting a focus on, on building our own talent pool was us actually putting it into action.

That's awesome. So when you went in for these first few interviews, did they straight up tell you, hey, we want you to build our in-house apprenticeship program? Is that how it went?

No, absolutely not. And, and at this time it was a thought and, and an idea that came through my manager, Mike Monahan, and he was kind of taking the reins on it. He's a VP here at the company. I was going to help with the day-to-day kind of thing and just kind of make sure, you know, implementing the program. We still didn't have an instructor at this point. The idea was there. We hadn't really shaped it out at this point. So no, to answer your question, it was not, hey, you're going to be taking over Aggie County University. You're going to be tasked with recruiting, with hiring, with bringing these guys along. Um, that kind of fell into place later on as I, as I'd been here for a bit.

That's awesome. So originally, were you just brought on to help with the recruiting, onboarding in general piece, like hiring in general?

Yeah. And, and, and now that I like, I'm really thinking about it, it really wasn't, I, I don't know when it kind of happened. It just kind of, it just kind of occurred, hey, hey, we're gonna, bro, we're gonna send you out to the school, go talk to these students and come back with 4 of them. I don't know when they kind of. Switch happened or when they kind of got discussed. But I think that one of the things that we're looking for and what our leadership is looking for here is people that just take the initiative and run with it. The leaders, the people that we give you an idea, we can talk about it at the meeting and not necessarily assign it and say, hey, you go get this done, you go get this done, you go get this done. It was more, hey, this is what we want it to look like. Somebody step up.

That is really interesting. And also, I love you making that realization in this interview. Like, hey, when did that happen? When did you find out? I know. I never really—

yeah. Exactly. It just kind of fell into my lap and I can't really even put pinpoint to a time that it actually was the, you know, when it really fell into place.

So talk to me a little bit about what it actually took to stand this program up from scratch. So I know a lot of folks listening right now are like, I am dealing with the exact same thing. I have had this on my to-do list, the vision board for my company for a while. I would love to just hear, get into as much detail as you want. What did it actually look like to get this started?

Well, the biggest thing was us realizing, and big kudos to the state of Connecticut on this, is that they have a tremendous technical high school program here in the state. We knew students, we had plenty of employees that had been graduates. We have managers, we have them strewn throughout the building of individuals that graduated from the technical schools. We had not realized what a useful pipeline this could potentially be if we used it properly for everything that it could potentially offer to us. And once we started investigating it and seeing the things that we could potentially do in there, we were like, this is a no-brainer. All right. Our whole thing was we want to build our own pipeline. We wanted to get in front of these students early, let them know that we were here and that we were hiring. But one of the things is, is that they offer work-based learning. So work-based learning is typically a student that's enrolled in a shop at the technical schools and spends 2 weeks in academics, traditional academics, as you would in any high school, your English, your math, your arts, all of that stuff. And then 2 weeks in their shop. One of the benefits of the program is work-based learning is they get released from their shop, they get enrolled into a pre-apprenticeship program in the state of Connecticut where they put an apprentice card license into their hands as a 16 or 17-year-old student, and they can come and work for us, earn money just as they would with any other job, and earn hours towards their license that they could use once they graduate from high school.

That is great.

So the way that we kind of sold the program too was that this will, if you're going to go to HVAC and you're going to become, you're you want to become a licensed technician, this is a way to fast track this. You can get this thing started now at 16 years old, and before you know it, you're going to be a licensed technician in the state of Connecticut. It's a no-brainer for these students to take advantage of it.

Yeah, and also kind of a better job, because I started working when I was 16. I started working as a shampoo girl at a hair salon, which my now hairstylist friend says was wildly illegal. They're like, you can't just do that as a 16-year-old, but that's crazy.

Hairdressing is actually a licensed trade in the state of Connecticut as well. It is.

Yeah.

And he's like, they should not have.

And I was Oh, well, I was getting paid in cash, so yeah, that makes sense. Um, but that's great because now instead of working at McDonald's or working at Chili's or, uh, working at a summer camp or something, they're actually working at something that's going to benefit them in the long run.

Absolutely. And getting them in here early gets them comfortable and they feel a part of the community here so that when they do join us, and if they do join us after they graduate, it's an easy switch. There's no kind of, you know, slow onboarding process and getting you up to speed and introducing you to the team. You'd been working with the team for 2 years at this point. You know those guys better than I do.

That's awesome. Okay, so you found your pipeline, you had a really good technical school that you knew you could get talent from. So now you had to build out the curriculum. So talk to me how that happened. And I know Joe Costa was very integral into this whole process.

Yeah, so we started developing the pipeline and we started enrolling students into work-based learning, and we realized that we wanted to put a continued focus on continued education. My manager is a lifelong learner. We're all lifelong learners, but he's very much a lifelong learner. He is a professional engineer. He just recently completed his MBA. He holds all of the licenses for the company. He's really just somebody that puts an emphasis on continuing to learn. So when we were bringing them in, we realized that we wanted to— they had a great foundation laid during their time with technical school. They didn't get too deep into it. And since security is ever evolving, there's always things that you have to pick up on. So we knew that we wanted to put something together in a classroom type of setting, that we really wanted them to, to feel a part of the class and then sit down and take theory and spend time in our beautiful lab that we have here. But we didn't know how to implement it. And we went back and forth on whether we should create our own curriculum and put together the decks and the assignments. The homeworks and the quizzes and all of that stuff, or if there was going to be something, we couldn't have been the first people that wanted to do something like this. So we started exploring options and we landed on one that's a nationally recognized curriculum with the NCCER that actually some schools here in Connecticut that are accredited with the state actually teach the same curriculum. So we knew that we had something good there. One of the things too is they come with great instructor resources. So we were able to not have to build everything out. From scratch that we were able to just kind of plug things along and customize them as they see fit. And then we had all this beautiful stuff and we said, who's going to be the one teaching that? Knowing my limitations and what I lack in technical knowledge and skills, we had to find somebody from within. Just so happened to be that Mr. Costa, Joe Costa himself, was pivoting up to changing his roles a bit. He had always been somebody here at ENCOM that started with, you know, getting the guys together, 25 years ago after, you know, a long day of work and saying, hey guys, I saw something out on the job. I want you guys all to come into the office, be 25, 30 minutes. I want to go over something I saw just so I can get you guys up to speed. So when you guys run into it, you guys are aware about, you know, what that thing is. So he already kind of laid the foundation and the groundwork for what continued training, continued education here at Encon was going to look like. And he was the perfect person for the role. He is the backbone of this whole thing. Without him, I don't think that we'd be where we are today. And the relationship that he builds with these students is one that we can't replicate with anybody else. He is really just a wonderful person to have here.

Shout out Joe Costa.

Absolutely.

Because I imagine, so this is really interesting. So you were able to find this curriculum that was already used and certified and you knew of other contractors who were using it. You gave it to Joe Costa, who basically put his own little spin on it. And then also, I'm assuming, put the Encon spin on it because the benefit here of building this talent from scratch is that you are teaching these kids how you like to run service calls, how you like to do installs, how you like to just run work in general. So what does that kind of look like? How do you—

So we do— sorry to cut you off there. We do very unique things here at Ancon that not a lot of companies and contractors do here. One of the things is we're a premier geothermal installer and service provider. That's something that wasn't covered in this curriculum that Joe is a master at. And that he was able to put together his own things and make sure that you cover everything that they're going to be seeing out there. Encon also is known to have a very high standard for our work. Our motto is excellence, not excuses. People know when they could walk onto a job site and see that the piping that's done and the install that's done and know that that's Encon quality work. So that's another thing that we needed to instill in them and we get a benefit of bringing in younger individuals. That didn't learn bad habits from working at another company that was, you know, maybe chasing after efficiency and making sure that they, they were getting the most dollars back from the job that they were doing. We want to make sure we do things right. We do it cleanly. We do it properly. So getting in, in younger individuals that don't have those bad habits and build those good habits early was really important to us too.

That's awesome. So I want to talk, I want you to tell me a little bit about your early and often approach to recruitment and why getting in front of these kids as early as possible matters so much. So what is your, what's your pitch when you're going to to this technical school and you're like, hey guys, sign up for a work program with Encon.

It's funny you say that because just this past Friday I was speaking to a group of freshmen at a technical school in a town not too far from us. It's because they're, they have choices. They have choices. They could pursue the trade, of course, and then there's no shortage of companies that they can go and work for. Word is out there enough now that these programs exist. It's a great way to build from the bottom up. Contractors and companies are now starting to use it to their advantage, just as we are now. They could go to college. They could go pursue a 4-year degree. For some students, that's the right call. For other students, and certainly when I was in school, it was the only call. And then there's the military, you know? So those are the kind of the 3 branches that we see that, you know, individuals potentially take. So getting in front of them early and showing to them what pursuing the trade that they're currently in the technical school for looks like. In the opportunities that will be provided to them, and that it's a real career with real opportunities that you can provide for yourself, provide for your eventual family. You could, you could own a home, own a car, go on vacation, do all these things. It's really important to instill in them early so that they take their time at the school seriously and know that there's real potential out there once they finally get to that point and have to choose a contractor company to work for.

Interesting. So in your particular talent pool, It sounds like the argument for why learn a trade instead of getting a 4-year degree, it seems like that argument has already been made on your behalf.

To a degree, but there's certainly individuals, I've, I've brought in a few myself, I had that, that have come in and spent some time with us and then decided they wanted to pivot. I had 2 students that left us that wanted to go pursue engineering degrees. I had a student that was with me that wanted to go into accounting, which I wasn't sure what the connection was, but I wished him well. Just because you graduate from the technical school, doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be following that. In some cases, the education that they receive at the technical school, it's a smaller class size. So some people just see it as kind of a charter school or, you know, pulling them out of a— if the public school is not so great in the town that they live in, they use it as a pivot just to get them into a better quality education. So some people, unfortunately, are taking away the opportunity for a student that might be really driven and wants to go to HVAC, but it got rejected from the technical school and is stuck in the public school, but they had no intention of necessarily pursuing the trade.

How do you do your best to try and sort that out? I mean, it has to be so hard because these are like, these are kids who are like, just mold, things ready to be molded. Like they still don't know themselves that well. Um, yeah. So what, how do you try and suss it out as best you can?

It's tough. I really pride myself on my, my ability to kind of be correct in my assumptions, but I've certainly not bad in the thousand. And the state has recently kind of, in just this past year, implemented the ruling for enrollment in school. It previously was if you had a letter of recommendation, if you were kind of a legacy, if your father worked in the trades, your mother worked in the trades, you would kind of, you know, jump the line type of thing. Due to funding and the way that the schools are funded, they have to be open opportunity for everybody. So it's gone on to a full-on lottery. So you are number 117, okay, they pull a ball out and if you're that number, congratulations, you're now going to the Keg Technical Schools. So it's difficult. It's gotten hard and it's only going to be getting harder now. But I try to, there's certain things that I look for in an individual. Individual. People that contact me often, when they see me, they know who I am at this point. And I hang an Endtown University banner in all of their shops. So they see it every single day that they're coming in there and they know that we're out there. But that goes to my early and often. I want them to know who I am. So ones that reach out to me, ones that really express a strong desire, you really can sense that this is something you want to do. And another group of pool people I look for is athletes. I like looking at individuals that have, you know, worked with the team, could take constructive criticism well, provide, that have leadership skills, have commitment, that have seen things through. Those individuals I'm always excited to get on. More.

Interesting. Okay. Even if someone does a couple semesters with you and then decides to go off to pursue their real dream of accounting, um, do you still think it's worth it for them to have enrolled in the university and learned a little bit about what the trades offers?

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and I, I don't see that as a total failure. I see that as we gave somebody an opportunity, we gave them a fair shot, they learned a bunch while they were here, and We're not necessarily marketing this program out there. Sure, we have a logo and I have my banners and my handouts and things like that. But I want somebody, he's, he formed connections while he was at that school. And I want, if he knows his neighbor who was currently a freshman and he's graduated and he goes, hey, EnCom popped by, do you know anything about them? I want him to be my marketing. We really want him to be our advocate. We want him to be the one to tell everybody about how great the program is. And not wishing him well and seeing that as a failure, it would go against everything they were trying to do with that.

Yeah, I 100% agree with you. I kind of fed you what I thought the answer to that question should be, but I agree with you. I mean, I think regardless of whether or not these people continue on and finish the program and become apprentices, become future technicians at Encon, I think it's worth it to still show them the opportunity that the trades offers because—

Absolutely.

You might have someone in that class who's like, I don't like the technical stuff, but wow, this is a business that seems to be pretty profitable and be working really well. Maybe this is like a model I want to explore when I'm in my 20s and I've graduated school. Let's talk a little bit about success. So at the end of Q4 last year, your first class received their licenses. I want to hear what that moment was like for you, uh, especially after seeing some of these guys since they were juniors in high school. I say guys, but I don't know, I'm, I'm—

Yeah, yeah, no, I get it, I get it. But it, but it is kind of like a proud parent moment for me in a sense. I really get to know these kids when they come in. One of the things that I do with my recruiting and the way that I legitimize this with this program is when I'm bringing them in for work-based learning, I invite their parents in. So I tell them to come in after you already spent some time with us and we got to know you, I want you to bring your parents in because your parents have a, have a better way of grasping the opportunity that's really in front of you. I tell these guys all the time, some of them are focused on what they're doing on Friday night, what they're doing on Saturday night. They don't understand the 401k, the benefits, the career growth and the money they could be potentially earning, but the parents do. So I really get to know them and really get to know their family on a really deep level. Watching them go across that stage, I mean, it goes back even to when they graduate from high school. I attended a couple of their graduations and their parents see me in the crowd and they come over and they shake my hand. Oh my goodness, my son and daughter are so excited to join you guys once he graduates. I, I really like to legitimize that, that the university sense that they're going on to something bigger. They're going on to higher learning. They're going on to, to a place that they're going to be focused on education over there. And then parents are really excited about that. They might not see it as that. They see it as, oh, we're gonna work for this company, but it really is legitimate. You're going to be going over. I handed out diplomas for my first class as well that I had printed and framed and everything. But watching that first group of guys earn their license, it was a proud, proud parent moment. You know, I, I'd been with these guys for so long and I know that they all have these same goals of earning their license, of moving up in their careers. And one of the big things is once you get your license, you get a van. So these guys were really excited to, to, to get their own thing and load it up with their tools and make it into their own little home on the road type of thing. And I knew what that meant for them. And, and it was really, really, really exciting. And it happened so quickly. And to know that we have another backlog of guys that are gonna be doing the same thing this year and then the same thing next year and the same thing next year, it's really, really exciting and really rewarding.

First off, that is awesome. Congrats on finding a very rewarding job. That is hard to do. And, um, I, I just wanna get a little bit more into the technical so I understand it completely. Concentrate lately. So you have ENCON University, you go to this technical school to recruit folks to do the, these, uh, these high schoolers to do this, the programming through ENCON University through this work, uh, what's it called again? Workshare program?

Work-based learning.

Work-based learning program. They graduate high school. Now, are they continuing university in ENCON, like continuing HVAC education at ENCON, or are they doing it somewhere else in addition to apprenticing?

No, I'll give you, I'll give you the full timeline on how it works. The state of Connecticut for a license has two 2 requirements. They have on-the-job training hours. That's something that's working through a licensed apprenticeship program with a licensed company that's in good standing with the state. So that would be them just being employed from us and working out in the field. And then there's a classroom requirement where they had to get required training in the classroom on theory and things of that nature. Being that they're graduating from these technical schools, their classroom requirements are met once they graduate from high school.

Got it.

So we don't have to go through and send them off and say, hey, you need to go get your training done somewhere else. Their training was already laid there. But that goes to the foundation aspect of it is that it's a very good and lays down a deep, great foundation and understanding of the trades, but there's so much more to grasp. So we bring them in. Typically, I give them a job shadow opportunity during their junior year where they'll come in with us and spend 2 days with a technician and we'll have a technician go out and report back on what he thinks of them. And then we'll also inquire about him and make sure that he had a good time here. After that, we send an invitation during their junior to senior year to come on board with us for a 4-week paid internship. During that time, we do not enroll them into anything. We do this outside of the school and outside of the state, but we have them kind of tag along for 4 weeks and, and spend time with the business units that I mentioned earlier, spend time in each of those. So they could see the whole spectrum of what NCOT could offer in terms of, you're not going to be just doing service. You're not just going to be doing install. There's much more to that. After the 4 weeks are up, that's when I, I bring them back in and I talk to them and make sure that we're a good fit for them and they're a good fit for us. And if they are, that's when we enroll them into their, uh, work-based learning program. So that the work-based learning program only exists while they're in school, but while they're in school, they're able to get released to come work for us. Once they graduate high school, they have their classroom requirements completed. They get 1,500 hours towards their license based on just having that diploma. And then any additional hours they've earned during work-based learning goes towards their license as well. So it's really, the technical school really puts them up on a, on a much higher you know, step than somebody that's coming in from the bottom. Once they come in, I give them a little bit of a break because I tell them I remember what it's like to graduate from high school. I remember what it's like to be 17 and 18. So take 2, 3 weeks off and just kind of focus and enjoy yourself. Take a family trip, hang out with your friends, do all that kind of stuff. And then we start things up in second week of July. So once they come in second week of July, they're enrolled into our apprenticeship program and they are full-time employees of Bank of while they're here, they spend 4 days out in the field working. They spend 1 day, full day, paid day in the classroom here at Econ.

Wow. And they, but they could, if they did your work-based program, they could choose to say, hey, this was great, but I'm actually going to do something else after graduation.

Yeah. I almost lost one last year to another company. He was with us for work-based learning and he was going to potentially go somewhere else. And I wasn't having it. I was like, what do I need to do to keep you here? But it goes to the idea that you mentioned earlier about making it more than just a technical thing. And then this generation in particular is looking for something different with the company that they're choosing. They're trying to find a home at this point. It's much deeper than just like clocking in, clocking out. They want to form connections. They want to form relationships. They want a manager that they could lean on to for advice and for mentorship and things like that. Because a lot of these individuals are coming into In high school, there's structure. The bell rang, you had your schedule, your guidance counselor printed out, you go to the lunchroom and grab the cheeseburger that you're going to eat. The bell rings, you put your backpack on, you go to your next class, and everything's really structured. Then you graduate and you're coming on to work at a company like ICON, and it's like, you better pack your breakfast, you better pack your lunch, make sure you pack your water, be at the job site at 6 o'clock. You're going to get into the van with somebody that you never met before, that you have no idea who he is. He's a strange person. You're gonna go sit shotgun with him and you're gonna go drive an hour, hour and a half to a job site. And to some of them, they could be like, this is, this is too much. So we need to layer in support and layer in a matrix of managers and people that they can lean on. So that's where, and that, that's one of my big goals here is being that person for them.

You know, there's a whole other discussion I always love having. I, I obviously used to have it more when I was a little bit younger, but the whiplash of doing your whole life in school and so structured, and then all of a sudden be thrust into college or into this more freeform time. I find, I think a lot of people get a lot of anxiety about it and rightfully so. Yeah, it's terrifying. And so I kind of love that from like a safety perspective. So in terms of like all things said and done, by the way, these kids that I just referenced, they got their licenses in 2 and a half years.

Under that, some of them are licensed in a year and a half. They are, they are 19 years old as a licensed technician in the state of Connecticut, earning life-changing money at this point for some of them. You know, everybody has a different story, a different background. And we certainly have a whole spectrum of different people here at Econ. But for some of these people, they're the highest earner in their homes. They're still living with their parents and they're the highest earners of their home at 19 years old.

I mean, if that's not a pull quote for this episode, I don't know what is. Um, Let's— I want to talk to you so much, Brett, because you're just a wealth of knowledge. The one thing I do want to make sure we touch on is that it's something I've heard from other folks on this show in regards to state laws that may prohibit enacting these apprenticeship programs. So tell me a little bit about some of the challenges you're up against in Connecticut specifically, with the goal of like, let's just make sure the listeners who are kind of getting inspired by this know like, ooh, I should also check on this in my state wherever I happen to be.

Absolutely. And it's definitely important to look into that. You got to play within those regulations and rules. Fortunate for anybody that's listening to this that is not in Connecticut is Connecticut is known as the most rigorous and difficult to get licensed states in the entire country, for better or for worse. One of the things that really limits us is they put a very tight ratio on our hiring. So it's kind of going against the idea of getting the technical schools up and training students and introducing them to the trade and trying to get them in. But then they're telling us that we can't hire outside of our ratio, which is 1-to-1, 1 licensed technician to 1 apprentice for the first 8. After 8, you have to have 3 licensed technicians for every 1 apprentice that comes in. In order for you to grow and for, in order for us to hire these students, which we would love to do, if it was up to me, I would love to walk into these schools and say, "You, you, you, you, you, I want to get to know you guys. Come on in and we're going to give you guys the opportunity." And a lot of these guys whine. And one of the hard things to do is I have limitations on who I can take in that I have to take passes on people that I would love to give the opportunity to. One of the things is I love giving the benefit of the doubt to people. I want to give people an opportunity to prove me wrong. And if they prove me wrong, I'll be the first one to admit it. But I really see the good in a lot of people and a lot of these students, and they really just need— some of them just need a good company that will offer them structure, that will bring them along, that will teach them, you know, real life skills. But they just haven't gotten that yet. And I have to take passes on them because the state really puts a hold on who we can bring in here. So as I mentioned before, you know, if you're not in Connecticut, kudos to you. You probably have a little bit easier job of doing this. But I think really utilizing these younger individuals that don't have these bad habits, that see it as a real opportunity, is the best way to hire. It's really starting from the bottom and building that pipeline up.

Amazing. Brett, dude, I could speak to you about this forever. It's clear your passion comes through and way to go on just making this career pivot. Personally, this is such a cool thing that you're doing. For any contractors listening right now who are inspired by what you're doing and they're thinking, I want to build something like this, where do they start? Or any last parting words of advice?

Like you mentioned, the early and often thing. If you want to do something like we're doing, you need to get in front of students. You need to, you need to find somebody in your company. I recently went to a conference and people were shocked to hear about my role here at the company. It's a unique role. Not everybody could accommodate somebody like me, but having somebody that could really just be a guiding person for these individuals that are making this jump into this career is really important. There's a matrix of managers that we have here for each individual. We have the guy that's going to manage you out in the field. We have Joe in the classroom. We have me. You have a VP that you could potentially speak to. But having people realize that, you know, it's— to build this culture, it's much more than just Hey, what can you do for me out in the field right now? We need people to be excited. We want people to really see the value that they can get in coming to a company like ICON. So that would be my advice is just to get out there and speak to all the great things that Treez can provide.

Brett, man, thank you for an awesome, awesome chat. I know people are going to be finding you on LinkedIn and stuff after this and asking you to— asking to pick your brain. But thank you for joining me on To a for the trades.

Thank you so much, Jackie.