Q&A: Charlie Goede, the 20-year-old plumbing apprentice who medaled at WorldSkills

Charlie Goede, a 20-year-old plumbing apprentice who last month earned a Medal for Excellence at the WorldSkills competition in China, chatted with Homepros on a call last week. 

The backdrop: Goede attended a technical high school in Connecticut and became an apprentice with UA Local 777. Nonprofit SkillsUSA chose him from among four finalists to represent the U.S. in the four-day plumbing and heating competition at WorldSkills, known as “the Olympics of the skilled trades.”

What’s happening: Goede trained full-time starting in July, getting faster, learning to work in metric measurements, and using tools and materials that are more common overseas. “A lot of bending, a lot of carriers, a lot of stuff that we really don’t deal with [in the U.S.],” said one of his coaches, Larry Shoemaker. 

• In Shanghai, as one of 32 competitors, he had to effectively build a commercial bathroom — and do a speed test involving a shower carrier (in which he finished second place). 
• On day four, “It was like a secret up until that day — they brought in a heat pump water heater, and they didn’t give us any blueprints for it,” Goede recalled. “They just said, ‘This is where you connect it to, and do it in eight bends or less.’ I think I did that in six bends.” 

What they’re saying: Overall, Goede scored 704 points and placed 15th, earning a Medal for Excellence, which is awarded to contestants who score over 700 and “have shown they can achieve world-class standards.”

• “That was the highest U.S. score ever,” said Vinnie Valente, Local 777’s training coordinator, who also coached Goede.

The big picture: Goede is at the forefront of a nationwide push to get more young people into the trades. 

Go deeper: Goede said that in the field, he definitely sees more workers nearing retirement age than around his own age. “On some jobs, you’ll see, it’ll be all the older generation, so from late 40s to early 60s, and then it goes right to 18- to 25-year-old apprentices.” 

• He added that some young people think they want to enter the trades — until they get on the job. “And that’s when they figure out that it’s not for them,” Goede said. “Once the realization sets in that it’s not that easy, that’s when they start to fall off.” 

Between the lines: Recent initiatives have promoted the skilled trades to students as good-paying careers, but “you have to educate them on both,” Goede said. 

• “You can’t just go out there saying that you’ll make a lot of money. You’ve also got to say, ‘Yeah, you’ll make a lot of money — but it’s tough, strenuous work, and you’ll work all hours of the day,’” he added.  
• “There’s a lot of variables that go into it, and I feel like they need to start talking about that more than just the money.” 

Yes, but: “Those who want it are doing great for themselves.” 

State of play: Since his return from China, Goede has been working 12-hour shifts at a nuclear power station. 

• Valente said Goede works on a crew where he uses the tube-bending skills he honed for the competition. His preparation included a tube-bending certification at the UA’s Great Lakes Training Center. “He’s used that now. He’s making money with it.” 

Looking ahead: “It’s hard to say what the job’s going to look like 10 years from now,” Goede said. “I definitely know that I’m not scared of losing my job to a robot, and nobody else that I work with, they’re not scared either, because for one robot to do the various different tasks that we do —  I feel like it’s almost unreachable. Unachievable is a better way to put it.”  

• “But I definitely see that robots are going to help us out in the next 10 years,” he added. “We’re already starting to see it now. I think if anything, it’ll make us more efficient as a trade — to do installs and stuff like that.” 

Of note: Shoemaker, a PHCC Educational Foundation board member, said that after the association’s Connect conference in Milwaukee this week, “we’ll probably start looking for the next contestant for WorldSkills in Japan [in] 2028.”