Doug Ford wants to build a better workforce for the trades
Doug Ford wants to build a better workforce for the trades
Doug Ford and the Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition have a plan to get students interested in the trades.
| Donna Abbott-Vlahos, Albany Business Review
Doug Ford attended SUNY Oneonta thinking he’d become a high school math teacher, but his plans changed early on. Instead, he got an entry-level job at Grossman’s Lumber and rose up the ranks to manage six different stores.
He joined Curtis Lumber in Ballston Spa after Grossman’s closed in 1996 and never left the hardware business.
In recent years his focus has been trying to get more young people into the construction industry. The early results are encouraging.
Are you handy with tools? No, I don’t consider myself handy at all. I can do the basic stuff. The skills that I learned to be a teacher basically transferred to be a manager. I didn’t stay in this business because of the product. I stayed because of the people.
I turned 66 this year. I should be thinking about retiring. I’m trying to figure out how I can stay in the game and not retire.
How did the Northeast Construction Workforce Coalition get started in 2018? I sit on the Saratoga Builders Association board. At every board meeting we would talk about the fact they could build more if they only had the labor. We would do this month after month. Finally, I spoke up and said we need to do something or take it off the agenda. What that did was got me appointed to a task force. I partnered up with Pam [Stott, administrative assistant at Curtis Lumber].
What did you do? Pam and I met with every single school in Saratoga County and came away realizing as an industry we were doing nothing to help ourselves. The colleges were in there. The military was in there. Other businesses were. Our industry was not.
What happened next? We came away realizing we weren’t doing our job and started interacting with juniors and seniors. We quickly realized that’s short-sighted. Fast forward seven years. We now have a program for elementary school kids, middle school, high school and college students. It’s not the trades or college. You can get into the trades via college. It’s just one of the pathways.
What do you do with the elementary school-aged children? We do toolbox builds. They’re extremely popular. The important thing for us is that toolbox goes home. The kids are excited. They talk to their parents and that’s where that process starts to build. We talk about the tools, the science, the technology.
It depends on the age group. We connect it to what they’re learning in school. If you go into the trades, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to do math or science. It’s all part of a bigger picture.
It makes sense to get them interested when they’re young. Are there case studies showing this has worked elsewhere? Not that I’m aware of, but we are doing some tracking. We are seven years into this. We’re just getting to that point where we’re seeing evidence that what we’re doing is working. It’s not a once-and-done kind of thing. Another challenge we have is there’s less than 10% females in the trades. We did a summer camp for fifth-, sixth- and seventh-grade girls this past year. We had 21 girls. They loved it. On day one we put a power screwdriver in their hand and they were scared to death. By the fifth day they were using pneumatic nailers and loving it. It was a huge program and something we’re going to continue to build on.
You’re seeing results. I’ll give you an example. I got a phone call just before Christmas last year. The woman was beside herself. Her son had graduated from Saratoga High an athlete and top student and went to Clemson University.
On his way home at the end of his first semester he called his mom and said, “I absolutely do not want to do this. I never wanted to do it. You guys pushed me into it.” She asked if I could help him. He came in and presented himself well.
He was an Eagle Scout. He had done a project on the backstretch at Saratoga and that’s what really piqued his interest in working with his hands. I set him up with two days with a remodeler, two days with a new homebuilder, two days with a commercial builder, two days with the carpentry union. I said, “If you do this you’re going to come away knowing whether this is something you really want.” He did it. At the end he was offered a job by the commercial builder, Munter Enterprises. He’s still with them today.
Pam Stott retired from Curtis Lumber and became the coalition’s first executive director a couple of years ago. They allowed Pam and I to focus on this initiative. Jay [Curtis, president,] is very insightful. He realized if our customers can’t find labor they’re not going to build and we’re dependent on them being busy. It really boils down to the fact we exist because people are building and have projects.
Interview edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Doug Ford
Title: President, Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition; vice president of purchasing and public relations, Curtis Lumber
Age: 66
Grew up: Otego in Otsego County
Resides: Wilton
Family: Wife, Lisa; two children and three grandchildren
Northeast Construction Trades Workforce Coalition, Inc.
Year founded: 2018
Nonprofit formed: August 2023
Member organizations: 70-plus
Number of local school districts participating: Approximately 30
In-school programs: Toolbox assembly, dodecahedron build, builder presentations
Outside school programs: Construction site tours, career exploration at local businesses
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