Rensselaer County Chamber of Commerce and Questar workforce development

Thank you to the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce and Questar III for creating a platform that promotes career opportunities for students and young adults in construction and for allowing me to be a part of their Workforce Development initiative.

As a millennial, I was part of a culture that stigmatized skilled trade ocupations with the term "blue collar." College seemed to be that only path to success. In reality, I saw many of my peers graduate college with insurmountable amounts of debt, meager salaries, and careers that left them unsatisfied. From healthy salariesa nd benefit packages to career advancement opportunities, there are so many great opportunities for young adults in trades that we are ignoring.

With an aging workforce and limited supply of the next generation of mechanics, carpenters, electricians and so on, we face a major problem: Who is going to build the future America?

While we, as a society, may undervalue trades, the marketplace doesn't.

To the parents, educators, and mentors of our youth: let's change the stigma and promote careers in traditional industries to the students who want to use both their mental intellect and physical strength to build the future.