Blog

January 19, 2016
Think Small

January 19, 2016 Trade employers are mostly small businesses If you become a skilled trade worker the odds are great that you will end up working for a small company. The latest Census of Construction Industries shows that the average construction company has fewer than 10 employees. Almost two-thirds...

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November 20, 2015 Just knock for a rewarding career. In my last blog I discussed apprenticeship programs and vocational/technical schools as paths into the skilled trades. A third path exists that may be the most accessible of all for talented and ambitious people. Do a little research and identify successful...

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November 10, 2015 Apprenticeship has changed from the old days. Following in your father’s footsteps has a long tradition in the skilled trades. Many if not most of today’s trade workers entered the field because that’s what their father or some other family member did for a living. Often Dad owned...

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October 27, 2015 So say recent college grads A consistent theme of this blog has been that debunking the myth that you have to go to college to achieve financial success. I’ve written about the lack of jobs for most college graduates in the fields they study, about the skyrocketing cost of college...

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October 13, 2015 Hard to do with big debts to pay Many, many years ago as a young man in my early 20s and recently discharged from the U.S. Army, I moved into my own apartment for the first time. While serving in the military I shared quarters with dozens of fellow soldiers — hardly […]

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August 14, 2015 It’s a thrill to see the results of your work I spent more than three decades covering the skilled trades as a trade journalist. Now that I’m retired I look back with immense satisfaction at the friendships made and life lessons learned. Among the latter is a profound appreciation...

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July 29, 2015 The trades offer a path to wealth. Maybe a career isn’t all you’re thinking about. Maybe you know successful people who own multiple homes, drive fancy cars and are able to afford a bunch of luxuries the average person can only dream about. Maybe your goal in life is to get rich […]

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April 22, 2015 Youthful mistakes can haunt you for life. Many prisons have programs designed to teach inmates a trade that will translate to an honest living when they get released. This is an admirable effort at rehabilitation, but not a place I would recommend for any kind of job training. A prison...

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April 8, 2015 Few trades suffer such great a shortage. A consistent theme of my blogs is that skilled trade workers are in short supply in a number of industries. Few trades have a shortage as desperate as that of welders. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were more than half a million...

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