Ian Gadson took the traditional path for a high school graduate to succeed in today's economy: He enrolled in college.
But the traditional path to success just wasn't working out for the Peabody High School graduate. "I went two years to Penn State, taking prerequisites for engineering," said Gadson, now 30. "But I wanted to make money."
Gadson quit college and was working for the U.S. Postal Service when he began noticing numerous brochures that would eventually change his career path.
"I kept coming across information about union jobs," Gadson said. "I got my hands on a pamphlet and called every phone number on it. I put in my name and interviewed with the asbestos workers, the laborers. Then I interviewed with the heavy and highway carpenters and they really wanted me."
Gadson in 2003 entered the carpenter's four-year apprenticeship program, which combines classroom with paid, on-the-job training. Now a member of Local 2274 of the Heavy Highway and Railroad Carpenters Union, the East Hills resident began working in November on the Port Authority of Allegheny County's North Shore Connector project, as a concrete form-work carpenter employed by North Shore Constructors.
"The apprenticeship program is the best thing that's ever happened to me," Gadson said.
For many U.S. businesses, skilled tradesmen like Gadson are an extremely rare commodity. A 2007 survey of 94 senior manufacturing executives found that the ongoing skilled-labor shortage will cost manufacturers alone on average $50 million each -- $4.7 billion total.
A survey by Raleigh, N.C.-based construction industry consulting firm FMI Corp. estimated that this year there were 6 million more heavy/highway construction jobs than employees in the industry, with the number of vacant positions projected to exceed 10 million by 2012.
"The work force question is a chronic problem," said David Taylor, executive director of the trade group Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association. "I've heard horror stories from members not being able to find applicants who can pass a drug test and who will show up on time."
A big problem in finding enough skilled tradesmen is the stigma attached to a "blue collar" job, experts said. "A lot boils down to Mom and Dad not wanting junior to take a job in manufacturing," said Lee Taddonio, president of SMC Business Councils, the small business trade group representing some 5,000 small businesses primarily in Western Pennsylvania. "We've done TV and radio advertising, held job fairs, trying to get people."
Rich Barcaskey, executive director of the Constructors Association of Western Pennsylvania, said his organization sponsors four apprenticeship programs, for carpenters, laborers, heavy equipment operators and cement masons. Between 100 and 200 new apprentices enter the program annually.
"In our apprenticeship programs, the average age is in the 30s," Barcaskey said. "We're seeing more people looking at a skilled-trade career due to the high cost of college, with a lot of people coming after finishing a year or two of college."
The Greater Pennsylvania Regional Council of Carpenters has outgrown its existing Neville Island training center, and last Friday broke ground for a new, $13 million center adjacent to the council's Collier headquarters.
"We've outgrown what was the old Neville School, which we've occupied since 1992," said Ray Vogel, joint apprenticeship training director. "Right now, we have 1,100 apprentices in the program, and we do have women apprentices."
Gadson admits he's an unpaid cheerleader for the heavy highway apprenticeship he believes was the best career path for him. "I've help four of my friends get into the carpenters' union," he said. "I'm proud of what I do."
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