Industry Voices: Explore The Trades’ Kate Cinnamo

📸 Snapshots

“People (educators, parents, and the general public) are starting to catch on to the rising costs of college. And they’re considering things like, ‘Will this job still be available four years from now when I graduate?’”

“Business and education are competing for the same dollars, so I think a lot about how we can get the two to work together more efficiently to benefit everybody.”

Kate Cinnamo

Intro

Kate Cinnamo is the Executive Director of Explore The Trades. We sat down to discuss the technical talent gap in the trades and how it’s being addressed.

Below is a summary of our conversation, edited for clarity:

How did you find yourself in your role? 

I was born and raised in Iowa and graduated from Luther College, a private, four-year liberal arts college. My first job was as an admissions counselor at Luther, and then I moved to the senior housing and healthcare industry where I worked for over 10 years. While I’m working in the trades now, the parallels between the industries are similar regarding the labor shortage. The senior housing and healthcare industry was concerned about the labor shortage over 10 years ago and it’s now a constant conversation in the trades.

My jump to a different industry happened at work one day in 2017. I thought, “You know what? I should try something new.” I went on LinkedIn and found the job posting for Explore The Trades. That’s it. I had no knowledge or connection to the industry. I went into it cold.

What does Explore The Trades do?

Our mission is to bridge the technical talent gap in the HVAC, Plumbing, and Electrical industries. We have the benefit of being the conduit between education and industry.

Our two customers are schools and contractors. So, we connect schools to contractors because it’s a great way for contractors to build their talent pipeline, and for schools, it’s a way to offer something else beyond the traditional path of sending students to a four-year university.

We found our niche in promoting the PHCE trades to students in grades K-12 — those who haven’t graduated yet. Explore The Trades connects with students, their parents, and educators to enhance their knowledge of the trades and hopefully, connect them with residential contractors as a next step.

What are the biggest challenges you face?

On the school side, school counselors and teachers will tell us, “We don’t know about the skilled trades, so we don’t talk about them here.” There’s an information gap. However, there has been a notable shift in attitude since I started at Explore The Trades almost seven years ago. People (educators, parents, and the general public) are starting to catch on to the rising costs of college. And they’re considering things like, “Will this job still be available four years from now when I graduate?”

At times, on the industry side, folks are also not taking action. For some, it’s a shift in recruiting, and strategies have changed immensely over the past few years. Some businesses are still waiting for a technician unicorn to show up, and for them, it’s the realization that you have to build your own talent because experienced employees are few and far between.

How do you think about addressing those?

We think about how we can position the trades (HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical) to compete with traditional schooling and other trades, too. This includes keeping track of CTE funding programs, how these might work at a school level, and potentially, how a local contractor can become a part of a trades program in their local school. We have all this information out to schools, so the next part is communicating to contractors that there are resources available with local schools and helping them understand what’s in it for them.

We have a partnership with Ferguson to build skills labs in high schools. It’s our third year of the program, and so far we’ve equipped 14 schools across the country with plumbing and HVAC equipment with 1,100 students learning on it. Last year was our first middle school recipient, West Lincoln Middle School in North Carolina.

One of our first Skills Lab recipients is in Lubbock, TX — Byron Martin Advanced Technology Center. The school district refurbished an old Kmart building to be a career and technical school with many career paths represented, including plumbing, culinary, auto body, health sciences, and everything in between. Companies have sponsored sections within the school, and it’s a great way for education and business to intersect. I wish every district could do that.

What other thoughts do you have about all of this?

Before I started, I definitely didn’t think about these industries the way I do now. I think people, especially parents, are saying, “Look at all this other training out there.” I mean, who knows if there will be a return on college investment? Many colleges are struggling with declining enrollment and the trades are competing against them for people. I imagine 10-15 years from now, some colleges may not be around.

Business and education are competing for the same dollars, so I think a lot about how we can get the two to work together more efficiently to benefit everybody.

If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be?

I don’t have a specific person, but I’d love to talk to the pioneers who explored the West. What was it like when they came across the challenges that they did? We all live in comfort and will never experience the same challenges. They had grit and resilience and I’d just love to know their story.