Recruiting future employees

Marco Rubio made this comment during the republican debate: "For the life of me I don’t know why we have stigmatized vocational education.” His statement really hit home. The average age of the professional trades person is 55 and many have already retired. Thousands of jobs with great pay and benefits await those who choose a career in the skilled trades.

A year ago, Junior Achievement (JA) asked me if I would be willing to participate in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) Summit as a career panelist. During the JA STEM Summit, 9^th grade students rotate through 45-minute exercises that include scientific experiments, assembly of technology devices, engineering applications and mathematical applications. There are typically six career panelists divided into two classrooms. Each of the three career panelists has just eight minutes to talk about their educational background, describe their jobs, provide a pay-range that can be expected, and detail how STEM applies to their jobs.

Thinking back to 9^th grade, I recalled taking an aptitude test to find out what career we were suited to pursue in life. I don’t remember the result, but I’m absolutely certain the test did not point to the skilled trades! I also clearly recall thinking math was a PITA and could not imagine how that would be something useful in my future life.

Last week, I participated in my second JA STEM Summit at Central York High School, my alma mater. We had a blast!

Barb, a laboratory technician at York Hospital, turned out to be a fellow alum from Central and was one year behind me. She engaged a student volunteer to don a hospital gown and read the symptoms they had from a paper. Then she led the class through the process she utilized for testing blood and urine. At the end, Barb described the required education and the fact that they have five jobs they cannot fill due to a lack of individuals with the proper education applying for the open positions.

Next up was Tom, an electrical engineer with a local utility company. He brought a pair of lineman Class-2 arm protectors and gloves. A student volunteer would don the gear and Tom would describe how they are 45-feet up in a bucket at 3:00 a.m. to repair a pole that was struck by a vehicle. It’s windy and raining. Then he handed them a pole-bolt, a washer they needed to put over the bolt, and then a nut to run onto the threaded bolt, which brought laughter while the volunteer struggled to do that seemingly simple task while wearing the cumbersome gear. Tom explained that they have job openings waiting to be filled.

My turn! After my brief background reveal, which included my challenges in dealing with dyslexia, and that (for me) STEM really needs an extra “E” for English due to my work for Contractor magazine, I utilized props to take the students through a real-world exercise of STEM from a job in 2009.

Read-world exercise  

I had been asked to investigate why a brand new set of public restrooms in a public park were not operating properly. At the meeting there were to be: the park representative; a water company official; the architect; mechanical engineer; and installer.

Finished up by talking to them about the thousands of available jobs that are not being filled in the skilled trades and because everyone needs a place to go, to be warm in winter, and cool in summer, that we have rock-solid job security.

In the mechanical room between the bathrooms, there was a 2-in. incoming water line with a double-check backflow preventer and a pilot-operated dual booster-pump station. A volunteer hit one of the toilet flush-valve handles, the booster pump immediately started up and just as quickly locked out on safety.

Its pressure gauge had indicated 20-PSI static and had jumped to near zero upon start-up. “Looks like a low incoming water pressure issue.” To which almost everyone present said it could not be “because we have 70-PSI incoming water pressure.” So there! The booster pump’s literature stated they would lock out on safety if incoming water pressure dropped to 15-PSI to prevent cavitation-damage to the impellers. I installed a second pressure gauge on the inlet side of the backflow, which read 21-PSI. They told me my gauge was obviously wrong.

Driving out of the park, I spied a water tank back in the woods. The park was gravity-fed! I had a picture of the water tank and walked them through several ways you can determine how tall it is and where the water storage level would be, which was 48.5-feet. For every 2.31-feet of elevation, a column of water will produce 1-PSI and how that worked out to 21-PSI.

Next we needed to determine peak-demand-flow for the parks restrooms and choose a suitable booster pump. An enlarged flow chart for the Grundfos EZ Boost in-line variable speed pumps with how we utilize head losses and maximum flow required to properly select the right pump.

And then details about finding the volume of that one-mile-long six inch water line after the booster pump, converting it from cubic inches to gallons, to weight, and how we needed to calculate how to safely absorb the kinetic energy of 64,778.70-lbs of water on-the-move, so that we wouldn’t create a damaging shock-wave. Talked about Boyle’s Law and how we sized the expansion tank at the far end to accommodate a safe stop.

Touched upon heat loss/gain calculations and sizing water, vent and sewage lines using STEM. Finished up by talking to them about the thousands of available jobs that are not being filled in the skilled trades and because everyone needs a place to go, to be warm in winter, and cool in summer, that we have rock-solid job security.

The students were, for the most part, engaged and asked lots of questions. Hopefully we opened their eyes a wee bit wider regarding the diversity of careers available.

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