20 CORPORATE REPORT WISCONSIN DECEMBER 2011 www.crwmag.com

Filling the Job SkillS gapStory by lisa M. Schmelz / photography by Jennifer bronenkant

training For the tradeS

DECEMBER 2011 CORPORATE REPORT WISCONSIN 21

A recent high school graduate, Koldeway will soon enroll in an apprenticeship program with one of the state’s technical colleges for training needed to become an electrician. Unlike most high school graduates, his secondary education at Burlington High School prepared him for the job he got straight out of high school.

“It kind of gave me a jumpstart and was practical for what I wanted to do,” Koldeway says of Burlington’s Architecture, Construction and Engineering (ACE) program. “I wanted to go into the trades, and it helped me do that.”

Koldeway’s willingness to jump toward a career in the skilled trades is something the nation — and Wisconsin — need right now, say some employers. According to a recent Manpower survey of 1,300 U.S. employers, skilled trade workers are in short supply and one of the three most difficult job categories to fill.

But not everyone is certain a shortage actually exists. Ken Kraemer, director of the Construction Labor Management Council of Southeastern Wisconsin, is among the doubters.

“Manufacturing may be seeing a shortage … but I’m not seeing a shortage for the union construction skilled workers,” says Kraemer.

Numbers seem to support Kraemer’s assertion. Nationally, unemployment is higher in construction than any other field. In October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported an unemployment rate in the construction job category of 13.7 percent and just 7.7 percent in manufacturing.

What many do agree on, however, is that as baby boomers working in the trades near retirement in the coming decade, we may not be able to replace them with qualified workers. So what’s behind the alleged shortage of electricians, plumbers, machinists, masons and welders, just a handful of the jobs that fall under the skilled trades umbrella? Part of the problem, says Jorge Perez, a senior vice president with Manpower North America, is embedded in the way we’ve been educating our children.

As school districts improved their offerings for university-bound students starting in the 1970s, the classes for the skilled trade side of life were scaled back; in some communities, they were eliminated entirely. Given the

even in these dark economic times, 19-year-old andy koldeway is still following the light to a brighter future. but the light he’s walking toward isn’t found in the hallowed halls of higher education. koldeway is working for Schneider electric in burlington.

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limited support of trade education in public schools, Perez isn’t surprised employers are having a hard time finding workers.

“It’s not unique to the U.S.,” says Perez. “Less and less people are taking the opportunities to look at this field. We have to make sure we communicate the relevance of these types of professions to young people.”

training groundCommunicating the relevance Perez is talking about happens daily at Burlington High School in the ACE Academy, which is where Koldeway spent three years pre-paring for a career in the trades. The program is a trade-based learning lab that starts in a student’s sophomore year. Led by teachers like Casey Miller, the ACE Academy is not your father’s wood-shop class. Laser focused and high tech, nearly everything here is geared toward the workplaces where students will even-tually land.

“Instead of necessarily studying Shakespeare,” explains Miller, “you’re going to be reading an engineering journal or reading about trends in architecture or in the construction industry. You’ll write an essay about why you would use metal studs instead of wood studs, or why you’d use a poured foundation wall versus a concrete block wall. What they work on is related to things within the construc-tion and trade industries. Algebra and geometry are used in real-life construction situations. It’s a school within a school.”

The Walker administration would like to see what Burlington’s doing expanded throughout the state and hopes to push through a framework that would allow for a high school vocational diploma. At a fall Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce luncheon in Waukesha, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefish noted such cur-riculum would have to be approved by the Department of Public Instruction but has the full backing of the governor.

In the absence of sweeping legisla-tive changes that would provide for vocational high school diplomas, Laura Cataldo, Associated General Contractors of Wisconsin’s director of

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JULY 2011 CORPORATE REPORT WISCONSIN 13

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When Debbie Gale started the Milwaukee Cupcake Company

toward the end of 2008 she began it as a hobby — something that

she did “for fun.” Fast-forward three years and the company has blossomed

into a full-blown business, keeping Gale on her toes, amidst flour, sugar and butter

cream delights.

With a strong business background and a business degree in hand, Gale served in a corpo-

rate role for 17 years but eventually experienced the “burnout” syndrome many face and

wanted to try her hand at something new.

“I was a partner in an executive search firm for 17 years, and it was extremely lucrative,”

Gale says. “But I did not enjoy it, and toward the end, I hated it and felt empty. I also suf-

fered a terrible head injury in 2004 during a taekwondo class that I was lucky to survive,

and this really made me take pause to examine my life for the next four years after it hap-

pened. I slowly came to the conclusion that I did not want to waste any more time on this

earth doing something I hated. I loved baking, so I started to bake.”

The Milwaukee Cupcake Company was the brainchild of Gale and a couple of friends

who had teaching jobs. But when it came down to it, they were not ready to leave their

teaching jobs and invest in this full time, so Gale went it alone. “I have always enjoyed

baking, and have always dreamed of opening my own café and I had always visualized it

being a morning place or a place for great baked goods,” she says.

So why cupcakes? As frequent travelers, Gale and her husband noticed a common theme

throughout the U.S. cities they visited.

“I saw the cupcake trend emerging in cities all over the country and I started thinking that

Milwaukee could really use a cupcake shop,” Gale says. “We were so behind the other

cities. So I started this as a catering business, baking cupcakes for family and friends. I

don’t have formal baking training. I have a business degree from UW-La Crosse.

LAUNCHING MILWAUKEE CUPCAKE

COMPANY TOOK A HELPING OF DUE

DILIGENCE, A HEAP OF HARD WORK,

AND A DASH OF DRIVEBY MAURA KELLER | PHOTOS BY COREY HENGEN

SuccessSWEET TASTE OF

“I FELT I JUST HAD TO TRY.

YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE,

RIGHT? I WOULD HAVE

REGRETTED, FOREVER,

NOT TRYING.”Debbie Gale, owner,

Milwaukee Cupcake Company

JULY 2011 CORPORATE REPORT WISCONSIN 1

www.crwmag.com

Strategies for Profitable Business

www.crwmag.com

July 2011

MILWAUKEE CUPCAKE COMPANY’S SWEET TASTE

OF SUCCESS

WAYS TO TAILOR

EDUCATION

TO YOUR

WORKFORCE

SELF-FUNDED

HEALTH PLANS:

BOOM OR BUST?

4

DECEMBER 2011 CORPORATE REPORT WISCONSIN 23www.crwmag.com

workforce and industry outreach, con-tinues to promote the trades to young people. Cushioned by the downturn in new construction, the skilled trades shortage isn’t at its worst, she says, but could be in as little as five years.

“This is an industry, especially in the construction trades, where individuals retire earlier than other industries,” she says. “It’s more common to see a 65-year-old accountant than to see a 65-year-old cement mason. If we were going full-tilt, our industry would really be in a hard spot in terms of employment.”

Providing curriculum support to schools like Burlington High, Cataldo is encour-aged by the willingness of some districts to retool their industrial arts programs for the needs of the 21st century. Still, it’s an uphill climb for her to convince educators who think kids “just don’t want to take shop classes anymore.” Armed with all sorts of reports, she wins converts with hard data.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, eight out of 10 of the fastest-growing occupations through 2014 won’t require a bachelor’s degree. The Harvard Graduate School of Education reports that 27

percent of people with certifications or licensures below the level of an associ-ate’s degree earn more than the aver-age worker with a bachelor’s degree. Yet many schools remain more focused on college-bound students, even though only 28 percent of the state’s ninth graders will enter college.

“One of the fundamental ingredients we’re focusing on is that we think the educational process should focus on career preparation rather than college prepara-tion,” Cataldo says. “And it needs to happen throughout the state.”

got Skill? While there may be a flood of applicants for trade jobs, Jeff Rafn, president of the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, says most don’t get past the paper screen.

“The problem employers are having today, and frankly have been having for a while,” Rafn says, “is the skill level they need is higher than what people applying for the jobs are offering.”

When low-skill manufacturing positions moved overseas, Rafn explains, the jobs that remained required more advanced skills. But even with a record demand

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Students at Burlington High School learn to wire a service panel as part of their "Principles of Building Trades" course.

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for machinists, his campus still has open spots in machining classes that offer the software program training that get an entry-level machinist a pay boost from about $15 an hour to nearly $23.

Darren Darst is a branch manger with Staffing Partners’ skilled trades and engi-neering division. Right now, he’s having a hard time finding 30 machinists for a local client with a 24-hour plant.

“Compared to last year, it’s three times harder,” Darst says, adding that machin-ists are such a hot commodity that bid-ding wars are not uncommon.

Darst won’t provide the name of his client, but says the pay offered is between $18 and $22 an hour. But for every 100 resumes he gets, only three offer the skill-set his client needs.

“They’re trying to better themselves,” he says of the applicants, “but they just don’t have the experience.”

Lisa M. Schmelz is a freelance writer based in

Delavan.