'His future is our future': Trades businesses welcome 74 Henrico graduating seniors to the workforce
On Wednesday, Henrico Schools honored 74 soon-to-be graduates of the division’s Advanced Career Education programs who will be taking on trades jobs immediately after graduation.
The annual signing day event, which HCPS has put on since 2018, brings students’ families, workforce recruiters, and school instructors together to celebrate the milestone of securing a first industry job.
As students and their employers signed their commemorative contracts, HCPS officials highlighted some of the major benefits the graduates would receive by joining the trades industry – full trades school tuition reimbursement, matching 401k savings plans, competitive pay, employee bonuses, paid time-off, and health and dental insurance.
“If you know what you’re doing, you can get paid a lot,” said Highland Springs High ACE Center senior Bryten Mullins, who will be joining Metro Electric. “It’s just a good career to go into, it’s not just ‘a job.’”
Trades businesses are also eager to invest in younger workers, employers said, especially those who already have some training coming out of high school.
“The younger generation, specifically this young man, is the foundation of our business,” said one Tolley Electric employer about HCPS graduate Orion Ignacio. “His future is our future. So investing in him and bringing him on is one of the keys to our success.”
The trades have become an aging industry; for every five workers who retire from skilled trades industries such as manufacturing and construction, only two new workers will replace them. But the numbers have started improving because counties like Henrico have made more investments into high school career education programs over the last 10 years, said Metro Electric project manager Ben Matthews.
“Our aging out is outpacing our new hires across the whole trade, so getting younger guys is so important,” he said. “We have seen a turn. I feel like 10 years ago, it was way harder to get newer guys than it is now. I think people are realizing that college isn’t the answer for everybody.”
HCPS graduating seniors Bryten Mullins (left) and Tre Worthington (right) sign their new job contracts for Metro Electric. (Liana Hardy/Henrico Citizen)
HCPS has renovated all three ACE Center locations to expand the number of student seats after seeing an outpouring of student interest. The electrical program at Highland Springs ACE Center is one of the most popular, with 60 students joining the class next year and 20 students on the waitlist, said instructor Willie Cline.
“Any trade right now is popular, but electrical is really popular right now,” he said. “The industry is just so vast that you can go into different facets like low voltage, high voltage, and sprinkler and fire systems. People that come into our trade have different avenues – residential, commercial industrial – so you can go do different things.”
Local trades businesses love to work with students at Henrico’s ACE Centers, said Matthews, because they already are “ahead of the curve” when it comes to necessary skills and work ethic.
“On day one, these guys already have a feel for what’s going on,” he said. “It’s less training on our end because they have that background knowledge already, so they’re more productive more quickly, and also just kind of fit in with everyone else.”
Camden Pritchett, a senior from the electrical program, realized that the trades were for him when he was in eighth grade and attended a classroom demo at the Hermitage High ACE Center. The electrical program was a much more engaging and hands-on pathway for him than the traditional high school-to-college pipeline.
“For me, it feels like whenever I’m in a class like English or History, I’m learning the same thing every day. In electrical, every week you have a different topic,” Pritchett said. “It’s a lot of new learning every day because it covers so many different subjects.”
Some students are fully ready to dive into the workforce upon graduation, said HCPS senior and River City Industrial new hire Dylan Myers, and many trades businesses will fully sponsor employees’ tuition for trades school, allowing them to learn and be paid at the same time.
“It’s just completely different than sitting down all day, you’re really learning and working,” said Myers. “And the good thing is I don’t have to pay to learn when I go to trade school. I’ll be getting paid while I go.”
Liana Hardy is the Citizen’s government and education reporter. Support her work and articles like this one by making a contribution to the Citizen.
