Tool Box Buzz

Makita and ToolBoxBuzz Partner To Support the Trades

The ToolBoxBuzz crew believes that supporting young men and women’s decision to go into the trades, as well as, mentoring and showing them the right tools for the job makes all the difference.

So we reached out to Makita tools and asked them to help us support a local trade school with a tool donation.

Makita agreed and partnered with us and Minuteman Technical High School in Lexington, Ma to provide the carpentry students new cordless tools. The trade school was getting by with older, corded tools and could definitely benefit from high end, Pro-Grade cordless tools.

They donated approximately $5000 worth of tools to start with a promise to support the school in the near future.

New Tools and GOOD Advice

This week we met with the students, grades 9-12, to present the new Makita tools and to discuss two important topics with the carpentry students:

1. What employers expect from them
2. What they should expect from us, their employer

We covered all sorts of topics and advice, here’s a few bullets I talked on:

• Learning fundamental skills now.
• Roll up sleeves and learn – Be The Sponge.”
• Expect to learn from the ground up.
• Be enthusiastic – passionate.
• Think of NEXT STEPS.
• Be on time – Show Up.
• Put the phone away.

To see the conversation, we had with the students, click on the video below:

Don’t Forget the Trades

For several years now our society has mistakenly pushed college education as a necessity for a successful life and turned kids away from vocational opportunities and construction/remodeling career paths.

According to the National Student Clearinghouse,3 out of 10 high school students, attending a public university, haven’t obtained a degree within 6 years.

That number is even high in private institutions, and it should tell us that some of these kids are not ready or wired for college.

So why is it that we as a society continue to herd our children into a system that we know is expensive, unproductive, and doesn’t guarantee a good, stable job anymore?

Well, I believe we are to blame. Our perceptions of manual labor, blue-collar jobs, and trade schools have become toxic in our society.

Why aren’t we engaging our youth in the trades?

The expectation that EVERYONE in each subsequent future generation should go to college is just silly. ~ ROB

College – Not wired to learn this way?

What if you learned best by doing, and you were gifted with a different intelligence that allowed you to create and put things together more mechanically?  If you’re that person then you’re probably well-suited for the trades.

As for me, I like building things, understanding how systems work, using tools, and problem solving. The decision for me was simple.

The Trades are Starving for Young People

Here’s the problem; if everyone goes to college, and nobody goes into the trades, who will build or houses, fix our plumbing, or repair our electrical problems.

One issue is that Baby Boomers are retiring faster than companies can fill jobs, and this trend will continue for the next couple of decades. I read one statistic that for every five people in the trades retiring there is one replacement.

That’s troubling on many fronts, we ALL need to do our part to support the trades!

3 Comments

1. Corey Moore

   April 24, 2019 at 10:59 pm

   This is fantastic! Thanks for all that y’all have done and are doing, and please keep it up!

   Reply
2. Kim

   October 27, 2019 at 8:24 pm

   How can our vocational trade school receive these type of awards? Our schools could use this type of assistance.

   Reply
   1. Todd Fratzel

      November 5, 2019 at 1:57 pm

      Kim,

      I think it’s fair to say every trade school could use this assistance! We’re doing our part with local schools. Sure wish we could do more but we’re trying. Good luck.

      Reply

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