Supporting Skilled Trades in Michigan

Skilled trades keep Michigan running. Learn how LARA supports these careers through licensing, public safety, and the MI Trades Partnership, and why now is the time to join the trades.

Transcript

Anastasha Osborn 0:16

Hello, fellow listeners. Thank you so much for joining me again on the LARA Living Room podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about everything skilled trades related. So, shout out to all of our electricians and plumbers. Joining me today is Andrew Brisbo, who is the director of the Bureau of Construction Codes, or BCC, and he's going to talk to us about how Lara supports these careers, what falls under the skilled trades and the important work happening behind the scenes to make sure these professionals are trained, licensed, and ready to serve Michigan. So before we bring Andrew on, go ahead and fill up your coffee or your drink of choice, grab a seat and get comfortable because you are now in the Lara living room. Andrew, welcome.

Andrew Brisbo 0:52

Thanks. It's great to be back.

Anastasha Osborn 0:53

Yes, thank you for coming back.

Andrew Brisbo 0:55

I'm a big, big podcast fan. I learned something, even though I've been with Lara for a long time. Every time I listen to the podcast, I learn something new.

Anastasha Osborn 1:02

Yeah, no, it's incredible. And I I feel like everyone has the same sentiment, so that's good to hear. So thank you. Um so before we get into talking about the skilled trades today, I feel like that meaning could have a lot of different meanings to different people. So can you explain what the skilled trades really are and what are some of the trades that your bureau specifically works with?

Andrew Brisbo 1:20

Sure. So when I think skilled trades, I think most people probably think of electricians and plumbers. We think of it a little more broadly than that. Uh so we administer a couple different acts and we have residential builders, uh, mechanical contractors, electricians, plumbers, we do ski areas uh and amusement rides, uh, elevators and boilers. So we kind of think of those all globally. So these are professions that people go into that that are not uh don't require sort of college education, but more hands-on training to be qualified, and we lump those all together and think of those as skilled trades.

Anastasha Osborn 1:51

Okay. And so then where does your team fit into all of that?

Andrew Brisbo 1:54

So we do all the licensing and regulation of skill trades in Michigan. So we issue the licenses to everyone, we conduct investigations if there are complaints about the uh uh the activity of any licensees, and then we are establishing statewide standards for many of these programs as well. So we're establishing the codes, uh, many of which are administered at the local level, particularly when you talk about building trades like uh building mechanical, electrical, and plumbing. But we are establishing those through the administrative rulemaking process, so there are statewide standards for how professionals engage what uh code compliance looks like. We're doing all of that at the state level.

Anastasha Osborn 2:28

Okay, and then your team, are you guys broken up into sections per these different trades?

Andrew Brisbo 2:33

So our licensing is is all centralized. Okay. So all the license applications run through one group. Um there's an investigation team, they conduct all the investigations. But when it comes to code compliance, then then it's all split up. So we actually hire individuals with backgrounds in the trades. Uh they have to come to us with experience in their specific trade. And those program areas are all separated out. So we have, you know, our guys with elevator experience are just doing elevator inspections, mechanical uh experiences are doing mechanical inspections.

Anastasha Osborn 3:05

Okay. So it sounds like there's kind of two different prongs, right? So you are also licensing and regulating the people who are already in the skilled trades, but then you're also having a pathway for individuals who after maybe they've serviced, you know, in that industry for a certain amount of time, they can then come work for the state on the investigation side.

Andrew Brisbo 3:22

Correct. And and to be an inspector, you have to have that experience in the field. There's really no alternative for that. You have to have done the trade yourself, you have to have been hands-on to understand how to apply the code. Uh so yeah, ever everyone who works on our inspections teams has experience within their specific trade.

Anastasha Osborn 3:38

Okay, wonderful. So let's talk about when someone wants to enter a skilled trade specifically. What does that process look like from your perspective? Um, and I'm sure that differs from profession to profession, but generally.

Andrew Brisbo 3:50

And a lot of the trades have apprenticeship pathways that are predefined. So you're gaining hands-on experience working with someone uh who already has that experience in order to gain proficiency within that trade. So we will register the apprentices, uh, make sure they're gaining the necessary experience, and then they can apply through a journey or master pathway, eventually getting to that contractor phase where they can run their own business and actually work uh to gain contracts for that specific trade. But it's all defined by the statutes. A lot of our rules lay out uh what types of qualifying experience are there, and we're always looking to ensure you know the the competence of individuals who are engaged in these trades for the sake of public protection, but balancing that with trying to reduce barriers and allow pathways in. And that that's a lot of the discussion. You know, there's uh every governor I've ever worked for has talked about focusing on uh alternative pathways to careers, focusing on apprenticeship, um, you know, focusing on reducing those barriers and getting more people involved in the trades. It's not just about going to college, like you and I probably heard all growing up, you have to go to college. No. Uh these these hands-on professions, there's a lot of experience that's necessary, but it can be very lucrative careers. Yeah. These are the kind of careers that are not going to be replaced by AI.

Anastasha Osborn 5:01

Right.

Andrew Brisbo 5:02

So we're really trying to encourage individuals to focus on those pathways, and we're trying to communicate with our stakeholders to ensure that individuals who get in are qualified, but looking at how we can refine those standards so that more individuals can get into the trades.

Anastasha Osborn 5:16

Yeah. Um you kind of led me into my next question, which was um going to be about the My Trades partnership. So can you tell our listeners a little bit about what that means? Because I feel like it kind of ties into what you just said and how that whole thing got started.

Andrew Brisbo 5:31

Well, it it started before I got here, so I can't take credit. I'll give my boss credit. I think Courtney Pendleton was kind of the uh the the uh brain behind setting this all up. But it was really based on state agencies that need individuals in hard-to-find career pathways to fill our needs as an employer. Uh, and this is beyond skilled trades, but we hire, like I said, inspectors within BCC. Uh other state agencies have electricians and plumbers that actually work for them in MDOC and MDOT and other departments. And then there are other hard-to-fill positions around the state. So it was agencies collaborating on trying to fill those needs. So it started off, and my first initiation with the group was completely selfish. Uh we need inspectors, we need to find qualified people. And so we would engage in conversations about how to look at the job specifications, how do we recruit more people to work for the state? And what we came to realize is we are at the end of that career timeline for a lot of individuals. So we need to focus on promoting the pipeline of these skilled trade pathways. So we're really working as far upstream as possible. We keep working farther upstream. So we actually just started doing a job shadowing program for uh young people in high school programs so that they can learn about what the government side of these industries looks like, what inspectors do, uh, and exposing them beyond sort of the program they're in where they they may be studying electrical or carpentry and showing them what it looks like to work in an elevator shaft or what it's like to construct a boiler. So that group has really evolved beyond looking specifically at filling hard-to-fill positions at the state level and focusing more on how we can support the development of skill trades around the state overall.

Anastasha Osborn 7:06

Mm-hmm. And I feel like there's also a big component of education that you kind of touched on too, where there's a lot of going out and educating, you know, and not not just people who are in the skilled trades, but also, like you mentioned, schools. I know there's been um presentations that you guys have hosted where you want to educate even the what are they called, like the advisors at school to let them know that this is also an opportunity that they can then tell, you know, the students that they're working with that this is an opportunity they can go to if college isn't an option for them.

Andrew Brisbo 7:36

Awareness of these opportunities is is key. Yeah. And and like I said, these are jobs that that are always there. Um they're not going to go away. People will always need plumbers and electricians and elevators to be constructed, that's always going to be there. So these are reliable career paths for uh young people or or people who aren't so young who want to make a pivot into something that that they'll always be there. So you're right. I think and for from an employer standpoint, raising awareness that if you have the experience, hey, this is a great job at the tail end of things. If you know uh I'm old, my knees hurt all the time, maybe yours do too. And you'd like to come work a job for the state where you it's not quite so labor intensive. So um a lot of a lot of our inspectors, this is sort of a second career for them. They've done their time in the trade, they run their own businesses, they've worked in these union jobs maybe. Now they want to come work for the state, and it's it's a great employment opportunity at the end of things.

Anastasha Osborn 8:31

Yeah. No, and I think what's really exciting is hearing that you guys get to work with other State Departments too to collaborate together. So kind of tell me a little bit about what that looks like when you guys are all working together, and what are you hoping to bring out of that whole you know, collaboration with the other State Departments? P

Andrew Brisbo 8:49

State Departments often work in their own bubbles. Uh you know, we're we're focused on our own issues and a lot of times our areas don't have a ton of overlap. But this this is an area where we have seen a lot of overlap. And we when we even if we talk about different types of career pathways or positions that were hard to fill, the the uh components that made them challenging to fill were very similar. So we were able collectively to focus on some of those issues, bring in our partners at say civil service and the Office of the State Employer to say, how can we work together to figure out how we update the state standards uh for filling some of these positions? So that's really been exciting. But having those partners at civil service and the Office of the State Employer at the table to help us understand their perspective has been really helpful to lay out the framework for that.

Anastasha Osborn 9:33

Yeah. Um I kind of want to go back a little bit to you mentioned safety, and I want to talk a little bit about public safety and and how that ties in with the skilled trades. So how does your work that you're doing right now show up in the lives of Michiganders through the skilled trades?

Andrew Brisbo 9:50

Sure. So you know the Lara tagline is protect people, promote business. So the first half of that is how you protect people. So I mentioned earlier that we establish a lot of these statewide codes. So these are the baseline safety requirements for construction projects and installations of certain equipment and devices. So we make sure with our work in the field that these things are done up to standards, up to code. And so that's going to be reflected every day. Uh if you're a citizen in Michigan and you go to your local carnival, those devices are all inspected by our inspectors. Okay. Um every installation that's done uh in a residential or commercial setting for HVAC equipment or electrical wiring is all done to the standards the state sets. And even if the enforcement is done at the local level, which as I mentioned, a lot of it's done at the local level, we are the ones setting those codes to determine what compliance looks like. And we also regulate the inspectors who are working at the local level. So it all kind of ties back to what we do here at BCC.

Anastasha Osborn 10:46

Yeah. And what I kind of want to talk about when we went to a school here in the Lansing area, we got to walk through kind of the framework before they kind of had everything in there, which was really cool to see very hands-on what they're doing, what they're inspecting, what they're looking at. Um how often do you get to go out with your team to be able to experience that and kind of see those things hands-on?

Andrew Brisbo 11:10

Well, not often enough. You know, uh my job, I am uh a bureaucrat through and through. So I sit through a lot of meetings, but it's much more exciting when I get to be out in the field and seeing what's actually happening out there. But schools are a great example because we have jurisdiction over most school construction projects in the state. And school construction has been booming since my time in BCC, with tons of permits and plans being submitted uh all the time. Uh and schools are complex structures. So they are uh all the codes are hitting there. There a lot of them have boilers, they certainly have elevators, and building electro-mechanical plumbing are all going to play in there. So it's great to see what's being done there. And the technical expertise of the people we have on staff is really impressive. Um I've worked in state government a long time. I couldn't build you a birdhouse, but our staff know all of these codes inside and out. So seeing how that all plays together, how they work with each other, the way in which we work with contractors who are are building the the structures and their knowledge base and you know, working collaboratively to figure out how to solve problems, how to ensure the buildings are up to code, but you know, doing so in a way that is economically feasible. Um it it's really impressive to watch.

Anastasha Osborn 12:17

They're actually building a new school over where I live, um, in the south side of Lansing, and it's incredible how quickly they're getting it up. But also, you know, they we live in Michigan and it's you know, the weather's not always accommodating. But yeah, it's kind of cool to see it from when it's just these beams to now they have a roof on there, and I just picture them like I know there's probably some large people in there poking around.

Andrew Brisbo 12:41

And if you talk to anyone in the skilled trades, uh that that's one of the great things is the work that you have done, which you've been a part of, is still there.

Anastasha Osborn 12:48

Yeah.

Andrew Brisbo 12:49

Um I bore my kids to tears when we drive around and I show them the grass I used to mow back when I was in college. Well, if you work in skilled trades, you can show your kids these are the buildings that I was a part of constructing and they still stand.

Anastasha Osborn 13:00

Absolutely. Yeah. So let's talk about if someone is listening and they have never really considered a career in skill trades. What would you want them to know?

Andrew Brisbo 13:09

Well, if you go to our website, you can see all of the pathways uh to get into skill trades and and what it looks like to get from that apprenticeship to journey to master pathway. Uh we put together some career charts that show kind of how that flow works and how much experience is necessary to get from one step to the next. Um but I would just encourage people to seek that out, uh, see what might be interesting to you. Um we also have other jobs here at BCC for individuals who like me want to work in an office. So there's lots of career opportunities in state government overall. Um but we've like I said, we've really been focused on young people and uh opening their eyes to the opportunities and skill trades.

Anastasha Osborn 13:45

Yeah. And I would agree, I think you mentioned this earlier. I think um we're getting to a time where it's not college isn't the only the only path you can go down, right? So I think they're they're opening up that there's opportunities outside of just college. Um so I think it's great the work that you guys are doing, the work that the My Trade is doing, so that way people can understand and learn more about other opportunities.

Andrew Brisbo 14:09

Well, and and if you consider the two pathways, you know, if you work in in apprenticeship and skill trades or you go to college, if you go to college, certainly great opportunities to learn things, uh, but you're paying for that opportunity. In apprenticeship programs, you're getting paid to learn. Right. And there is a built-in pathway to continue to advance your career. So it is beneficial in from multiple facets.

Anastasha Osborn 14:29

Yeah, incredible. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. Thank you for sharing all this information about the skilled trades. Hopefully our listeners learn something new. We will put in our show notes too, we'll add some of the links to the resources that Andrew mentioned. Um, we'll add a link to the My Trades Partnership website so you can check that out as well. So thank you again for being here. I appreciate it.

Andrew Brisbo 14:49

My pleasure.

Anastasha Osborn 14:50

All right, so if you've ever considered a career in the trades, this might be your sign. So go ahead and check out our show notes, as I mentioned, for more information from our living room to yours. We'll see you next time.