In this episode of the Arc Junkies Podcast, Jason Becker sits down with Brian Huff, founder and CEO of Midwest Technical Institute and Delta Technical College.
Brian shares his perspective on the growing skilled labor crisis, why the U.S. is facing a massive workforce shortage, and how removing shop class and technical education from K–12 schools created the situation we're in today.
The conversation covers workforce demographics, infrastructure demand, energy production, AI-driven growth, and why construction and skilled trades remain recession-resistant careers with lifetime opportunity. Brian also explains how trade schools can rebuild the pipeline and why this problem must be treated as a national priority — not just an industry issue.
This is a big-picture discussion about the future of skilled labor, education reform, and why the trades matter more now than ever.
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Jason Becker (00:03.015)
Hi Brian, good evening sir, how you doing?
Brian Huff (00:05.196)
Doing good. Jason, how are you guys doing?
Jason Becker (00:07.965)
I'm doing great down here in Florida. Probably a little bit warmer weather than what you're dealing with.
Brian Huff (00:12.078)
That's where I'm actually out in Colorado where there's a lot of snow and cold right now.
Jason Becker (00:15.837)
Yeah, I think last week they said that it was colder in Florida than it was in Alaska. And I was like, man, this can't be good news.
Brian Huff (00:24.823)
Yeah, I mean, that's almost like we need to get under the rocks if we start hearing news like that. I mean, that's a rarity.
Jason Becker (00:30.207)
Yeah, it was like 37 degrees. It didn't last long. I mean, it bumped up into the 40s and 50s later on in the day, but it was pretty chilly.
Brian Huff (00:37.324)
You guys aren't going to get hit with that storm that's coming across Atlanta and going through Alabama and Texas and all. mean, are you going to get that?
Jason Becker (00:47.902)
this is the first I'm hearing of it. might want to bust out the weather app.
Brian Huff (00:49.824)
there's a major, you look this weekend, there's a major ice storm that's running through like Memphis, Little Rock, Texas. think, know, is that supposed to hit part of Atlanta too? I don't know how far east it's going to go, but it looks like it cuts a wide swath. Yeah. Well, hopefully it misses you.
Jason Becker (01:05.321)
That's not good news, man. got this weekend is my first weekend in three weeks. I was planning on doing some fishing.
Jason Becker (01:14.483)
Yeah, for sure. I hope so. We'll see. It'd be just my luck. know, as soon as you get it like a good day off work, the weather's crap. I could always hang out inside, you know, chill up underneath a blanket and watch a good movie. I'm not opposed to that.
Brian Huff (01:22.072)
That's right. Yeah.
Yeah. If you want to have bad weather, just schedule a day off or wash your car. Do one of those two things and you're almost assured that's coming.
Jason Becker (01:32.447)
Yeah, if you want it to rain, wash your car. It's inevitable. So Brian, tell me a little bit about your background. I know you founded MTI, but you have a background in welding prior to establishing your own school for skilled trades.
Brian Huff (01:37.623)
Yeah, that's right.
Brian Huff (01:49.058)
Yeah, I got into it. Well, the school is 30 years. We've been doing it for 30 years. We got into it about 40 years. I got into welding 40 years ago when I got out of high school. And I went to college. I actually went to Western Illinois University for three semesters. I always tell people it was the best three semesters of my life. I had no idea what I wanted to do like so many other people. I was just going to go there and try and figure it out.
And I was home at the summertime, and a couple of guys I went to high school with that were a year older than me, they were back in town. And that was when, like, you remember the Cafe Racers started coming out. This actually went Top Gun, the original movie came out. And he's on that Cafe Racing motorcycle. And those were really popular.
These two guys both had brand new motorcycles, those two, the crotch rockets. And they're going around town on them. And they both had new trucks. And I'm like, what are you guys doing? And they were like, hey, when we got out high school, we went to this welding school. We work in construction. We've been doing pipe welding, been doing structural welding. I can still hear my friends saying, why don't you learn how to stick weld, Brian? We'll get you a job.
And that was like all I needed to hear. So I didn't go back to Western. I actually ended up at a welding school literally two weeks later. I went home, called them. They had a class starting. And I went. And so I go through the program. get into my career. I get a job. I get into the career. And I got into pipe welding and pipe fitting. I did that till I was 28. And along the way, all through that, this opportunity came to teach welding.
And that's how the school was born. That's how we got into it. And I always tell people the opportunity came to teach welding because the opportunity to hire welders was so great. Where we worked at, and I was in the big agricide. So it was like big grain milling companies. I was at an ADM plant, but there was Cargill, Monsanto, ConAgra.
Brian Huff (03:57.486)
All these huge ADM, all these huge places that do process piping and do all this grain milling. And you get into there and it's nothing but tanks and pumps and pipe. And it looks like spaghetti. You drive down the highway and you see these places, but you've got no idea what's going on inside. And it's just massive work. And the electricians hired welders, the iron workers hired welders.
Jason Becker (04:19.711)
Hmm.
Brian Huff (04:26.418)
The millwrights hired welders, of course the pipe fitters hired welders, so there was just non-stop hiring for welders all the time. You could barely walk, and we were training our own welders. You could barely walk around out there without finding somebody who was off to the side practicing welding. So that's really where, so I kind of got thrust into this environment. We saw there was this great need for welding, and that's how the school was born.
Jason Becker (04:51.401)
So did you have, you said you taught a class or something like that prior to, or were you teaching on the job site or apprentices or anything like that?
Brian Huff (04:58.542)
Yeah, we were just, we were, you know, teaching on the job site, but you know, it's hard to do on the job site because, know, they're still wanting you to work and stuff. And, you know, guys are over there on their break practicing and this and that. And we just kind of got to talk. And it was like, man, somebody ought to start a welding school. And, you know, I bet I said that for three or four years and you know how you get an idea and it just kind of goes away and you're talking and it's just like, and finally it stuck. I started really getting into it and,
Jason Becker (05:04.54)
Yeah, no, for sure.
Brian Huff (05:28.494)
putting it all together. And before I knew it, we were leaving and starting this welding school about 30 miles away from where we worked at. And we started our first class with five people in 1995. And since then, we've had over 40,000 graduates in the last 30 years. But we've also got other programs and all that. But it all started with welding.
Jason Becker (05:48.127)
Cheese.
Brian Huff (05:56.702)
And that's been our bread and butter for years. We were pipe welders.
Jason Becker (06:01.821)
Now, tell me a little bit about that whole setup. mean, how long was your preliminary planning to say, know, hey guys, we should put together a welding school. Like I went through it, but nothing on a scale to where, you know, what you've grown into as far as, you know, teaching skilled trades and stuff like that. Mine's like, I kind of led on before we hit record, short-term hobbyist makers, DIYers, but like to set up for a full-term training program, you know, six, eight, 10 months, you know, like how long was that planning process? How, I mean, how did you guys get the building set up and any necessary permits?
funding capital, know, all that good stuff.
Brian Huff (06:32.962)
That planning process was about probably nine months. And I remember, and I had everything, I mean, I was calling everybody from liability insurance all the way down to the cost of a welding rod. I just had it and everything in between. And I really didn't have any experience. did have somebody give me some really good advice on how to put that together for a bank.
And we built the building basically ourselves. Look at this. You'll get a kick out of this. This is 30 years ago. We got a building loan. The entire building cost 70,000. I remember going to the bank and the bank, I'm talking to electrical and now our electrical panel costs 70,000. Yeah, we built a 3,200 square foot. We had 40 stations in there.
Jason Becker (07:17.051)
I was going to say, how'd you get a whole building for 70k?
Brian Huff (07:26.682)
And we used eight packs, the big eight packs that you had on the construction site. So we wanted everybody to mimic what they were going to get. So we pulled the lead right into their booth. But what we had, we had a company put up the frame and then we did the rest ourselves. And the bank was like, OK, you guys are going to have all this sweat equity into it. That doesn't really bother us. We'll give you the money. So it was peanuts to them. They knew if we went belly up, they're going to get a building probably worth $200,000.
You know, so, and back then, um, but we here, so I go back into them and I go, well, look at, need another 80,000. I need 40 for me and 40 for my partner because we got to quit our jobs and we got to give this thing and we need, we, that's what we make in a year. I remember he looked at me. He's like, we don't do that. And I'm like, well, what am I going to do? I got it. We have to have the 80 and he goes, well, he goes, there's this thing called the SBA.
And it was a small business administration. And he's like, we can try it. And I still remember, I mean, 30 years ago, it said right down in the fine print, you could not be denied for lack of collateral or equity. And I'm thinking great, because I got neither one of them. You we don't have anything. We just got a good idea. Well, I'll tell you, he submitted that application. And I still remember when he called me, he goes, hey, man, you got that loan.
Jason Becker (08:41.165)
That's perfect
Brian Huff (08:52.992)
And it was like, just like that. So we went right to town on it, you know, and, and, and we built it and, you know, we didn't know anything about marketing or anything. were going to run a newspaper. I was naive enough to think everybody could pay for it. You know, it was like, had, we had no financial aid. had nothing like that. So we just started out bare bones. and we got five students and we took those and those five students helped pay for average. And we just kept going with it.
Jason Becker (09:07.679)
That's my next question.
Brian Huff (09:23.15)
Something that really helped us back in the day was before we got into the fund, before we got accredited and got financial aid is the employment agencies around us in the counties that were around us. They started hearing that we were putting guys to work and that we were ex welders and that we had an in where we used to work at. And so they start sending us people and paying for their tuition. And that's really what got us up out of the ground.
and we didn't even know that existed when we got into it. We didn't even know it even existed. it just, you know, but, and, that was, look at, we, here's what we had going for us. We knew we were going to teach them what we knew how to do. And we knew if they did that, we could get them a job. It was just that raw. didn't have any other grand idea. We're just going to do this and hopefully we get a, you know, make more money than what we were making at the time. we get to work for ourselves.
and do something we really enjoy. And that's how the whole thing started.
Jason Becker (10:21.451)
How did you get those original five people and then how did they, like how did you set your tuition to where they could afford it?
Brian Huff (10:25.646)
Well, you're going to, this is even a better one. in our, now I'm surrounded by, or we, Lincoln was like 16,000 people. were, we were surrounded by like bigger towns. And when I say bigger, I'm talking only a hundred thousand. So like Springfield, Bloomington, Peoria, Decatur, these are all around us. And one of the, uh, news stations there, one of the guys that was one of their,
anchors actually, he lived in Lincoln and he heard we were building a school and he calls and says, do you, Hey, we want to do a story on you guys. So they come and do a story on us and we got 80 phone calls from that story. And that's why we got our first five people. And that's when we learned, man, we need financial aid because 80 people called and five of them could pay for it. You know, and so, uh, but that's how the first five came. And then we started, you know, putting it in the newspaper.
you know, taking the proceeds and marketing with it and just live and we lived off of what we had.
Jason Becker (11:29.885)
Yeah, because I mean, a lot of people don't, they don't understand like back in the day when you were looking for a job or looking for opportunities or things like that, you check the classified ads in the newspaper. And now it's, it's all social media. I remember when I went to go work for the second college that I was at, one of the, director was like, we need to put an ad out in the newspaper. And I looked at him cross-eyed and I was like, the only, said, you know, this is going to sound a little crass, sir, but, with all due respect, the only people that are reading newspaper are like people your age.
Brian Huff (11:39.019)
yeah.
Jason Becker (11:58.789)
And you're trying to capture the attention of kids that are 20 years younger than me. We need to get on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and all that's free. So we need to set up a profile and account. Because it's just free advertising and that's where the people you're trying to target, that's where they all live. They're on their cell phones 24 seven.
Brian Huff (12:04.974)
Yeah.
Brian Huff (12:19.734)
Yeah, and we learned that, you know, it's all digital now. And you're right. I mean, that was the dinosaur. But back then, believe it or not, you would get a lot of calls, the newspaper, then of course, television. You know, that was like the giant. you know, there really wasn't any other competition and it worked great. But 14, 15 years ago, that all changed.
Jason Becker (12:28.393)
That was the way to go.
Brian Huff (12:41.942)
you know, to what you're saying. now it's on steroids. Now it's totally social media. It's the only way to get to everybody. I can't even believe the newspapers are even in business anymore. I don't even really even know anybody who gets one on their doorstep. You know, it's just.
Jason Becker (12:53.695)
No, I think most of it's all done via, they send you an email or whatever, because every time somebody will send me a news article and I'll go to open it and it's like, oh, you got to join the Orlando Business Journal or you got Orlando Sentinel. I was like, I'm not signing up for a newspaper. I'm never going to read to read one article.
Brian Huff (12:58.263)
Right.
Brian Huff (13:08.982)
Right, right. Yeah, that's right.
Jason Becker (13:10.749)
But yeah, it's all digital now. So now how did you go about, and I know it's different state to state, but like when you guys wanted to be financial aid available for FASFA and all that, or possibly GI Bill, additional funding sources, what was that process like? Because I know some of the schools, like I know in Texas, you've got to be up and running for like the first two years unfunded before they'll even look at you. And then they come in there and pick through everything with a fine tooth comb and they come in and do their audit.
Brian Huff (13:38.19)
Yeah, that's exactly what it That's how it was for us. You know, we got approved by the state and through that whole nine month thing I told you about before we got to the jumping off point, I had, you know, got into that and learned what we had to have to where we would be approved to charge people money to teach them how to weld. And so we've got approved by our state and then you had to be up and running for two years before you could even apply for what they call national accreditation.
And then when you, that's a two year process. at the end, you know, so really, you know, was probably four, four and a half years before we ever saw financial aid where we were, we were approved through the U S department of education for student loans, parent plus loans, Pell grant, all the kinds of things you could get to go to a college now. And, uh, and then once we did that, you know, we were, we were in the arena.
You know, we were this little bitty welding school, now accreditation is by institution, and you can start adding on other programs. And that's, know, I had a mentor that really helped me out, and that's how we got into HVAC.
And he was talking about that, you know, and then a few years later we get into medical assisting total 180. You know, we changed the name from Midwest School of Welding and Fabricating, and then we made it to Midwest Technical Institute.
Jason Becker (15:05.646)
Did you just expand on your current building or did you guys move from one building to the next or open up a satellite campus?
Brian Huff (15:11.655)
We did, we expanded that building. We actually had two buildings. Then we bought another building to accommodate the HVAC and added onto that to accommodate medical assisting. Then we bought another building and moved into another building for, so we totally outgrew Lincoln and moved it to Springfield. I see that my picture is really getting faded there. You want me to?
Jason Becker (15:36.029)
Yeah, do you got additional lighting or anything you want to pop on? Sure.
Brian Huff (15:40.876)
Yeah, let me try something real quick.
Brian Huff (15:57.09)
There you go, that's a little better. yeah, that's so and then we ended up moving to Springfield and then a couple of years later, we opened a branch. That was our first branch campus. You know, and that's a crazy story because we got so far away. But our first, I always tell people it's Memphis because nobody knows where Horn Lake, Mississippi is. But that's where our, but it's in the Memphis area.
Jason Becker (16:22.227)
Yeah, no idea.
Brian Huff (16:25.76)
OK, so that's where our first branch was. then we started, we just kept going. We added some other programs and started adding branch campuses. And now we have six campuses and we're in three states. And like last year, we started over 5,000 students. It's a whole difference. 30 years ago, it's crazy to look back and see how we started and where it is now.
Jason Becker (16:25.843)
Okay.
Jason Becker (16:54.771)
Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. You start off with a group of five people at one school just teaching welding, and now you have all these different campuses throughout multiple states teaching, you know, HVAC, you get welding, you got medical assistant. I would imagine you got other skilled trades programs in there as well. There's no shortage of a need for skilled trades workers or classes.
Brian Huff (17:13.55)
No, not at all. We added electrician and that's going great. We do have CDL as well. And those have been really good programs. That's a lot shorter, of course. But no, but electrician, HVAC, and welding are just, they're the core three. they've been, you know, and on that note, the growth in those three programs, it's been amazing since 2021. People are really starting to wake up to the trades.
you know, and we can get into this, but it's really, what I think is really cool is it's, they're not doing it because of any kind of messaging change from the K through 12 public education system. Gen Zers are just coming about this on their own because they're, know, like the Wall Street Journal called Gen Z the tool belt generation. And they said the number one factor for Gen Z choosing a career path was job security.
because they're concerned about AI replacing their job. And they're turning to the trades as a safe haven for that. So they're coming about this on their own. And the interest in the trades from their standpoint is definitely growing, but because the demand is so great.
The demand right now for welders, electricians, HVAC tech, you name it, machinists, millwrights, the steam fitters, the pipe fitters, there's so much work right now that's available and it's going to blow up because of this AI arms race.
Jason Becker (18:46.591)
Oh yeah, it's already blown up. I mean, I've had the conversation with my kids. mean, my son's 16. He wanted to be a pharmacist for the longest time. And I was like, buddy, I don't think that job is going to be viable by the time you graduate high school, go to college and get a degree. I don't think that career profession is going to be around anymore because it's going to be a dispenser. You you're going to program an order, you you send it in, it's going to verify, you know, everything's good with your doctor. And it's going to spit it out once you go up there and, you know, scan your insurance card or whatever. So it's, think all that's going to be automated. And then he wanted to get into
architecture. And I was like, okay, I mean, that's another cool one. But I think, you know, AI is probably coming for that as well. So like I even asked Chad GPT, like, what are some of the like a good safe bet for a long term career, something that AI is not going to replace. And it was all skilled trades. And so I told I told my son, was like, dude, like, I know you're not he's not into the like the blue collar work. I think you kind of skip the generation because my parents kept telling me stay away from it, stay away from it. And like that I ended up in the skilled trades, inevitably.
Brian Huff (19:31.957)
it.
Jason Becker (19:43.455)
But he really doesn't want to do the skilled trades, which is fine. He wants to do more of the computer stuff. And I was like, you really need to look into being like a robotic technician or a programmer or something to that effect. Something where you actually have to initially write the code or enter the prompts to get the correct information out of something like AI.
Brian Huff (20:03.362)
Yeah, absolutely. And you're right. it's not come, I love that AI told you that about the trades. That it's not, I'm not coming for you guys. I love that it just says that, that's amazing. And the construction work just on the AI side, they're building these data centers. I don't know if you heard this or not, but Larry Fink, who's the CEO of BlackRock.
Jason Becker (20:09.855)
Yeah.
Brian Huff (20:31.95)
You probably heard his name before. He said we need 500,000 electricians. Now, it's not like Larry Fink and BlackRock's going to hire any electricians, but all these new industries and services and technologies they want to invest in take a tremendous amount of electricity. This new age of innovation takes a tremendous amount of electricity. President Trump's crypto czar said America has to double its electrical output.
Jason Becker (20:33.159)
A couple times.
Brian Huff (21:00.95)
So that's why you've heard recently in the news that they're recommissioning new plants. They're going to start building new plants. They got to build natural gas plants. I believe they got to start going back to building coal plants. When, how are you going to double the electrical output in America? Right. You know, wind and solar is like shooting a freight train with a BB gun. There's no way that's ever going to happen. You know, so
Jason Becker (21:19.103)
Yeah, it's, it's, that was everybody's solution to the power problems. Oh, we got it, you know, with green energy and this, that, and the other thing. I think that was a whole load of bullshit that, you know, they tried to put on us, but, know, for tax incentives and stuff like that. it's no, now all of a sudden you've got all this AI stuff and they're like, oh, now we need nuclear and we need coal and this, like all the stuff they've been bastardizing, just like they did the skilled trades for the past 30 years. They're bastardizing all these forms of, of, of electricity and energy.
Brian Huff (21:26.126)
See you later.
Jason Becker (21:46.207)
Because they're like, you know, the Green New Deal and all this stuff and, oh yeah, we got to have wind and solar and it just, they could never get that kite off the ground. And now all of sudden they're like, oh yeah, we're not going to be able to power all these data centers and all this stuff to run AI infrastructure off of, you know, hopes and wins and unicorn farts. you know, a lot of these solar panels and windmills, they just don't generate enough electricity fast enough and they're not sustainable enough to carry on long-term. Whereas if you put a nuke plant in,
Brian Huff (21:53.954)
Right.
Jason Becker (22:15.209)
that's safe and to code and all that stuff and you go through it. mean, that energy is like, know, constant. They can crank out thousands and thousands of kilowatts or millions of kilowatts, you know, to be able to sustain a lot of this stuff. And it's going to require just the infrastructure of those alone is going to require all of your welders, your pipe fitters, your mill rights, you know, all that stuff. Cause they're not going to release a whole bunch of, you know, robots and cobots onto a job site to set up infrastructure and build it. And then wire the whole thing. You have to have
You have to have the people. You've got to have the skilled trades people, those people that have the knowledge and the wherewithal and the experience to do all that.
Brian Huff (22:52.854)
Yeah, and here's the, you know, it's, it's not an option, because we can't be second place in this. This is kind of like the Manhattan project was we have to be first because look, look at how it is with nuclear. You have to lead it. You got to control it and you got to dominate it. Otherwise the world's very unsafe. If we don't lead control and dominate AI, we got a serious problem. And the people, know, so we understood, so this is one of those things where it's inevitable. can't be stopped because it's out there.
Jason Becker (22:59.668)
Mm-mm.
Brian Huff (23:22.444)
And if we don't do it, another country is going to do it. And so we have to be, you we got to get on top of this fast. think people realize it and it's kind of like the internet was, you know, it was out there and then it really wasn't noticed by a lot of people, you know, like, like in your, your entire life, how it just got its tentacles and everything. And then all of a sudden it was just there. And I think what's going to happen is you're going to see all this infrastructure and all these data centers built and all this stuff go. And then all of a sudden it's going to be everywhere.
It's going to be absolutely everywhere. And that's going to be what it is. And regardless of what people think about it, know, we're going to have to work within it. You know, we're going to have to work within it and again, hope that our country leads it completely because it's going to be a scary world if somebody else does, you know, because it's, so it's not an option and it's going to be tremendous amount of work. besides that, look at the ship building. He got all, they got all those ship contracts.
And I was actually going to look it up before our talk, but just like three to six months ago, they're a staffing company, basically. They're a recruiter for maritime contractors, submarine makers, shipbuilders called Blue Forge Alliance. They said they needed 140,000 skilled workers. Right. And if you've ever been on a shipyard, a lot of those are welders. Right. So there's going to be, you know, and then you've got
besides the AI thing and the shipbuilding, look at our own energy production. Look at our own infrastructure in the country. There's so much work that's going to be coming. We need the skilled workers. I heard Mike Rose say, and then I know he's a big advocate of the trades. He said, it's great we're getting all this work, but who's going to do it? Because it's
We really need to come, the K through 12 public education system has to totally retool itself. we got, America has got to basically arm itself with all these skilled workers because there's a lot that needs to be done. like you said, it's going to be, you know, we like to say skilled trades, they're recession proof, they're replacement resistant, they get paid good, you know, they're definitely AI resistant.
Jason Becker (25:41.513)
Pandemic proof.
Brian Huff (25:41.612)
You know, there's a lot of good things about the trades and it's a great career path and there's, why not get on it? Because there's going to be an explosion of work here.
Jason Becker (25:51.127)
I just had a young lady, Alex McNamara on the podcast last week and she was talking about, like her big goal is to get shop programs back into high schools. And like the way she's going about it is she's educating everybody on how to do it because you can't say we need to bring shop class back to a high school. You have to say we need to bring CTE programs because there's funding for that. There's no funding for shop class. There's no funding for wood shop and welding and all that stuff at the local high school.
but there are CTE funds available through the government. So you can apply for all these different grants and loans to set up CTE programs. And I think that's what's going to start happening. I've worked with quite a few K through 12 schools and I noticed that mind shift is changing. More and more schools are requesting to just come tour my little welding shop here in Orlando. And just, you know, I do a workshop every year and they bring like 60 students over the course of three days to come check out my welding shop.
And, you know, I get everybody all geared up. We talk about safety. Everybody gets to do a little bit of hands-on welding and they get to take a little project home. And, but you have all the guidance counselors that are there that they're pushing these young and men and women into the skilled trades now, at least in the area that I'm at. So you can see that pendulum start to shift because when I was in school, it was, you need to, you need to schedule your, for your SATs. So you could take your SATs and get into a good college, because if you want to be successful, you have to go to a good college. You know, that's what they look at on your resume.
They look at anything else. What college did you attend and how did you graduate? With honors, magna cum laude, all that. So that's what you want to do. So schedule your SAT. And I was like, I don't want to do any of that. I like this welding gig. I think I'm just going to join the military until I figure out what I want to do. And that's kind of the route that me and a lot of my buddies went through because I was like, I just got done with 12 years of schooling. Well, 13, well, 14, including kindergarten, failed that one. True story. So then.
Brian Huff (27:41.07)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (27:43.199)
We joined the military, but then you come back home and you got a lot of these kids that they just finished up school and they can't get a job. And it's like, well, okay, I know I didn't want to go to college. It's a good thing I kind of dodged that bullet earlier. So I just stuck with this, the skills on, hands-on skilled trade stuff. I did go to college later on because I think I drank enough of that Kool-Aid to say, okay, yeah, let me go give this degree thing a shot. And I had the GI bill backing me. But I worked full-time while I was going to college.
And then when I got my degree, I just went right back into the skilled trades because I was like, well, shit, I'm going to have $60,000, $70,000 in debt and I'm going to make less money than I'm making right now. So I might as well stick where I'm at right now so I can afford to pay back my student loans.
Brian Huff (28:26.926)
And absolutely. Yeah, and I think I'm happy to hear that at least in your area, they're starting to promote the trades more in the K through 12 system. And hopefully, that's really got to turn because if we have a chance or if we're going to have a chance, we really have to. We got to get so many people in it. And look, I'm not knocking college. If you're going there for the right thing, you need to go.
But here, but the message that everybody had to go was the wrong message. And they did that for 40 years. And, and really they, they treated the trades like they were a door prize. You know, the grand prize is a trip to college. And if you don't win the grand prize, well, then maybe you should do this over here. And it just felt like that. So everybody, didn't even want to say, well, I'm going to go be a mechanic or I'm going to do, know, they didn't want to talk about it because it was like just so maligned.
especially when I got out of school, you know, and they just pounded that message for so long. And now the chickens have come home to roost, right? And now we need all these workers. I tell people we need an Eisenhower moment in the country. And ironically, they both have to do with Germany. You know, when President Eisenhower came back from World War II, he was blown away by the German autobahn. And he said, we got to have that in America.
And when he got elected president, that's what he did. Our entire interstate system that everybody rides on basically got built from the late fifties to around the late sixties, early seventies. but basically over a 10 year timeframe. Think about that. mean, that's what they, that's what we could do when we put our mind to doing something.
I mean, every now and then there's a new expressway, every now and then they make it wider, every now and then there's a new ramp or an overpass. But basically what everybody's driving on has been around since the late 60s or 70s. And he connected the entire country, you know, and it turned America, I mean, we went from being a military superpower to really becoming a total economic superpower because all these goods and services were connected throughout the whole country. Well, here's where I'm going with this.
Brian Huff (30:41.482)
Germany has this thing called the VET, the Vocational Education Training System. And one third of what they call secondary school graduates goes into this VET program. Think about one third. So they get to these kids when they're in the eighth and ninth grade, and then they go ahead and go in. And all they do for the next two years is learn that trade.
And then when they're 16, they go to work with an employer, as they say, in the company. And they stay in the company until they graduate. And then they go from that to either working for the company or working for another company, or they can take advanced training on whatever trade they're getting into. This 51 % of Germany's entire workforce comes out of that VET program. I mean, they got this farm system.
I'm not saying we got to do it verbatim. We probably didn't build the interstate system verbatim, but we need more than just a messaging. We need to really turn our guns on getting serious about training these kids. You look at what we spent, what we gave Ukraine, what we left on the ground in Afghanistan. You take those two numbers alone. I think there's 25,000 or 26,000 high schools in America. Every one of them could have a deluxe shop.
You could put every single one of them. could build, you know, welding boosts. could have machining, machining. You could teach automate, you know, you could teach everything you need that they basically let go away and they could do all, if we wanted to get serious about it, we could really start getting these kids into trades.
Jason Becker (32:16.99)
Oh, for sure. Like to your point, I've talked about the GAP, the German apprenticeship program for years on the podcast. Like right around the age 12, they identify on whether you're going to university or you're going to trade school. But the thing is in Germany and most of Europe, those skill sets are looked at equally. You you've got doctor and lawyer on one side, everybody wants their son and daughter to be a doctor and a lawyer. And then on the other side, you've got welder, machinist, electrician.
But society looks at both of those professions as equal because they understand that they're both essential. Both of them are essential to a functioning, know, well-being society and an economy and all that stuff. And we bastardized it over here because I think the only people that really, you know, did well or ended up on the positive side of things of pushing everybody to college is the banks that were issuing all the loans. Other than that, like everybody that went to college, like I know a lot of people that got burnt by going to college because
They went in and got a degree along with everybody else, know, 30, 40 people per class getting all these degrees. They all graduated at the same time. And now the market's saturated with this entire group of people that there's really no competition. They all went to the same school. They got the same degree and they're all applying for the same jobs. Okay. Who's going to work for the least amount of money?
Brian Huff (33:25.987)
Yup.
Brian Huff (33:31.156)
Absolutely. You you flood the market with, you know, if you tell everybody to go, there's not enough jobs for them. The Wall Street Journal put out a stat that over 50 % of college graduates are working in a job that does not require a degree, not the degree they got. mean, any degree. They're working in a job that requires no degree. And of those 50, of the 50 % that are working, half of those, took over one year to get a job.
And we want people to get a job as soon as they leave the school. If you're in the construction trades, unless there's extenuating circumstances with your life issues where you can't go work right away, but the jobs are waiting there. The jobs are there and they're out there. college is definitely, you need to be careful. You could spend a lot of money, get into a lot of debt.
And you're going to get something like, look, I mean, it's straight out of the Wall Street Journal. Half of people who have graduated are working in jobs that do not require a degree at all. You know, so that's, that's my, why are you telling a hundred percent to go get one? Why is that the message? know, and you're right about the Germans revering the trades. We should do that. You know, we got into big trouble when we started elevating one career path over another.
And that really, you know, that it almost like a class thing and treating these trades as a secondary thing. We use the slogan trade up. I don't know if if when he, when Zach talked to you, if he said anything beyond that, but that's our, our logo is trade up because we want to, one, it highlights the trades and two, it presents the trades as an upward move. And we're promoting people that you can get paid good.
You can have longevity in your work. It is a good career to get into. It is totally an upward move. And so we're trying to do our part to push that message.
Jason Becker (35:29.151)
I just had George Rollo on the podcast and he's been under the hood for, he just celebrated his 50 years under the welding hood. Not 50 years of age, he's like 74. He's 50 years under the welding. He's still under the welding hood. No plans to retire. And all the folks that I talk to, I go to lot of AWS conferences and seminars and some of the, there's a lot of folks there with gray hair and I'll talk to them and be like, when are you going to retire? I keep seeing you at all these events and stuff like that.
Brian Huff (35:40.942)
Wow.
Jason Becker (35:54.559)
You know, I tried retiring for, three, four times and every time I retire, I just keep getting called back and I love the work. So I'm just going to keep doing it. And, know, so it's like, how many people, like, I know a lot of people that, you they have, you know, work that required a degree and they can't wait to retire, you know, because they don't want to do that work. And it's like, they, think they initially followed the, you know, chase the paycheck. And that's one thing about welding. tell people, you know, like if you're going to get into welding for the money,
Brian Huff (36:02.54)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (36:21.715)
Don't find another career path. Find something that you're passionate about. Yes, welding does pay very good money. It pays very well. You can make an awesome career out of it. But if you don't enjoy it, like find something different, you know, cause you don't want to have the wrong people in those positions either. You know, that can lead to a lot of bad outcomes, but you know, I think this is, this is a trade, you know, getting into welding has, I started, I started welding at age 15. I've never been without work. I'm 43 years of age now. I've never been without a job. And typically,
Brian Huff (36:50.2)
Right.
Jason Becker (36:51.857)
I've got more work than I want and I'm still getting phone calls of people saying, hey, can you come out here and weld this? Can you come out here and do an inspection? Can you come out here and do this? It's like, no, I don't have time for that or I don't want to do that. I'll refer other welders and inspectors that I know to go do some of that stuff because I'm busy enough with what I've got going on. there's so much work out there to be had, but you also want to make sure that you enjoy it.
Brian Huff (37:17.672)
Absolutely. And that's another nice thing about the trades is you can learn it in a pretty short time and you can get into it way cheaper than college. Like at our school, for example, our average student loan debt's around nine or $10,000.
Yes, 30 to $40,000 less than the national average, and that's being kind. You hear of stories where people pay way more than that for college, so you can get into it pretty cheap at that level. And then you've got it the rest of your life. Maybe you do it for a while and then it's not your thing, but it opens the door. I always tell people, especially with welding, I'll say, look, there's the construction gate over there. The only way you're getting in is if you've got a skill.
And if you can weld, you're getting in the gate. And now you're going to be taking lunch with electricians, with millwrights, with iron workers. And before you know it, you could become one of them. You're in the club. You're around those guys every day, but you can't get in the gate without knowing how to weld. You're going to have to know how to do something to get through that gate. And so it's a great way. It's a tool you're going to have the rest of your life. But like you said, you you can always move in and, and find out if there's something else you want to do.
But you can always feed and support yourself off that trade. And you can get into it with such less risk than going to college. It's a big risk going to college. The cost of college just keeps going, skyrocketing all the time. You mentioned earlier before we started about the for-profit schools being a little more nimble and how they can curtail their programs and adjust and really meet the employer demands.
The for-profit schools, they've got a big advantage over the university system because we have, like for instance, when we have to place 70 % of our students are better. We can't just pick random courses and then start charging the public. We have to have job placement for them.
Brian Huff (39:28.21)
And that's one of the things that we tell people when they come into our school, parents are blown away. They're like, our accrediting standards require us to. But a university has none of that. You can have whatever study you want. But so I think they would rein this in a lot. Because you're talking about the guidance counselor offer and advice. Well, the first question ought to be, what kind of job can I get?
Jason Becker (39:39.516)
of
Jason Becker (39:50.911)
Mm-hmm.
Brian Huff (39:51.746)
Well, if I get into this, how am going to get a And that university ought to be able to demonstrate that we're not just helping you with resume preparation. We're actually helping you get a job. We're actually doing this. And that's something that the for-profit world has to do or we lose our credit. We lose our financial aid. We lose what they call eligibility. We're no longer eligible to service that. And that's monitored like with us. We have a third party agency looking at those statistics.
So, you know, it's, it, and what they do is they call the employer, they call the student, they verify the starting wage, they verify the starting date. And if it says 71%, that's what it is. If it says 89%, that's what it, but whatever, you know, a parent comes into our school and they can see, okay, this is how many got, people got a job. And they know those statistics are gold. If the university systems had to do that, it would, it would really mill down what they're teaching.
Jason Becker (40:47.559)
for sure. that's, that's one thing I didn't understand. Cause like I worked at a college while I was attending it. Like I worked at a college teaching a welding program while I was attending the same college working on an associates and a bachelor's degree. And for all of my students, I had to, know, we would do resume writing workshops. We would do like mock interviews. We would, you know, go and meet with local employers. We'd bring employers into the school. And we would do all this for job placement and like the success of the program.
Brian Huff (40:47.756)
and the way they're teaching it.
Jason Becker (41:15.975)
relied on job placement. However, you know, when I'd, I'd clock out for the day and go to the other side of the campus, put my backpack on and sit in class as a student, they didn't have the resume workshops. They didn't have the mock interviews. They didn't have, you know, tours of different facilities. They didn't have employers coming in, trying to actively recruit people. And there was no like really job placement assistance. I mean, there was, there was some stuff, there was a resource, but you had to go out and get it and, and, and do all that on your own, which, which is good. shows responsibility, but on the, on the, you know, the career tech side,
It was mandatory. You had to take these classes and like, once you get done, like you need to go get a job. That's what you're here for. Well, I mean, a lot of people don't go to college for fun. They go to college to get a degree and get into a career. Why don't, why don't they have the same metrics? Why is a, you know, the, the academic side, why is their performance based on, you know, how well the students are performing in class? Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the campus, the CTE students, their performance is based off of how many people did you, did you get employed?
what was their starting salary? You because if you can get a bunch of employee, but if they're not in their area of study and they're not making decent money, like you're not getting credit for that and you're going to lose funding for your program.
Brian Huff (42:16.79)
Right.
Brian Huff (42:25.902)
Yeah, and like in our programs and basically for all private for-profit schools, you you've got to have people with at least three years job experience to teach.
We have what we call program advisory committees. So we have employers sit on those committees and help us set up the programs, make them better. They come in, they look at the equipment, they look at the lab, they look at what we're teaching, and then they really buy in. And then we're making contact with every employer. That's our motto is let's get them all. We don't care how small or how big, let's try and, because you never know who's going to be hiring.
And so we're continuing and then we find out where somebody lives out. So we're going to great lengths to get our students jobs. And I believe that's why we've been successful. We don't have, know, we've had, we've had, now we've been around long enough. We've had father son combinations where dad went through 25 years ago, right. And now he's bringing his son to school because he was successful there.
Jason Becker (43:32.191)
That's awesome.
Brian Huff (43:32.378)
And we've had so much family and relation and people like that that have gone through. But, you know, we've always job placements, King. Job placement when we really believe that made us, you know, when I told you in the beginning of the podcast, how those employment agencies got ahold of it, it was only because we were placing our students. We got accredited. We were a very little school. We got a credit because we had amazing. I we had 80 or 90 % job placement. You know, everybody that's going through there is getting a good job. And so.
That is what I believe is the true measuring stick of your program. Are your students getting jobs at the end of it?
Jason Becker (44:10.013)
Yeah. Now, your programs, Brian, when are they different from state to state? Because I know you said you kind of had to meet some sort of like the state requirements and stuff like that. But is it is it different in Illinois than it is, you know, in Mississippi? Because, know, it's different industries. So do you guys train for specific industry or is the program more like general? You know, we're going to teach you a little bit about manufacturing, iron working, know, pipe fitting and all that. Or is it like kind of trade specific for that area?
Brian Huff (44:35.598)
Mm-mm.
Brian Huff (44:39.278)
No, it is trade specific for that area. I mean, we have the core, which is everything. We teach everybody, like as far as welding goes, 60-10 route, and then 70-18 fill-in cap. And we do that on all of our bevel plate, whether it's flat, horizontal, vertical, overhead. And then 2G, 5G, 6G pipe, we go through all that. And then we do the same thing with TIG on carbon and the same thing with TIG on stainless.
We got some schools where it's heavy production welding. There's plants around them. So we will spend more time at the end where they'll be practicing on that test. So we'll hone their skills for that. We have some places that have a better end with companies that are taking stainless. So they're going to take stainless pipe more.
But you're right. If the employer wants it and there's a consistent, steady need, then we're going to totally give them that opportunity. And we do the same thing in HVAC. In HVAC, of course, in the South, air conditioning is huge. Now it's a huge thing. But you're right. And of course, where we're up in the North, heating is huge. But they've got to do both. But they're different kind of systems. They're different climates. They're different humidity.
Jason Becker (45:45.907)
I love it.
Brian Huff (45:58.176)
So there's things that we do that are specific to the areas that we're in.
Jason Becker (46:03.219)
Yeah. that, mean, like we talked about before the podcast, a lot of folks didn't get to hear that because we weren't recording, but like I mentioned, I prefer the for-profit schools over, you know, traditional education or the VOTEC schools and stuff like that. But I mean, granted, you got to go with what fits, what's within your budget, what's within your means. You know, a lot of people can't just afford to travel out of state and go to a school. But the thing is with the for-profit institutes, especially ones that are opened and ran and, you know, conducted by welders.
or welders or current welders, whatever the case may be, you can change that curriculum to meet industry demand without having to go through and cut a bunch of red tape. Most of your state mandated curriculums, they're 10 years behind the power curve. mean, like the one for state of Florida I mentioned on a previous podcast, they're still teaching oxy-fuel welding. Nobody's using that. I mean, yeah, you're probably some soldering and brazing with HVAC, but...
Not a welder I know is anywhere out there doing that. Oxy-fuel cutting, yes. mean, iron workers still using that. Pipe fitters are still using that. Mill rights, definitely. But you can curtail your program to the needs of local industry. And at the end of the day, that's what it's all about is getting them a job, not checking some boxes on a state mandated curriculum for state requirements and all that. It's like, if nobody's hiring for this, why are we teaching it? Because at the end of the day, our goal is to take these students and make them employable.
So like your school, you could change that curriculum. You know, the next group of students that rolls in, Hey guys, all this, you know, structural work dried up, we're getting into pipe or Hey, all, you know, vice versa, all this pipe stuff dried up. We're getting into, you know, we're getting into pipe fitting or, know, like nuclear is really big that, you know, this facility is going to open up down the road. They need to punch a bunch of people that can, you know, weld on ink and L and Hastelloy. So we're going to start bringing that in the program without having to go through, well, you know, we're not going to meet our state requirements. We're not going to get our state funding. And, know, that's pretty much what it's all about, you know, at that.
at that level. I think plus you have the liberty to teach other things. You do you guys do like rigging or OSHA 10 or any other job site related skill sets outside of, you know, what they're actually going to school for, like the welding portion?
Brian Huff (48:04.748)
We do all that kind of stuff and we also teach pipe fitting. But what you said is exactly what we do. And we can make changes. We can even make substantive changes and probably get it done within 45 to 90 days. If they're less than a substantive change, all we got to do is give a notification. So we're able to really move quickly with all these employment trends like you mentioned. So we do all that.
And it is an ever evolving thing. Our welding program has really, well, all the trades have grown tremendously over these, again, since 2021. I think that it's, I think a lot of it has to do with word of mouth. People do know you're going to get a job and we can't promise anybody a job, but I mean, the goal, part of the interview process is do you want to get a job? We want you to want to go get a job when you're done. So we tell them we're a career.
what just happened there.
Jason Becker (49:05.854)
Take your camera to shut off.
Brian Huff (49:08.462)
Well, that's wild. You know what? Let me, I think the light's so low in here.
Jason Becker (49:13.872)
okay.
Jason Becker (49:18.367)
There you go.
Brian Huff (49:19.404)
which that needed to be fixed anyway.
Brian Huff (49:25.686)
You know, I'm kind of a novice at this, Jason, and I had some windows up and the sun, the sun went down and now I got lights in my head. We're going to get through this though. But yeah, I really believe that's a big part of it is, you know, people believe that they're going to get a job and we're going to work with them and they know, you know, and look at it's not fresh air and sunshine. We're actually calling employers. We're actually doing it. You know, we're not just telling them that.
Jason Becker (49:28.605)
I'm still figuring it out.
Jason Becker (49:34.591)
We'll make it.
Brian Huff (49:54.402)
We'd like them to have multiple opportunities. we've learned too, it's all doable. We've had people come in and say, well, I just can't find them. It's a roll up your sleeves. The employers are out there. If you're really hustling, if you've got people in your program working hard to make those connections, they're out there. Because when you kind of come from the public mindset, they don't have to do those things.
Like you said, the other side of the school, besides where you were at, you go over there, well, hey, good luck. Hey, you could probably try over here. There's very scant effort. They can just kind of unhook from it, and that's all on you. We don't do that. And I think that's been a big reason why we've been successful. And we've had a lot of growth in our skilled trades programs in the last four years.
Jason Becker (50:46.473)
Now, do you outside of your advisory board, because I mean, a lot of schools that's mandatory to have, but do you have folks from local or industry that are like willing to, you know, come out and talk to the students, actively recruit, you know, come in and do demos, allow, you know, your students to come in and do like a plan or a facility or a site tour or anything like that? Do you work with pretty closely with local industry outside of the advisory board?
Brian Huff (51:10.228)
All of the above, absolutely. And honestly, those are the most impactful for the students. We always encourage employers to come in and talk to them. I mean, because they see the teacher every day. The employer comes in and he starts talking about his company and the job opportunities and all those things, and that really gets their attention. But no, absolutely, we do those things. you really can't do it enough.
Well, it's everything's relational. We really promote that we want our programs to really have great relationships in their area with the folks that are, know, and over time that happens. You know, we in like in the Memphis area, I always kid people our HVAC program. I doubt you could probably run into a company out there that does not have one of our graduates. You know, we put out so many graduates for so many years in that area, and we've had essentially the same crew working there.
They know everybody. And so you go through there, they're so connected. It'd be hard to run into an employer there that, again, that doesn't have our graduates. But that's really the case basically for all of our trades. We become part of the community. Yeah, they can travel, and we promote that. Because if somebody doesn't have to work locally, well, then they just really kicked up their opportunity for earning potential and job placement and all that kind of thing.
We understand if they want to stay local, so we try to work with everybody. we can get the job sheet out, and there's all kinds of jobs. Just like the shipyards we were talking about, they're all over the country. There's all kinds of all these AI centers, these data centers that they're building. Tremendous amount of work. the electrical, the electricians, the HVAC techs, the welders, there's going to be a lot of opportunity here.
over this next five to 10 years.
Jason Becker (53:07.084)
And it's coming in fast.
Brian Huff (53:09.196)
It's coming in fast. That's right.
Jason Becker (53:11.059)
Now with your programs, you, because technology is evolving so fast in the welding industry, just like everything else, like all the code books are 10 years behind from what's being practiced in industry, textbooks are 10 years behind what's being practiced in industry. How do you guys stay up to date and current with the trends that you're seeing in the industry to make sure that all that relevant information is being taught in the classroom and it's not the same curriculum that's been cycling through for the past six, seven, eight years?
Brian Huff (53:40.846)
That really comes from the program advisory committee. And look at this whole thing I'm talking about with job placement. You can't do that without talking to employers. And believe me, they're going to let you know, we want them to know this. Hey, did you know they're going to be doing this with Freon? Did you know they're going to be doing, did you know they're going to want this kind of welding procedure? know, so they're keeping us updated all the time. And that's really how we do it.
I think because we're so close to it all the time, it would be hard for us to really ever fall behind. And our curriculum is changing all the time. We have a module system, and we can input things into those modules as we need to. Whatever is relevant, we want them to come out. We want them to get as much.
We want to simulate the job as best we can, which we know at a school that's difficult to do. What we want to try and do is the best we can. But we want them to be as employable and have enough entry level skills that they can get in and get started and make an impact right away. And that's our goal on all those courses.
Jason Becker (54:45.183)
Now, do you guys have like a big need for like automation, cobots, orbital welding or anything like that in your areas or is that something you're currently teaching or planning on bringing into the programs?
Brian Huff (54:57.986)
That's something we know. really know that hasn't come up yet. And I'm sure if we look through, we probably had some students that have fallen into those things, that have found themselves doing that kind of work. But it's not a big where there is an auto plant or there's somebody in our neighborhood that is really requesting that type of thing. And that would be a major retooling on our part.
But in a situation like that, and if they really wanted it, we could probably work out a deal where they would probably go out to their facility and start learning that equipment prior to getting a job. honestly, we've stuck, especially with the welding, we've stuck with kind of the bread and butter. We have found that that ASME 6010, 7018, the carbon TIG, the stainless steel, if they can do those things, then
let's just say they come up and somebody wants them to do aluminum. Well, they can quickly teach them that. If they've got those skills, with the stainless and the carbon, being able to take and stick, and of course the MIG welding, they're going to be highly employable. As far as welding processes, they're going to able to pretty much be able to do all of them.
Jason Becker (56:14.227)
Yeah, that's one thing I used to tell all my students is like, learn every single process while you're here. You know, we cover stick, don't, don't favor one over the other. But if you learn the fundamentals and basics of each one of these processes, no matter where you go in industry, you're going to be able to pick everything up because things aren't going to change. You're just going to have to learn how to read that puddle. It's going to be a different puddle. You know, you start getting into some of the exotic alloys. The puddles just going to be a little bit different. Now all you have to do is just figure out how to manipulate it to your will.
Like you've done everything else that you've done in this program. So now that you have the fundamentals and basics, you know what amps do, what volts do, what wire feed speed, travel angle, work angle, all that stuff. You know the fundamentals and basics. You're going to be able to catch on to anything else that comes your way that's, you know, that's new in industry or, you know, something that didn't get caught in this program. You're going to be able to catch on pretty quick, but like study and understand these and learn these as much as you can now, because it's just going to serve you once you get out in the field or into a shop or manufacturing environment.
Brian Huff (57:08.232)
Absolutely. No, absolutely. know, and isn't it amazing like how artistic and how hand-eye it is? You know, like you said, they get to, are you guys seeing a more significant female population? Because we are.
Jason Becker (57:22.805)
yeah, that's yeah. Well, so as I was leaving the last college that I was at, the one instructor, was like shortly, I think one term after I had already separated from the college, I still, you know, converse and chat with the other instructors that are there. They had a student to female or male to female ratio with their most recent welding class. It was a 50-50 mix. And previously to that, it was always like one female, two females. But now it's, you know, the influx is coming. So I think a lot more females are getting more comfortable and
Brian Huff (57:41.774)
What the fuck was that?
Jason Becker (57:52.135)
and planning on getting into the skilled trades as well. Cause I'd see it in other programs too. had electronic board assembly where it was like soldering and stuff for circuit boards and things like that. I mean, that class was initially male heavy. And then as you know, as I've worked for that college for over the course of nine years, it started to slowly shift and it was more female dominant because of the hand-eye coordination. I believe it was the hand-eye coordination, attention to detail.
Brian Huff (57:59.618)
Thank you.
Brian Huff (58:17.219)
Yeah.
Brian Huff (58:20.584)
That's where I was going to kind of go. mean, seems like they have a nice touch. It's something they definitely can, they have a nice touch that way. But it's certainly something we've seen evolve over 30 years. We had, it was very, very low ratio. But they got hired, they could get jobs. But now that ratio is going up all the time and you're seeing a lot more females get into the trades. And I think it's a great thing.
And I think there's going to be a lot of, I think they're seeing the opportunity. That, yeah, it might have been just a male dominated thing for a lot of years. But I think that's kind of going away. And I think that women are seeing the trades as, again, a hedge against this whole AI thing. They're thinking about their career path too. so, and they're looking at the trades as a safe haven. I look at it like this.
AI is going to be a tool in the hand of the tradesperson, but it's not going to replace the tradesperson. But it's going to be a tool in their hand. And you're still going to have to have somebody get down in your crawl space. You're still going to have have somebody get up in your attic. You're still going to have to, if there's a power line down, who's going to come and get that line that's got 40,000 volts of electricity going through it? And who's going to come and get that thing taken care of? You're going to have to have people.
in these skills, but they're going to use AI technology, just like we're using new technology all the time as tools. But that trades person is going to be around for a long time. I feel like they'll be the last to go. If you look at it, everything starts with construction. Caterpillar doesn't have a plan to build a tractor until somebody, or Caterpillar can't build a tractor until someone builds the plant.
Jason Becker (59:59.251)
does.
Brian Huff (01:00:08.492)
Doctors, nurses, they've got no place to deliver that kind of medical care until somebody builds the hospital. Right? We can't even deliver our education unless somebody builds a school. Right? So, know, we're all living out in the woods in tents without the trades. Every, you know, it all starts with construction. So when you really break it down and see how important it is, the skilled trades are going to be around. be the last thing to go because everything starts with that.
Jason Becker (01:00:19.359)
Hmm?
Jason Becker (01:00:35.241)
Yeah. mean, in the guy that was most dead set against AI and wanting to get like, you know, massive control and set limits on AI, Elon Musk, right? He was the one that was, you know, try to keep warning everybody like the genie's already out of the bottle. We can't put it back, toothpaste is out of the tube. So we need to start putting limits and safeguards in there, but he's been on record several times recently talking about how within the next five to seven years, a lot of these white collar jobs are just, they're going to be obsolete. They're completely replaced by AI.
within the next five to seven years. mean, that's pretty quick when you think about it, especially once you start getting up in age, know, like last year seems like 1999 to me. just goes, it goes quick, right? So five to seven years, it's like that, that's a blink of an eye, but he's saying the people that can move atoms, those are the ones that are going to be protected. Those are the ones AI is not coming for those jobs. So moving atoms like physical work, know, doing it, building the infrastructure, laying the pipe, welding it up, beveling the plate, welding that up, you know,
Brian Huff (01:01:08.718)
Very cool.
Brian Huff (01:01:28.919)
Right.
Jason Becker (01:01:33.193)
putting all the buildings and running the electrical and all that stuff. That's what's going to be around. Apparently every, his whole thing is everybody's going to receive universal high income. So like you get paid to stay at home essentially, which I hope that doesn't happen, but, but the folks that are still out there working, they'll get their income plus whatever they're making at work. So now you can kind of double, well, double dip because you have a skillset that's actually being utilized.
Brian Huff (01:01:47.31)
No.
Brian Huff (01:01:55.042)
Yes.
Brian Huff (01:02:00.31)
Yeah, no, they're going to be in demand for a long time. Well, like they're always going to be there. You can't. And I think so much of us take it for granted. You we just go in the house and flip on the light switch and we don't even realize that where it even comes from. Or we just expect the plumbing to work. we just expect, you know, again, without construction, there's nothing built.
There's no data center, there's no computer chips, there's nothing, there's not you and me doing this. It all starts with construction. And when you see just how fundamental it is to the society, then you realize if I get in one of these careers, I got lifetime work. I mean, they're never replacing me. I'm going be able to do this the rest of my life, you know, and probably in the same place. Maybe you got to travel, maybe you don't, but you're always going to have a job.
Jason Becker (01:02:49.395)
Now, because of the skills gap that we're facing currently, mean, I talk about it, it just seems like to pop up on every episode, but because of the skills gap we're facing, I think it's like 300, some 1,000 welders over the next couple of years. They're saying that, you know, like every school in the United States of America could be filled max capacity, you know, with welders and graduating, and we still wouldn't put a dent in it. And that's just, those numbers, I believe are based off of the exodus of the baby boomers leaving the industry.
not to mention all the infrastructure we talked about, know, building possible, you know, new facilities, coal plants, refineries, all that stuff, you know, new energy resources. Where are we going to get the bodies? Where are we going to get the people to do this? You know, do you think if, if the folks that are graduating high schools get into the skilled trades, like if we just create that pipeline, like we did for college back in the day, do you think that's going to put a dent in the need or how do we, how do we, how do we meet that demand? Is it, is it even possible?
Brian Huff (01:03:24.43)
you
Brian Huff (01:03:44.366)
Well, believe it's, yeah, you're going to, we're going to have to definitely create the pipeline from high school, but it's kind of, it's also like what we talked about earlier, this Eisenhower moment. We're going to have to really get serious because the numbers are staggering. Yeah. I think they said there's 12 million skilled workers in America and 4.8 million are over the age of 45 and half of those are over 55. The, the, the stat you can, you know, this is, this is another AI thing you can, but for every five that retire, only two are replacing them.
that you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. We're heading right for the cliff, you know. So we have to get them in there. And I think it's going to become, look at a lot of people said the skills gap is going to become a national crisis. And for good reason.
Jason Becker (01:04:14.269)
And only one of them stays after the two that comes in, only one of them stays.
Yeah.
Brian Huff (01:04:30.102)
You know, the skills gap got a lot of airtime like 10 years ago. It was kind of like these, these folks that forecast these types of things were looking out and looking at the baby boomers who you just mentioned and saying, Hey, they're going to be retired. And what are we going to do? Well, guess what? Now we're here 10, 12 years later and the skills gap got wider. It didn't shrink any, it just continues to grow. And especially when you talk about the enormous amount of work, I don't think people can really grasp.
the enormous amount of work that's going to come for us to win this AI revolution, us to double the energy output, for us to rebuild the area. It's certainly updated, but we almost need to rebuild most of our infrastructure has been around since the 1960s. All right, so there is a massive, massive project that could have work that could come to America. we've got to have the workers to do it.
It's not like, you know, don't think importing them is going to be an option. You know, we need to get them out of the eighth grade. We need to get these kids focused. But that comes from changing the whole mindset of, well, hey, maybe you should. always, you know, I hate that whole thing where you couldn't do this. So maybe you ought to do this over here. And it just sounds like such a lower tier thing. You know, it ought to be, did you know you could be a machinist? Did you know that you're so good with your hands?
You know the public all the tooling and all the products you could make in the society how you could help out society You could do that, you know It ought to be they ought to get people just pumped up that you could like you said like the German they revere the doctor isn't higher than the electrician Right. mean everything's we're not elevating a career path over another and that's got to get into the K through 12 Public if that doesn't get in it Then we're gonna be all we're doing is going against the current. We're just continually doing the same thing over and over and over again
Jason Becker (01:06:10.591)
Yeah, they're all on the same plane.
Brian Huff (01:06:25.192)
And it's going to be like filling a bathtub up with an eyedropper. We have to get serious. You know, we got to get serious about this, you know.
Jason Becker (01:06:31.977)
Yeah. Now, have you noticed because of the demand in welders, anytime I talk about the skills gap and the demand for welders and everything like that, the number one thing everybody always says is the pay. Have you guys noticed like an increase in starting salaries with a lot of your graduates? Employers seem to be wanting to pay more because welders are in such high demand or have wages in your area relatively remain pretty stagnant?
Brian Huff (01:06:57.486)
No, they have gone up. They've gone up across the board. And that's not just in the trades, but even in the medical fields. We've seen that. And I think that's going to continue to go because they have to have, they're looking for the work. And here's the thing, if you can go to Walmart and get $18 an hour, if you can go to these other places. And I saw a sign in Taco Bell for 18 bucks an hour the other day.
know, right? Everybody's looking for people so bad that just means the level for the skilled trades is going to go up and up and up. You know, I'm out here in Telluride, Colorado right now, and they were telling me electricians get a couple of hundred dollars an hour. They can't even find them around here.
Jason Becker (01:07:41.983)
Peace.
Brian Huff (01:07:44.128)
It's, know, these are, you know, they're kind of remote areas and they need, there's all kinds of construction. They need people to do this. I mean, somebody in the trades can write their ticket. I always tell people you get into this. I mean, you know, yeah, you can work for somebody and you can do that the rest of your life. And that's great. But there's opportunity. If you want to have your own company, there's opportunity. If you want to expand, there's just so much, it's just out there for the taking. You know, we tell parents all the time.
I know it sounds elementary, but tell your kid they need to be a good worker. Because companies are starving for good help. And believe it or not, like 30, 40 years ago, a big differentiator between workers was really their skill level. It wasn't were they dependable or reliable.
Right? know, everybody was dependable or reliable. Well, now if you're dependable, like I tell them, if they'll show up early, stay, you know, be there on time, stay late, whatever, they're going to be able to write their ticket because they can't find people to do that. I don't know what, you know, it's like something just happened in a big hurry. That's gotta be changed. and, know, but, but look at to the victor, go to the spoils to somebody who wants to go out there and work hard. They're going to own it. They're going to totally own it because they're in such demand.
Jason Becker (01:08:37.159)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:09:04.511)
Yeah, that's something we need to bring, figure out how to teach work ethics and reliability in school. Because I mean, you you go back 25, 30 years ago, even the worst employee, you know, at the shop, it was there every day. He was reliable. He sucked at what he did.
Brian Huff (01:09:09.698)
Yes.
Brian Huff (01:09:18.974)
That's what I mean. Yeah. The dependable, reliable thing wasn't an issue.
Jason Becker (01:09:23.379)
That was never an issue. It was always like your skillset. It's like, man, I know you're here every day. You're here early. Hell, sometimes you stay late, but you really suck at your job. And now it's like, Hey man, you're like, you're really good at your job, but you're never here. So like, you're not bringing any value. You know, you're working with people that, you know, they sh they might show up three out of five days, possibly on time if they feel like it that day. And then they want to go home early. you know, my, my dog's sick. I got to get out of here. know, whatever the excuse is.
That work ethic, it's just not there. And I know that like the newer generation up and comers, they say that they want to have, they want to make sure that their work has value, which I get that because you don't want to just, like we talked about earlier, you really want to enjoy what you're doing. And I don't know if it's the work doesn't have value or if just like, you know, not having responsibilities or just being able to call in and say, Hey, I'm not coming in today. You know, just having that freedom is more important to them or, or what, or, you know, I don't, I don't know.
Brian Huff (01:10:19.373)
Well...
Jason Becker (01:10:20.095)
I don't understand what that, that, where's that, where's that disconnect? Cause like I've, my kids see me every morning, you know, getting up, you know, super early, putting my boots on, getting ready to go to work, grabbing my coffee. And then every day I get home late. So like they see that work ethic and I don't, I don't think that ever skipped a generation. Like people still had to go to work and get jobs and, know, and be reliable. Otherwise they get terminated. And now I think because everybody's in such need, they can't afford to fire somebody. like, man, if they're only here 50 % of the time that's
Brian Huff (01:10:41.302)
Yeah, I mean
Jason Becker (01:10:48.477)
That's better than zero. just have to work with what we got.
Brian Huff (01:10:52.332)
Yeah, no, there's no doubt. it used to be that the hobby revolved around the work. Now they want the work to revolve around the hobby.
They want to go to the river. And so it's like, but we grew up at a different time. of course, our parents did. Work was primary. If you didn't work, then you didn't have any way to support yourself. And that was primary. then whatever time you could carve out after that, then, hey, go rock climbing or do whatever it is you want to do on the weekends. I think there's been a big push that
You need to really make this work around that. And I want to just try and find that ideal job where I only got to work 30 hours a week. I get to work when I want to work. I get to do it the way I want. That's got to change because that's just not the real world. But I believe it's going to. I believe it can. I think that we
We can push that. There's just a lot of safety nets out. You'd be surprised what you would do if you had to. A lot of times, there's a lot of safety nets right now where folks don't have to do things. And I think if that was changed, you would see a lot different work ethic, and you'd see a lot more people getting into the workforce. I'm blown away at, like I told you earlier, we have CDL. My goodness, if you don't have a health requirement that prohibits you from driving a truck,
That's endless job opportunity. They're just lined up. As soon as they're done, you can just go with this truck and kill me. There's no problem whatsoever. mean, they're starving for people all the time. And I look around thinking there shouldn't be anybody out of work. Unless there's something prohibiting them from doing that, there should not be anybody in this country out of work unless they got a physical disability or something prohibiting them. Because I can prove to you, there's work galore out there.
Jason Becker (01:12:55.145)
Yeah, it's weird. think we just become too comfortable as a society. remember like maybe that's the case, but I remember like age 15, 16, like I couldn't wait to turn 18 and like go get a job and get out of the house and like get my driver's license and all that stuff. And now you got people living in their basement, 26, 27, you know, up into their mid thirties. And like, yeah, don't, don't need to go to work today. It's, know, if I get fired, well, you know, mom and dad, they're still going to pay the mortgage. I still have a place to stay down here in the basement or, know, my, childhood room and all that. And they just,
haven't flown out of the nest. They got no interest in getting into relationships and it's like everything's online and they just don't want to get outside of their bubble.
Brian Huff (01:13:33.302)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, it's just, yeah, they need, know, you know, with my dad, it was like that wasn't an option. know, you were you were going to leave. Yes. So it wasn't, he wasn't going to have somebody else take it. They were glad to see it go. And I think there was a lot of that back in the, you know, this whole it's just, you know.
Jason Becker (01:13:34.685)
And that's not like by and large, you know, everybody, but I mean, it's a good bit of them.
Jason Becker (01:13:47.645)
Yeah. 18th birthday. Your bags are sitting at the door.
Brian Huff (01:13:59.662)
We're going to have to get through it. You you and could go for, we could go for hours down that rabbit hole because there's all kinds of social issues, you know, we could get into. But the trades are definitely a way out for folks. And, you know, like we were talking about, they are recession resistant, they're AI resistant. They're certainly replacement resistant. There's a lot of good arguments for the trades. They pay well. You know, we got a good story to tell.
We're the ones that AI is not coming for. And the pay is accelerating. The demand is out there. Anybody who wants to get into the trades is going to have lifetime work, period. I can say that totally confidently. Anybody who's in it can say that confidently. Again, in my opinion, they're going to be the last to go.
Jason Becker (01:14:49.929)
Yeah, I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon. Like you said, I mean, we need to build the infrastructure just to support the amount of AI that's coming down the pipeline. So like that's going to be difficult because like we're not necessarily working ourselves out of a job, because I think, like you said, know, skilled trades are going to be the last ones to be replaced. But we're setting up the infrastructure to get there.
Brian Huff (01:15:08.684)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we've been going at this about an hour and 15. All how long do you usually do this?
Jason Becker (01:15:19.377)
Up anywhere from 45 minutes to four hours. Yeah, but if you're, if you're good, if we got to wrap it up, we can do that.
Brian Huff (01:15:22.634)
okay. Well, you know, yeah, my, my, my, me and my wife had some plans out here. I told her, I said, I said, it's going to be an hour max. I've done this before and they're done on 30, you know, but I think you and I could go on for a couple of hours. Easily.
Jason Becker (01:15:31.282)
Okay.
Jason Becker (01:15:36.327)
Okay. no, we definitely could. Yeah, we can wrap it up. So I'll, we'll, I'll cut that part out and then we'll, we'll get back into it. I'll just, you know, we'll kind of wrap it up real quick and then I'll thank you for coming on and then please like, you know, I'll give you an opportunity to plug all your different schools where people can find information on you.
Brian Huff (01:15:53.822)
Sure. And hopefully out of our conversation, you got enough nuggets. can put together something that good, good, good. Why? And I really appreciate before you, really appreciate Jason that you, gave us this opportunity. We appreciate it greatly.
Jason Becker (01:15:59.062)
yeah, I got plenty. Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:16:07.731)
sure. mean, anybody that's, you know, willing to help out the skilled trades, like I want to get them on the platform and talk about it, just to kind of promote it, you know, because like, welding has given me so much, this is kind of like one of my opportunities to give back to the community.
Brian Huff (01:16:18.956)
Well, you're doing great work. And again, we're proud to be a part of it as well. And we really want to thank you again for giving us the opportunity.
Jason Becker (01:16:27.521)
sure thing.
Brian Huff (01:16:28.941)
Yeah.
Jason Becker (01:16:30.015)
All right. Yeah. Ready to get back into it? Brian, I don't think we're going to solve any of the world's problems this evening. I mean, we can certainly try. Do you attend like Fabtech or anything like that or any of the AWS conferences or seminars?
Brian Huff (01:16:32.376)
Yeah.
Brian Huff (01:16:46.014)
I have in the past, but I won't be at this year's. And I can't say for sure where our staff is going. We have a lot of professional development for our different programs, and they could be going to that, but I'm not 100 % sure.
Jason Becker (01:16:50.408)
Okay.
Jason Becker (01:17:00.925)
Okay. But if any of your staff comes out to any of the events for AWS, I'm usually there, man. I'd love to link up with you and some of your team if given the opportunity.
Brian Huff (01:17:06.826)
Okay.
Yeah. I'd love for you to meet the other half. He's kind of the welding guru, ourself, our vice president, Mike Casper. think you guys would get along great. He's an old welder too. Of course, we're all old now. But I think you'd get a lot out. You guys are cut from the same cloth. And I think you'd really enjoy each other.
Jason Becker (01:17:27.209)
Yeah, we're all old waters now.
Jason Becker (01:17:37.695)
Yeah, link us up, Well, before we get out of here, you know, go ahead, plug your school. know you got a couple different locations so you can serve people all over the US and, you know, tell people about your social media and all that content. Where can they find you if they're interested in attending classes or getting more information?
Brian Huff (01:17:39.32)
Yeah.
Brian Huff (01:17:53.774)
Yeah, and you can find us at midwesttech.edu or you can find us at deltatechnicalcollege.com.
So we have two schools that are, one is by Memphis, Tennessee, and one's by Jackson, Mississippi, and those are called Delta Technical College. So if you're in that region of the country, you can just reach out, find us on the web, and then they'll take care of the rest. It'll be no problem. We can schedule an appointment, tour. Our northern schools are called Midwest Technical Institute, and we're in Springfield, Missouri. We also have three campuses in Illinois.
We're in Springfield, Peoria, the quad, Moline, the quad cities. But again, midwesttech.edu and you know, we'll take it from there. But you know, we have financial aid. We'll work with you, whatever your situation is. And you know, if you've got the will to go to school, we'll help you make the way. You know, you're not going to, so, so that's what we would encourage you. You know, don't, don't think if you, if you, this is something you think you want to do, don't let anything stop you from doing it.
You're going to be glad you did, and you're going to have something the rest of your life. You're going to have something you can always fall back on. You can take care of yourself. You can feed and support your family. And again, we've learned that these skills can really take you in a lot of different directions. Like we were talking about the construction gate earlier, it can give you a lot of different opportunities. And we know you'll be glad to make that decision.
Jason Becker (01:19:28.105)
Yeah, it for sure opened a lot of doors for me.
Brian Huff (01:19:31.21)
I love hearing it. Yeah. And again, we really appreciate your podcast and appreciate your passion to give back to the industry and to promote the trades, especially to highlight welding. And you're doing good work. again, we thank you for giving us this opportunity. And we really appreciate what you're doing.
Jason Becker (01:19:33.695)
Well, Brian again. Oh, good.
Jason Becker (01:19:55.016)
man, my pleasure. appreciate you being out there kind of championing the good word for welding.
Brian Huff (01:20:00.322)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is what we do. And like you said, we're not going to solve all the world's problems. Maybe we'll get the right ear of somebody someday. And you never know who's going to hear. I believe the main change is a wholesale change in the K through 12 public education system. Not just a messaging campaign, but a big time fundamental change in the way that we educate our youth.
And if we really start making the trades paramount, just like we were discussing the German model, then we can turn this around. And we can do it in a short amount. We could turn it around 10 years. We could turn it around that quickly and turn the spigot on and have all the workers we need in this country.
Jason Becker (01:20:41.535)
Hopefully less.
Jason Becker (01:20:45.853)
Yeah, I think the tide shifting so it's gonna be interesting to see.
Brian Huff (01:20:51.276)
Yeah. Well, again, thank you so much for the opportunity.
Jason Becker (01:20:55.423)
Thank you sir, it was my pleasure.
Brian Huff (01:20:57.782)
All right, take care. All right, bye.
Jason Becker (01:20:59.615)
You as well.
