Providing opportunities through apprenticeships in Wisconsin

Heather Graves

Staff

December 30, 2024

OSHKOSH – It’s no secret that, like many other states, Wisconsin is in the midst of a labor shortage, which according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is being driven by many factors, including an aging demographic, low migration rates, skill gaps and job polarization.

The team at Shea Electric & Communications, LLC is doing what it can to help be part of the solution by starting the recruitment process early through youth apprenticeships (YA).

‘The right people’

Dan Shea – co-founder, COO and manager of company culture – said Shea Electric started reaching out to area high schools about youth apprenticeships in 2010.

“In all honesty, it did not take off,” he said.

Though there was definitely a need for skilled tradespeople then, Dan said the issue was, “I wasn’t talking to the right people.”

“I was talking to guidance counselors,” he said.

Back then, Dan said guidance counselors focused more on getting students on a college track, “which is great for young people who want to go to college and need to go to college for their desired profession” – but it’s not the path for everyone.

Dan said it took about four years to start making traction in schools, which gained momentum following a conversation he had with an Oshkosh West tech ed teacher at a cocktail party.

“He invited me into his classroom (to talk with students about the trades), and it took off from there,” he said. “So talking to the right people was what got the apprenticeship program at Shea Electric off the ground.”

Since then, Dan said he and/or Shea Electric team members visit schools throughout the region each year to talk about the trades and what a career path in them could look like, as well as youth apprenticeship opportunities.

“We’re getting involved because we need people, and we need students to understand trades are a great career path,” he said. “For the longest time, people thought trades were second-class citizens. Nobody came out and said it, but if you didn’t go to college and instead entered the trades, there was a stigma attached.”

When he visits high schools each school year to talk with students about a future in the trades, Dan said he tells them “you have to start with the end in mind.”

“I ask them, ‘What do you want to be? Where do you want to end up? And then, how do we create that career path?’” he said. “In my opinion, it starts with youth apprenticeship.”
According to Dan, apprenticeship programs not only offer opportunities to students but provide a variety of benefits for employers as well, including:

• The chance to develop a recruitment pipeline and train employees to their standards.  “We’re able to teach a young person all the right habits,” Dan said. “Safety is paramount in our company.”
• An opportunity to work with highly motivated students and develop partnerships with area school districts. “Fond du Lac School District created an ACE Academy – which stands for architecture, construction and engineering,” he said. “The program is just beautiful, and it’s great to see people get excited about being in the trades.”
• Reduce employee recruitment and retraining costs by hiring youth apprenticeship graduates. “Shea Electric doesn’t want people that want jobs,” Dan said. “We want people to want careers.”
• Have a “long interview” – YAs provide an up-close-and-personal assessment of students’ potential for long-term employment.

Apprentices at Shea Electric, Dan said, start with safety.

“It takes four or five hours to get through our safety training,” he said. “We go through our ‘intolerables’ – things that would get you fired – the main one being not treating safety and the well-being of people as your top priority.”

As a youth apprentice, Dan said students aren’t “sweeping floors,” rather, they’re full participants on job sites.

“We have students engaged – working alongside a journeyman on job sites,” he said. “The only thing they’re not doing until they become a journeyman is working on anything live and energized. They are putting in receptacles, roughing in walls – literally everything a journeyman does, again, except for anything energized, apprentices are doing.”

Dan said he often talks with students about the sustainability of a career as an electrician.

“I tell them, ‘You can’t export our jobs,’” he said. “You need people to be able to put in receptacles and lights, put in data openings and all the full breadth of scope that we do at Shea Electric.”

As electricians, Dan said, students have an opportunity to “chase technology.”

“We are an evolving trade as technology changes – DAS, EV charging, Wi-Fi, 5G, and I can keep going,” he said.

Dan said the discussion with students also includes the financial stability aspects of a job in the trades.

Specializing in a particular skilled trade, he said, can lead to higher pay due to the high expertise and experience required to perform the jobs effectively.

“I get really jacked up and excited about it, because when you see that light bulb go on for a student, there’s not a better feeling in the world,” he said.

Sparking interest, success

During the 2014-15 school year, Dan said he met a young man by the name of Andrew Borgardt.

“Andrew was president of FFA at Oshkosh West (High School),” he said. “He grew up on a family farm in Pickett, Wisconsin, and at the time he wanted to be an auto mechanic.”

Encouraged to meet with Borgardt by a tech ed teacher at Oshkosh West, Dan said he invited him to Shea’s Oshkosh office.

“I said, ‘Andrew, tell me why you want to be an auto mechanic,’” Dan said. “Andrew said, ‘Because I love wrenching on things. I love working on my Camaro. I love racing.’”

During the conversation, Dan said he asked Borgardt to close his eyes and picture himself at 51 years old.

“I said to him, ‘You love working on cars, but when you are doing it every day as a job’ – and don’t get me wrong we need great auto mechanics – ‘but when you go home at night are you going to want to work on your car for fun?’” he said.

Dan said he then asked Borgardt to imagine a future working as an electrician or in another trade where he could build a solid career, make decent money and continue to work on cars as a hobby.

“He said, ‘Wow, I’ve never thought of it that way before,’” Dan said.

Dan said that was all it took to encourage Borgardt to explore the possibilities.

“He signed up for a youth apprenticeship with us through Oshkosh West right away,” he said.

Following his graduation from high school, Dan said Borgardt was awarded an electrical apprenticeship and began formal training at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College from 2015-19.

In May 2019, Borgardt passed the state electrical exam and officially graduated from the apprenticeship a month later.

Since then, Dan said Borgardt has taken on increasing levels of responsibility at Shea Electric, working his way up to the role of foreman and now, project manager.

“He’s going on 29 years old – that’s unbelievable,” he said. “He loves what he does, and it shows.”

And, Dan said, it doesn’t stop with Borgardt – “we’ve had five successful apprentices” since things took off in 2014-15.

For Shea Electric’s apprenticeship program to be successful, Dan said it launched a codified mentorship program that coincides with it.

From their very first day, Dan said apprentices are paired up with a higher-ranked mentor.

“We had a new apprentice start with us recently,” he said. “From day one, he was paired up with a second-year apprentice whose job it is to check in with him regularly. When you are new to a job, you are new to the company. We have our own ways, and a lot of people are afraid to ask a stupid question.”

Shea Electric’s mentorship program, Dan said, gives apprentices a peer they can go to for questions and concerns.

“It’s the mentor’s job to help make their mentee’s time at Shea successful – and they do that for one year,” he said. “You know who came up with the idea for the mentorship program? Andrew Borgardt.” 

Each time a mentor works with a new mentee, Dan said Shea Electric looks at the mentorship program overall to see where things could be improved for the next round.

“We call that PPR – post-project review,” he said. “So, after it gets done, we talk about what went right, what went well and what we can change to make it better.”

Charged for the future

After students complete the youth apprenticeship program at Shea Electric, Dan said they can apply for the adult apprenticeship program where they further their knowledge base through schooling.

“Our apprentices get paid to go to school – they have to pay for the schooling, but we pay them to go,” he said.

If students receive A’s in their classes, Dan said Shea Electric reimburses their tuition 100%.

“If you get B’s, we will reimburse you 50%,” he said.

At Shea Electric, Dan said the apprenticeship program is not just about training skilled journeymen, “it’s about training good people that have an entrepreneurial spirit, that have a sense of the future.”

“We use this phrase at Shea Electric – ‘every day, train your replacement,’” he said. “We’re constantly training our replacement. I’m training my right-hand guy, Chris Hopf, to be my replacement. He is going to train Andrew to be his replacement. And when he was foreman, Andrew trained his replacement to take his position when he became project manager.”