Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Stone Payton: Welcome to the High Velocity Radio show, where we celebrate top performers producing better results in less time. Stone Payton here with you this morning. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Construction Ready, Mr. Luke Fletcher. How are you, man?

Luke Fletcher: Man, I’m doing well. How are you doing this morning?

Stone Payton: I am doing well. I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. I think a great place to kick it off, if you’re up for it would be if you could share with us. Mission. Purpose. What are you and your crew really out there trying to do for folks? Man.

Luke Fletcher: Man. Yeah. So for nearly 30 years, uh, we’ve helped people of all ages and backgrounds take advantage of opportunities and skilled trades. And we do we do that on basically two ways. Uh, we’re in the K-12 space helping, you know, bring back shop class. Um, and we do that through drafting, welding and construction, um, programs in Georgia. We have a Georgia Doe contract where we help coach, mentor those teachers and provide, um, industry touch points and also, um, like competitions for the high schoolers, you know, go build, do some plumbing and welding. And then we also have a 20 day pre-apprenticeship program for people of all ages and backgrounds who would like to enter the construction, um, workforce, but they don’t know exactly what they want to do. Our program fits really well for them because they can enter as entry level and then they can figure out, hey, I want to do plumbing or hey, I want to do heavy equipment. After the initial, you know, job placement. So it’s really exciting.

Stone Payton: Well, it sounds like noble and fun and rewarding work if you can get it. What what’s your backstory, man? How’d you find yourself in this role?

Luke Fletcher: Yeah, man. So, you know, um, I, I graduated in 1994, and I wanted to go into construction, and I just didn’t really have an avenue. I was originally from Seattle, Washington, so I had to enlist. I enlisted in the United States Air Force. Uh, I did military construction for 20 years. Um, married a lady who was an educator. And I thought to myself, man, when I, when I retire, I need to try to do this, troops of teachers and maybe try to become a teacher. I had no clue. Uh, we’re in Warner Robins, Georgia. I had no clue that they even were trying to bring shop classes. Um, back to school. When I graduated in 1994, they were already taking those programs out. I think we had maybe an auto shop, and that was it. I had no construction program, uh, in my school that they offered. So, um, so I go through that whole process and I, I’m thinking I’m going to be a coach, PE coach or something like that because I have no idea unless I go to these job fairs and they’re like, hey, man, you did construction in the military. Uh, would you be willing to be a construction teacher? You’re certified and you’ve got the background, and you you meet all the qualifications. And so I did that for six years, um, at Northside High School, Warner Robins.

Luke Fletcher: And, um, it was actually three years. And then dual enrollment was became really popular still is in Georgia. And they wanted to move my program over to the Career Academy and go dual enrolled with Central Georgia Tech. And at that point, it just wasn’t, uh, for me anymore. I lost I used to touch about 140 kids a day at Northside. I was averaging maybe 40 at this career Academy, and I just didn’t see how. It was really helpful. Um, it was helpful for the teacher, but it wasn’t really. I didn’t feel like I was making an impact as much. And so during my six years construction already, uh, they would mentor me, coach me. I’d have to go to these summer programs. We would build things, and I would have to, you know, redeliver those lessons in schools. And so I just reached out to him. They had a they had a for their 20 day program, uh, a job spot open. And I applied and they said, hey, man, you know, we’d love to have you on the team. This isn’t the right spot for you, but let’s go ahead and see if we can get you on our K-12 side. So in 2021, they, um, had an opening for me. And man, I haven’t looked back since.

Stone Payton: So we are experiencing just to kind of get a state of the of the arena here. We are experiencing to this day a workforce gap or decline in the trades. Is that accurate?

Luke Fletcher: Oh, absolutely. That definitely. We have um, a labor shortage in in the skilled trades, um, like never before. Um, I will say um, I think Georgia there’s a, there’s a actual, um, it’s called the, uh, manpower Group. And they do a talent shortage survey every year and construction for the seventh year in a row. It remains the hardest industry to fill. And, um, I would, you know, if you look by by states, you know, of course, there’s bigger states like Texas and Florida. They have it. But Georgia is like number five in the nation, and we have 386,000 unfilled jobs every year. And, um, we got broke down by craft. Um, I think we need 62,000 carpenters by December 2026. 31,000 masons. And what what we find is, um, you know, we have 816 high schools in Georgia. And, you know, when kids can have a touch point and kind of see if they like something, then that’ll entice them to go to the technical school or, or find a trade school or find an apprenticeship. But when they don’t have that, uh, we’re really just doing ourselves a disservice as a society. And, and what we’re seeing is we’re in 237 high schools. That’s less than half. So we’re still, you know, we’re getting after trying to open up programs. But you know, if we if we can get in about, you know, 400 high schools, I think we’d feel good about really helping these kids, you know, go into the union apprenticeships, the, the independent electrical contractors apprenticeships or, or the technical schools. But we’re just we don’t have enough touch points. Um, I mean, we need 25,000. Heavy equipment operators by December 26th, 24,000 electricians. And that’s that’s a four year Department of Labor apprenticeship that you have to go through, and you need a one apprentice with one journeyman. So some of these problems are just going to keep happening until we can really, you know, get ahead of it.

Stone Payton: So at this point in your career in in this pursuit, what are you personally finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it these days for you?

Luke Fletcher: And so, you know, like I said, um, I tried I wanted to be in construction. My uncle, I didn’t say this, but he did drywall. I saw him work for the unions in Seattle. He did a great job. And and so I went in the military. But someone helped me get there, right? And so I love building relationships, whether it’s a K-12 student or whether it’s one of our pre-apprenticeship, um, folks. And, um, and just helping them and then we follow them to once they get a job, we don’t leave. We we follow them. They become alumni. We we offer additional credentials. And we also, you know, provide some guidance because as you can imagine, some of these job sites, you gotta have tough skin and, you know, folks trying to figure it out, right. And so, so we we try to coach them up and just the relational. And then when someone comes back and says thanks, you know, it just means means the world. Right. But but part of that’s my story I know that’s not everybody, but I really like helping folks. And then I’ll. I’ll tell you this. We’ve had some recent success in our 20 day program. We’ve had some folks that came in with some transferable skills, whether it was like working stages at Tyler Perry Studios or whatever, and now they’re project managers for local construction companies. I mean, they they came in thinking, hey, I’m going to do entry level because I just need a job. And then when they get to that hiring fair, they got the resume out. And what they actually have the experience of already building something from start to finish. Man, that those construction companies are like, hey, we need you. So the other thing I want to say is it’s not just a craft labor shortage. We have the white collar shortages, too. There’s not enough project managers, BIM coordinators. I mean, the whole industry is, um, in demand right now.

Stone Payton: So let’s dive into the work a little bit. I’m operating under the impression that you are, you’re at these career expos in Georgia and Florida, And you’re you’re in these high schools helping the educators maybe walk us through a day in the life. There’s probably not a typical day or week or month for you, but give us a little bit of a feel for for your world on a day to day basis.

Luke Fletcher: Well, yeah. So these these, uh, career expos are really cool. Um, this will be the second year that we’re in Florida. So how they came about is, um, what part of our, uh, contract with the Georgia Department of Education? We get a contract with skills USA, which is the student organization for the, um, folks who, um, compete and set up the competitions for the high schoolers. So you can imagine there’s a carpentry, there’s a plumbing, there’s a welding. There’s all sorts of competitions for these young individuals to compete for. And so our CEO about 15 years ago, uh, Scott Schiller said, hey, let’s go ahead and try to have a career expo. And, um, I think they did it in the Home Depot parking lot. First time, if I remember the story right. It has grown to where it’s an annual event, and now it encompasses or is around, uh, in the Georgia World Congress center of the competition. So the competitions are in Hall A in the middle, and the expo is around. And it’s like, um, and honestly, I think it’s the largest event designed specifically for young students to explore more than 30 career pathways in construction. I don’t know if you could find that anywhere else. I mean, things like tile setter, the safety professional, you know, the line workers for Georgia Power, heavy equipment operators, they’re all there and they’re divided in these worlds.

Luke Fletcher: So like world of carpentry, world of electrical world of concrete, world of safety. And while you’re in that world, it’s, uh, you know, interactive. It’s, um, it allows the students and even, you know, you can you can come and visit. You don’t have to be a student. You can just, you know, look, looking to come. You could be a recent grad or just someone, you know, age 30. Come on down and and check it out. But you just go in these worlds and you get to talk to about 380 companies. Uh, they tell you about their apprenticeship programs? Yeah, we’ve got the tech schools there, college universities, vocational schools, and they just talk about their programs that help people get into, um, you know, that that industry which the world of sheet metal world of, uh, electrical, whatever that is. And it’s really cool. Um, and like I said, we got about 400 students in the middle competing in about 26in different skills competitions. So it’s it’s loud. It’s it’s interactive. But man, if you are all about construction, it’s the place to be, right? And and the industry really rallies. Uh, I think last year in Georgia, we had 9000 attendees over a two day event.

Luke Fletcher: It was really cool. Yeah, yeah, it was. I think it was something like we had 7.4 K elementary middle high school students visit. We had over 1000 industry volunteers. I think we had a thousand teachers and chaperons. It was really cool. And this is encompassing Florida too. So Florida was our first year. We got the the skills contract in Florida. And so we did it. This year will be our second year, but really cool. It’s at the Prime Osborn Center in Jacksonville there. And it’ll be later this year. So this Friday or this Thursday Friday will be in Georgia doing the state competition career expo. And then April is when we go to Jacksonville and we support that expo. But I’m telling you, it’s it’s really cool, really interactive. It’s hands on. I mean, you can really go in and do a lot of their demonstrations and figure out kind of what you like. I mean, it’s that that hands on that, you know, if you spend time in each world, you come away, you know, one with an appreciation of what what these guys do on a daily and to what your preferred touch point may be. It’s really neat.

Stone Payton: When you’re out in the community and dealing with all these different constituencies the students, the students, the educators, the the employers. Do you find that you run across some, I don’t know, myths? Maybe a little bit of a strong word, but misconceptions, incomplete information that requires just helping them really understand that those different worlds that you described. Are there some misconceptions that you run into?

Luke Fletcher: Yeah, absolutely. There’s tons of misconceptions. And I’ll be honest with you, when I started as a teacher, I had a misconception, right, of like commercial roofing. I remember growing up, it was tar. It was, you know, dirty and and and these guys were, um, coming, uh, industry partners were coming and telling me about this new technology, this new roofing material. It was white. It was just dusty. There was no tar. And I was like, I don’t believe you guys. Let me see. So they came in and did a whole demonstration for for the, the kids. And I was like, Holy smokes, it’s really changed. And and so, you know, you, you kind of just have to understand that understand that people have their own frame of reference, right? Like they remember high school from their lanes. They remember, you know, just from what they know. And so there is a constant educational piece, um, you know, entry level wages nowadays are ranging from like 15 to $22 an hour, depending on where you’re at. And I mean, it’s just people don’t really realize that. And and that’s just entry level. If, if you do well and you make yourself valuable and you work hard, I mean, you can become a small business owner in no time and construction. But but you definitely get promoted and things like that. But yeah, for the most part, there’s a lot of folks, um, that they just think that construction is dirty.

Luke Fletcher: It’s, you know, you can you can smoke dope and all that. And, and when we go in and we’re telling kids and we’re telling teachers, hey, there’s a drug test. If you’re going to work for a union, you got random drug testing. And sometimes they got these anti CBD policies and things. And and they’re just like blown away. They’re like oh this sounds like corporate America. It’s like, well, commercial construction is kind of corporate America. And so so it is definitely an educational piece. But at the end of the day, if someone has a great work ethic and they are, um, willing to work and they’re good with their hands, they don’t mind being outside. Man, this is the time to get into construction, especially if you have a five year, ten year plan. You want to be an entrepreneur. I mean, um, the world’s, you know, at their tip. I was talking to this one guy from Metro Power. He he he I think he joined, uh, Metro Power 3 or 4 years ago, maybe five now. So he did their four year, um, apprenticeship. He’s a journeyman. And I asked him, I said, are you getting a bunch of overtime hours now? And he’s like, no, Mr. Fletcher, I want to just have my weekends myself, especially from May to October. I’m like, well, tell me more about that. He’s like, man, I got this side hustle where I because I’ve got my journeyman license.

Luke Fletcher: I can work for these pool companies. And when they install a pool they need me to me to wire from the garage to the light to the pool pump. Man, they pay me piece work or something like that. And basically what he’s saying is it’s like $400 a job and he can do it in like 45 minutes. So he does a couple of those on the weekends, and he’s like, Mr. Fletcher, I’m gonna own my own electrical company one day. And the funny thing is, man, this guy is like 24 years old. And knowing his story, college wasn’t, um, on the table for him. And, of course, what he heard is you got to go to college and be successful. And and, man, he just he was really good with his hands. He went to a high school that didn’t have a shop class, and he just somehow got linked in. You know, Metro has recruiters. They go and talk to schools. Maybe he went to a camp. I’m not exactly sure how he got linked with them, but man, the sky’s the limit for him now, you know? And six years after high school, he’s thriving. And so, you know, we just need to create more touch points. And that’s what we’re about. And that’s really what excites me in the in the day, to be honest with you.

Stone Payton: Well, man, you got a lot of plates spinning personally to pull all this off as as a leader of this effort. A lot of irons in the fire, as my daddy would say. I’m curious if you feel like or to what degree you feel like your military experience has served you in turning around and serving these folks.

Luke Fletcher: Well, I’ll tell you, um, the military experience, um, from my perspective, is really, um, giving me a, um, uh, a breadth of, uh, uh, embrace, I guess, diversity. You know, we can we go into all communities and, and, you know, I went all around the world, right? And, and a lot of, um, training and, um, culture sensitivity and things like that. And so I think one, uh, it helps me kind of maybe lead our team and not to be nervous or anything like that when we go into a new, new community culture and just be open. But but I would also say, um, just the organizational leadership that the Air Force gave me, I think is helped. Right. Like, you know, we’re a nonprofit. So you can imagine we do we pivot a lot. We’re trying new things a lot. And so just the keeping things organized, I think really helps. And um, but but honestly, um, Scott Schiller, CEO man, I tell my team all the time just we just got to represent his heart, his vision. If we do that, we’re going to be fine because he’s the one that created this, you know, 26 years ago. And this is his grand vision. And, um, he’s got a heart of gold, you know, and he he he wants to help all people. Um, he, you know, it doesn’t matter. Their age doesn’t matter.

Luke Fletcher: Their background doesn’t matter. You know, if they want to get in the trades, he wants to walk beside them and help them. And so just creating that culture that he has and us just walking behind him and following him is really I think, um, set us up well, but but I do think the the military has helped me just, you know, going across the world having to accept and understand and and just keep, I guess, an open mind. And so really I mean, that also helps with employers, right, in different industries. Uh, I think I shared with you as a new teacher, uh, how even even after 20 years in the military, I was like, oh, there’s no way roofing doesn’t have tar, you know? And and then they got this new, um, uh, skin that they, they, they actually welded on, you know, and then seam it in and stuff and, and so that’s the cool thing. And, and you know, we’re still trying on these expos working with SkillsUSA. You know it’s interesting how each state’s a little different. So in Florida they have a commercial roofing competition. Well in Georgia we you know we have a couple at the region level. We’re trying to you know, we’ve got a world of roofing. But, you know, just trying to collaborate with with all the roofers and find out. Hey, can we get some volunteers to put this on for, for the kids and and and them to understand that they may have to do that for a few years before they get kids, you know, walking into their industry, but creating that touchpoint, you know, after a couple years, you know, juice builds juice.

Luke Fletcher: Those kids are gonna be like, hey, I want to go work for Midsouth. Hey, I want to go work for Ellie Schwartz. Hey, I want, but until we can create that touchpoint, you know, we just, you know, we’re just not there. But in in Jacksonville, they’ve got kids that they’re choosing to do commercial roofing and, um, they’ve had that touchpoint. So those are the things that keep us excited and just keeps that open mind. But to your point, it’s I think it’s a lot of organizational. Um, yeah. Leadership planning from our CEO on down. And then I think just the ability to try things and not look at it as success or failure. If it doesn’t work, then we just, you know, have a hot wash and why didn’t it work? And then how do we pivot and how do we just keep, uh, we call them our heroes in mind, right? Like, how do we keep what’s best for our students, whether they’re K-12 or they’re adult? And how do we serve them best and how we connect them with industry? So.

Stone Payton: Amen. So I don’t know when or how you would find the time, but, uh, interest pursuits, hobbies, passions outside the the scope of this work. Uh, most of my listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. Anything you nerd out about when you’re not doing this?

Luke Fletcher: Man, I love college football and college basketball. And, um, honestly, this year has been a little different. So I have three, three, um, children. My daughter is the oldest, uh, she’s 28 this year, and I just became a grandpa, so I’m excited about that. We got our first grandchild, so we’re super excited. But, uh, our two boys, I had one son. He went to Auburn, and I had another son. He just joined the Marines. Uh, he went to Georgia Tech. And so we followed, you know, Auburn and Georgia Tech and and just, you know, try to follow that football. But but honestly, um, families probably what I nerd out about now, especially as they’re grown and, um, that time in the military, I feel like I missed a lot. So now I’m I’m trying to, you know, make sure I don’t miss a Thanksgiving or Christmas or anything like that, but but, um, yeah, I would say, I would say football, though at the holidays, we got the TV on and we’re cheering and, you know, my wife went to the University of Wyoming. So secretly, that’s who we follow. Um, there’s probably not too many Wyoming fans. Uh, but we love Josh Allen in the Buffalo Bills. And then I would say, um, when our kids around, if they’re both around, then it’s kind of house divided. But if it’s our favorite teams, whatever. Boys home.

Stone Payton: Well, congratulations on becoming a grandpa. That’s fantastic news.

Luke Fletcher: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, we’re super excited.

Stone Payton: Hey, listen, before we wrap, I would love to if we could leave our listeners with a little something to noodle on. Maybe a couple of pro tips. A do a don’t. A good read. Something to be thinking about. And look gang, the number one pro tip is if this conversation is stimulated, your thinking at all is reach out and have a conversation with Luke or somebody on his team. Get tapped into the work they’re doing. Attend this conference. But uh, to, uh, to, uh, keep them sated between now and then. Luke, let’s leave them with a little something to noodle on.

Luke Fletcher: Yeah, yeah, I would, I would definitely, uh, love to invite everybody. February 20th and 21st down to the, um, Georgia World Congress Center. Come to the career Expo. It’s free. You can go to our website construction. Org, you can sign up for a badge. Badge will be waiting for you. You can just come on down and it’ll be great. Um, but for, you know, if anybody’s thinking about their future, thinking about how I can get into construction, there’s a really cool build your future nonprofit, um, website that has nothing to do with construction ready? Uh, but it has some really, really great tips. Um, about building your future in construction. Whether it’s union, nonunion, um, trade schools, uh, technical schools and and just the, the demand map and where you live, you know. So it’s really great, you know. So if someone’s in metrolina, they’re gonna have a lot of options. But if they’re in South Georgia, maybe they only have a few, but that that website is WW dot. Or they can just Google build your future and I would encourage them to go there.

Stone Payton: Fantastic. All right. Let’s make sure we do leave them with all the coordinates. The best way to to continue to tap into your work, maybe share that conference information again, maybe, uh, your website or contact whatever is appropriate, and we’ll allow people to stay connected with you, man.

Luke Fletcher: Yeah. No problem. It’s, uh, our website is construction dot again. That’s construction ready.org. And they’ll just go to our website and, um, they’ll hit on the career expo link, and, uh, they’ll see Georgia or Florida, whatever one they’re interested in. I would encourage them to come to the Georgia World Congress Center. But you click on that link and you just get a badge for free. Now, listen, if they don’t have time for that, they can just come down. We’ve got, uh, a lady that will take care of them. They register right there in hall. A, um, Miss Sandra mathis would be happy to take care of them. Um, so even if they don’t go to the website for the career expo, they can come to the Georgia World Congress Center and, um, and enjoy, uh, a walk through and interact with the, the professionals. Um, and if they want to conversate with us about programs, whether it’s, uh, starting a program or, uh, getting trained through the 20 day program, I mean, they can go again to construction org and then it’s forward slash get trained and if they fill out a few, a few little, uh, deals and get an email from us, and then we schedule a call with them. And if they want to personally just reach out to out to me. My email is Luke l u k e Fletcher f l e t c h e r at construction ready. Org. Be happy to talk to you.

Stone Payton: Well, Luke, it has been an absolute delight having you on the broadcast. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm. Keep up the good work, man. You are having a genuine, profound impact on so many and we sure appreciate you, man.

Luke Fletcher: Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed it too.

Stone Payton: My pleasure. All right, until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guest today, Luke Fletcher. With construction ready and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying we’ll see you in the fast lane.