How The Coalition is Solving the Skilled Trades Crisis

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Meet Mark Hedstrom: Executive Director of Skilled Careers Coalition, skilled trades champion.
Mark’s journey from manufacturing and healthcare consulting to leading the Skilled Careers Coalition gives him a unique perspective on America’s skilled trades gap—and why philanthropy is the secret weapon for fixing it.

In this episode:

• The real reason skilled trades have been stigmatized as “dirty, dark, dangerous” for decades—and why that’s total nonsense
• How philanthropy can take bold risks to drive systemic change in the workforce (when industry can’t)
• The three real career paths for today’s students: military, college, or skilled trades (and why trades are just as valuable)
• Mark’s personal story: from a privileged background to a fierce advocate for the trades
• How a coalition approach is actually moving the needle on the skilled trades crisis
• Why it’s time to ditch “blue collar” and start saying “skilled careers”

Key Takeaways:

Stigma | Decades-old myths are holding back talented people from life-changing careers
Philanthropy | Nonprofits can experiment and drive innovation where industry is stuck
Language Shift | “Skilled careers” > “blue collar”—words matter for respect and opportunity
Parental Mindset | Parents need to see trades as equal to college or military for their kids’ futures

The skilled trades gap isn’t just about open jobs—it’s about changing mindsets, language, and opportunities for an entire generation. Mark’s coalition model shows how teamwork across sectors can make a real difference.

Ready to challenge what you’ve heard about trades?
Share this episode with someone rethinking their career path, and subscribe for more zero-BS insights on breaking free from dead-end jobs.

Transcript

Lia (00:00.622)
All right, welcome Mark. Thank you so much for coming on the Sparky Life.

Mark Hedstrom (00:05.107)
Thanks for having me, Leah. Nice to meet you.

Lia (00:07.104)
it's a pleasure. a pleasure. And let's just dive right in with who is Mark.

Mark Hedstrom (00:15.909)
So mean, I'm still trying to answer that question. But yeah, I think, I know we've had a chance to sort of share via email, a little bit about my background, but look, I sit in the nonprofit space. been in philanthropy for about 14 years now, but came out of two areas, one in manufacturing. So was a CFO and CEO of a skateboard and snowboard company. So we're producing snowboards and

Lia (00:18.462)
Hahaha!

Mark Hedstrom (00:45.283)
various parts of the world and skateboards down in Mexico. But prior to that, was actually in the management consulting space, particularly in healthcare. So I was early days in trying to help large health systems, small health systems, rural hospitals, as well as large multi-site hospitals look at their operations and financial processes to improve at the time what was called margin.

Right, so how do you do a better job of servicing your patients and the clinicians, but also how do you make sure that you remain somewhat profitable in order to keep the doors open? So yeah, a little bit of background in all those spaces. My first foray into healthcare and sort what I do now, and it's come a bit full circle, is I started out in advocacy and policy. So, you know, some people call those lobbyists. will admit to...

Lia (01:38.413)
Hahaha!

Mark Hedstrom (01:41.347)
Won't admit to being one, but I was very early days in helping stand up an insurance pool for the fishing populations and families in New England. They had an amazingly high uninsurance rate, underinsured rate, and we were trying to figure out a way to actually assure the population so they had better access to healthcare. So that's where I started. So maybe on the good side of lobbying and sort of helping people get access to health.

Lia (02:07.438)
So were you like one of those kids that did the lemonade stand and then took all the profits and brought it to like a rescue animal rescue center?

Mark Hedstrom (02:16.801)
You know, know I wasn't, you know, see early days I used to have a lawn mowing business with my older brother. We had to pay my dad. So my dad was very much in the mindset of like, oh, if you're to use my stuff, you have to pay for my stuff. So we get a very early lesson in profit and loss. It was definitely a lot more loss when we were running the, the, the, lawn mowing business. Those things get expensive, but the.

Yeah, there's always been a, I think my family just a call to service. I think I shared with you over email, you my mother, in particular, my father as well, always just showed up for people, whether they knew them or didn't. And I think that instilled that idea of service to others very early on in my brothers and myself. In fact, both of my brothers also work in nonprofit. So we've, you know, one's an ex lawyer.

So he's recovering from that and I'm recovering from the long game. So, but yeah, we've all ended up in that space. I think largely because of how our parents showed up in the world.

Lia (03:22.134)
Your parents sound pretty special.

Mark Hedstrom (03:25.701)
Yeah, they were good people. We lost them a couple years ago. But yeah, just in some ways continuing to try to honor that lesson.

Lia (03:30.398)
I'm sorry.

Lia (03:37.614)
On this end, you're definitely honoring for sure.

Mark Hedstrom (03:43.921)
Thank you.

Lia (03:46.092)
diving into the skilled trades. How does this play into the skilled trades? Why philanthropy here?

Mark Hedstrom (03:48.741)
Sure.

Mark Hedstrom (03:54.487)
you know, so I work for an organization that looks at, philanthropy from a perspective of little eye and big eye impact. So big eye impact in my world is systemic change. And one of our funders, one of our philanthropists, has spent a lot of time in the space of looking at, the health of the U S economy, how we've built entrepreneurship in this country all the way through to things like the underpinning of the GDP and national defense. Right. And

in all of that conversation and all of his perspective and thinking and in ours is the fact that we needed skilled workforce in order to service a lot of what happens in this country. And if you look at, as you know, the numbers of entrepreneurs in this country, as well as running large scale businesses, there's a lot of trades that are sprinkled throughout those opportunities. And so when I step back and look at philanthropy and what we're trying to do from our perspective is I do think philanthropy

plays a role in this. think we have a bit more permission to take some risk, but we are always focused on that big eye impact, which is in this particular case, how do we solve for what everyone's talking about, which is skill trades gap. Yes, it's shrinking, so that's good news, but the reality is it's not just the gap itself, it's the 50 years of de-emphasizing.

you know, what you see we call blue collar jobs or trade jobs, right? So when we even talk about it, we talk about it from skilled careers perspective or skilled talent perspective, because these are, as you know, very talented jobs and very talented workers. And how do we elevate them back into the space of being seen as part of the fabric of America and the economy? So philanthropy has this interesting space to play in there because we can have a little bit more permission to take on challenging things that maybe industry can't. So

Our work in this space is really like, how do we show up in the right places? And the reason we call the skill careers coalition is we firmly believe in a coalition approach to this work. If we all work together and leverage your strengths, my strengths, we could probably solve this problem faster and move further in solving that problem. So that's a lot of the perspective we have when we come with a philanthropic side.

Lia (06:10.594)
Very cool, very cool. All right, so you touched a little bit on the stigma of the skill traits, right?

Mark Hedstrom (06:21.507)
Yeah, think, you look, when I was growing up, you know, I'll just, I'll call myself out. You know, I'm a product of private education, product of a four year college degree. But at the time that was really kind of what everyone was being pushed towards. know, both my parents are first generation college educated. My father ended up being a surgeon. So, you know, I came from a comfortable, privileged, white, upper middle-class background. And that was at the time.

I won't say how old I am, but I'm definitely not a millennial and I'm definitely not a boomer, so I'm the X generation. And at the time, that was kind of a natural career path, right? So me ending up in policy and advocacy, me ending up in consulting, like that was just something you could do with a general liberal arts degree. Those days are gone. And I think we need to be realistic about, there's three opportunities for a student and their parents and advisors to be considering.

One is the military, right? We certainly need a strong national defense and those provide incredibly good educational experiences as well as potential jobs off the back when they move out of the armed services. There is four year college degrees and you know, as a product of that environment, I think there's still a need to be looking at that as a, an opportunity for a young student, but equal value to those two is the fact of moving into a, you know, CTU programming and a skilled career, right? There's a viable option out there.

Lia (07:23.528)
yeah.

Lia (07:28.843)
Absolutely.

Mark Hedstrom (07:48.857)
that we have largely stigmatized, calling them dirty, dark, dangerous jobs, that they're blue collar, that they're trades, right? I grew up in central Massachusetts. I remember the local trade school. Like those are tradies. Like who those kids? And I just think we've got to really move away from that mentality, not just with young students and inspiring them, but also with me as a parent. I have a young son. I've to be looking at this very differently and saying, what's the best opportunity? What's the biggest aperture?

I can give my son in terms of thinking about like what he wants to do with his life. What does he love to do? And that should be a consideration set for a skilled career as an option for him.

Lia (08:27.362)
Yeah, the mindset for a long time has been college. I mean, we're pretty much preached to that if you didn't have a college degree, you weren't going to be successful. And touching on the trade schools that you mentioned, I remember in high school thinking of the vocational school as, those are the not smart kids.

Mark Hedstrom (08:55.161)
Right. Yeah, that was the perception at the time. I think that stigma has kind of carried itself through when you know, in the space that you're in, and I've gotten to know in the space for the last couple of years, there's some amazing opportunities out there, right? And those students are as valuable and as smart in what they do as what we might have considered back when I was growing up. And I just, there's this real stigma around

those types of issues and we just need to push through that and push back and say, well actually no, this is an opportunity for someone. If you look at the data, just something I always go to is I'm a bit of a data dork. There's a piece published by the Fed Reserve out of St. Louis, say three, four years ago now at this point, talking about the value of the return on investment in a four year degree. And so that has largely gone negative for those post.

2010. So the value you put into and the value that's returned to you, unless you're in a STEM and you're in a top university type of educational program, that ROI isn't there anymore. And he's even getting to the point now with a master's and advanced degrees, those are just starting to become less valuable. So you think about that, not just the debt assumption, but also the value off the back, that ROI is changing quite rapidly. And at the same time, we've got this big need.

We have these amazing opportunities and skilled careers that pay well and don't assume a ton of debt. So the ROI looks pretty good. So let's consider that. Let's show what's possible to young students and say, hey, parents, teachers, students, like this is something you should be looking at. And I think that's important conversation for us to all be having.

Lia (10:39.808)
Absolutely, absolutely. I think the question is, do you believe the high schools are open to having this conversation?

Mark Hedstrom (10:53.157)
You know, I think so. think and that's not a naive statement. I've spent a lot of time not just reading papers and research and articles, but also talking to people. I think the one challenge that I see is that we've kind of bifurcated the two programs, right? There's a trade school and then there's a local high school and we've stripped a lot of the trades out of the local high school. So that location is not the same anymore. And so I think there's a need to relook at that. We've divested in having

is just part of what you do and exposing quite frankly, regular high school students or middle school students to trades as a possibility for them. So that physical plant doesn't exist in the same way it used to. It's not dissimilar to previous life, I won't go into it, but a lot of what has happened in mental health, which I spent 12 years in, is because we really stripped out the services attached to someone seeking help or taking action for their own mental health.

Those were largely divested. And in this space, we've done the same thing. If you walk into a local trade school, you walk into a community college that has trade programs, there's a difference, right? There's a huge investment of taxpayer dollars in traditional high schools. And the physical plant for those versus a trade school or a community college that's teaching trades, it's noticeably different just from the visual. And I think we need to think about how we're reinvesting in those physical plants.

Lia (12:07.768)
Great.

Lia (12:17.838)
Yes.

Mark Hedstrom (12:21.433)
bringing more students into and showing them that there's an opportunity and exposing them to it.

Lia (12:26.796)
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So I think that a lot of this, I'm confident that a lot of this comes down to the youth, right? They're going to be our decision makers. Right, right?

Mark Hedstrom (12:43.341)
They are. As much as we want to say, the generation's behind us, I God, was in Gen X or I was called the slacker for a long time. And there's a general misperception. Here's something else that I've heard, and again, research and articles sort of back this up, but also, again, continue to stigmatize not just the trades and the skilled careers, but also the...

Generation that's coming up disease and the alphas my son's an alpha which is the younger generation. They're lazy There's also a lot of Conversation around the fact that we haven't prepared them, right? We haven't prepared it with the soft skills that go alongside the hard skills of swinging the hammer or knowing how to you know, you know Bring you know how to build a house and I think one of the real challenges is that we haven't we've done a disservice to them

Lia (13:20.398)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Hedstrom (13:36.845)
as well on soft skills. So this misconception that they're lazy, they don't show up to work. I think there's some truth to that, but that was true of my generation, right? That's why we were called slackers. But the reality is we've got to be doing a better job of getting the soft skills too, right? We hear that all the time from employers. Those are what we really need. We need someone who can show up for work on time. We need someone who is a hard worker. We need someone who's a good team player because that's the kind of employee we're looking for. So how do we...

How do we get that, not just hard skills, swinging the hammer, building the house, but also the soft skills that go with that.

Lia (14:14.05)
touch on that my father is a boomer and I'm pretty confident that the hippies were called slackers. So I feel like every generation easily says the next generation are slackers. It's like a common human feature to just be like, well in my day. And if that's the case, right? You're talking a lot about soft skills.

Mark Hedstrom (14:21.317)
Sure. Yeah.

Mark Hedstrom (14:27.769)
Bye.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Lia (14:44.984)
How do we integrate soft skills with trades? Because traditionally, with removing trades from high school and doing these vocational types of separate schooling for blue collar career paths, they primarily focus on the hard skills.

Mark Hedstrom (15:08.645)
Yeah, I, you know, and look, there's a lot of conversations, some, some really smart people out there working on this, not just individuals, but organizations and companies, you know, work-based learning, right? We're all talking about it, but what does it actually look like versus what it looked like 20 years ago and, and getting these students into these experiences early on work-based learning is just another way of saying mentorship. Like in some ways as an employer, you're getting a free look at a potential employee.

Lia (15:24.844)
Right.

Lia (15:31.725)
Right.

Mark Hedstrom (15:38.329)
Right. Or a very, you know, know, internship and apprenticeship based payment to get a look at a potential employee. But you're also giving them a lot of value in understanding what it's like to go into a business, understanding what it's like to run your own business and get that experience while they're still learning. I think it's just, you know, part of the gap issue and what we talk about in philanthropy is further faster. Right. Let's say we shorten that window. Let's say as you're still going through schooling and learning that

that career, that trade, you're also getting work-based experience at the same time and just trying to shrink that even six months, shrinking that window so you can actually see someone 12 months out being in the role at your organization. So when you talk about workforce development or workplace learning, I think there's some real opportunity even to shave that half year and give them that experience to sharpen their soft skills.

And quite frankly, don't leave them to just kind of flounder, like actually engage them in individual development plans. What you would do with a normal employee, give them feedback, help them learn how to give feedback, how to be a team player. Like those are, those are skills, you know, honestly, I didn't learn that in high school or college. you know, that's, that's, that's, you know, that's, that's street learning. That's like being in a role and learning when you fail, how to do it differently next time. Like that stuff.

Lia (16:50.54)
Love me.

Mark Hedstrom (17:03.127)
It's not done in the classroom, whether it's a trade classroom or it's a normal high school classroom.

Lia (17:08.782)
Yes.

Lia (17:13.046)
know from personal experience that after having seven different careers in my lifetime, I was never able to move as fast into leadership positions and double my salary like I have in the skilled trades. So the opportunity in the skilled trades is astronomical. Speaking as an American,

Mark Hedstrom (17:30.764)
Yeah.

Mark Hedstrom (17:36.005)
to.

Lia (17:40.79)
I think all Americans love a good underdog story. And a lot of the media now is talking about how the next millionaires are going to be electricians and plumbers.

Mark Hedstrom (17:59.108)
Yeah, think everyone does love the underdog story, although I'm a Celtics fan, let's not talk about that. I'm sure a lot of your listeners just rolled their eyes. I'm also a Red Sox fan, so I lived with most of my life until 2004. So the... Yeah, I think it's...

Lia (18:05.873)
Hahaha

Lia (18:12.366)
We'll forgive you this time.

Lia (18:21.441)
You

Mark Hedstrom (18:26.841)
You know, think we've got to show the promise and opportunity to young students. So lot of our work in the skill careers coalition around skills jam, which is our inspire social media driven platform. And I just acknowledge social media has the downside and dark sides, right? I spent 12 years in men and boys mental health. I understand how, how negative it can go for, for young individual. But at the same time, I think there's still the intent, the original intent around social media is connection and showing people what's possible and inspiring them. Right. And, and, and I think.

there's still opportunity in there to really kind of leverage that and show what's possible and have an inspiring message to young individuals who might just be exploring, you know, what it looks like. And let's be honest, social media may change the, you know, we're not using MySpace anymore. But the reality is when you think about the toolkit, right, that a lot of these young students have at the disposal, it's in their phone. If you think about the marketing of your business,

and where it's going, it's a much cheaper, quicker option to get to your client base potentially. it's not, we've got to figure out better ways to use that technology that's in everyone's hand to really create some opportunity for people, right? Because it is also a tool in the toolkit. Everyone talks about the tool belt generation. They think it's just the old tool belt with the hammer and whatever else you got on your tool belt. But the reality is like the soft school stuff, the marketing.

Lia (19:39.704)
Yes.

Mark Hedstrom (19:50.465)
of your business to the local client base, all those kinds of things. That's part of your toolkit and we have to understand how that's changing. The last thing I'll say about social media and our footprint is if you're an employer out there, that's where your next generation of talent is sitting. That's where they're spending their time. So don't disengage. Actually find ways to engage them and show them what's possible because a lot of the tools that I see out there now,

are still very static, right? They're website driven. They're not really engaging that next generation of talent in the places and spaces they're spending their time.

Lia (20:27.554)
Yes. On the flip side of that, speaking like for a high school student, skilled trades is a wonderful opportunity to actually visually show your resume. You can display like your creations and how you develop things online for potential employers. But do you think that

Mark Hedstrom (20:42.691)
Mm-hmm. 100%.

Mark Hedstrom (20:49.445)
Hmm?

Exactly.

Lia (20:55.81)
those potential employers know where to look.

Mark Hedstrom (21:00.517)
I think people are, short answer is yes and slash maybe. I think there's an understanding that that's where young students and your next employee is spending their time. And in some cases we've seen a lot on TikTok and Instagram of them demonstrating their talent. And that's the cool stuff. that's, mean, the value of even just.

Lia (21:19.554)
Yes!

It's so cool.

Mark Hedstrom (21:25.829)
And again, it's not just the visual of them doing it what it is they do as a career, but it's also listening to how they're talking about it and how they're presenting it. So if I'm thinking about soft skills again, I want someone who's excited to show up. I want someone who knows how to talk about and like be a team player and talk about like those individuals are gold. doing more of that and spending more time, again, not pushing back on social media.

Lia (21:39.276)
Yes.

Lia (21:45.866)
Absolutely.

Mark Hedstrom (21:51.941)
for all the reasons that we could talk about in terms of the negative aspects of it. But looking for those streams, those pathways, those veins that you're seeing some of this young talent or even quite frankly, people in their 30s who love what they do and show their talent, like that's inspirational. And that's like a really honest, easy look at whether or not there's someone out there that you might wanna look at and either emulate as another student or potentially hire as an employer.

Lia (22:05.9)
Right.

Lia (22:19.754)
Absolutely, absolutely. man, there's pro and con to everything, right? So I think that...

Lia (22:33.036)
I'm always asking, is there more pro than con? And I think personally with social media, there's more pro. You have the opportunities to connect with people that you might not be able to connect with. They've done research about zip codes. And when I was growing up, they made a comment that you are who you hang out with, right? You're the mean of the five people that you associate with.

And if you're wanting to put yourself in an elevated situation, if you are ambitious and have goals and you are in a zip code where there's not a lot of that going on, how are you supposed to get into the other networks? What access do you have?

Mark Hedstrom (23:23.843)
Yeah, yeah, it's a different, it's a different take on, know, whether it's in healthcare with health deserts or food security with, you know, food deserts. mean, we talk about these, these issues and, you know, let's be honest, America is a vast place and a lot of it's empty. A lot of it is empty. you know, I give you a quick anecdote. I had done previous work with the, the Rocky Mountain VA, which covered most of, know, the Western side of the U S with the exception of the coast.

Lia (23:38.794)
yeah. Yep.

Mark Hedstrom (23:53.157)
And we're working in mental health, particularly with the VA system. And one of the big challenges, and I remember talking to a number of clinicians as well as administrators saying, well, okay, if you're in a mental health crisis, you're not going to drive 400 miles to the VA. Like we have to figure out how to digitize that conversation and digitize that intervention with a vet who is struggling. And so you've got to understand that America's, you know, I think we all know this when we look at the map, but

The reality is like there's large swaths of the US that are uncovered. And to your point, you know, on the positive side, right, there's opportunity to see what other people are doing and be inspired by their work. You know, it doesn't mean you have to move, but it does mean that you can kind of see what's out there and what options are there. So if I'm an employer and let's say I've got an issue in employing people in the markets that are man or the factories that I built in the US, like, how do I find, how do I show what's happening?

Lia (24:32.91)
Right.

Lia (24:36.575)
Right.

Mark Hedstrom (24:50.917)
and then attract the talent to come meet me where I'm at, right? Cause that might be a job opportunity for them. You know, so I think, you know, I think there are pros and cons, like for your listeners, you know, I spent 12 years as the executive director for the November foundation in the U S I spent a lot of time in men and boys, mental health and suicide prevention, talking about masculinity and understanding what's happening in the young, young men. And you know, there's, there's a lot of challenges.

I'll say that, and there's a lot of good people trying to solve for that problem. But at the same time, you can see how social media in this vein of hearing people, their passion, their talent, I think there's still some inherent good in how do we leverage the tools that we have and not just solely focus on the downside risk of what it is.

Lia (25:44.108)
would never be able to connect to the network that I have now if it weren't for social media.

Mark Hedstrom (25:50.373)
Sure. Or podcasts.

Lia (25:52.78)
Right, right. And I encourage as a contrarian, the youth to utilize social media to discover, be curious and show what they're interested in and reach out to people that maybe they would think they'd never be able to connect with, right?

Lia (26:24.212)
That being said, you talked about mental health. In the skilled trades, do you think a career is going to be more of a positive mental health in the skilled trades or a negative?

Mark Hedstrom (26:45.989)
I mean, and again, I'll lean back on my understanding of men and boys and the roots in masculinity and how society sort of places that set of expectations on young men and middle-aged men like myself. I do think it is rooted in the ability to create and provide, right, which is what we're told as men that we have to do. And so I see a lot of intersection

Lia (27:08.994)
Yes. Yes.

Mark Hedstrom (27:16.003)
between the work I'm doing now, the work I did previously. If I can help young men and young women, let's be clear, there's certainly mental health issues amongst women. In providing them a stable job opportunity that maybe takes some of the challenge off their plate in terms of being able to raise a family and survive. I think there's a lot in the skilled careers, right?

I can imagine those, and if you look at the dropout rates for four-year degrees, 40 % of those that enter four-year degree in the US drop out before they finish. So not only now have they dropped out and they feel like maybe they're a failure because of it, but they've also assumed debt as a result that they then have to pay off. And so there's an opportunity in there. And I think that's the point in terms of how we look at this is sort of from that positive, it's like that's someone who's...

who's ready for a change, right? And that's someone who's quite frankly driven and probably fearful of the fact that they have all this debt and they don't know where to go. Like, how do we show them like, hey, there's opportunity over here. What do you love to do? And sort of give them the incentive and the inspiration to go consider something that, you know, in 18 to 24 months, you're gonna be out actually working in a job that pays well. And so now you've taken the cortisol levels and everything else down, you know.

a massive degree because now someone feels like they're contributing and they've got something that they can put their mind to and maybe take some of the relief off of the financial strains. And I think for men and boys in particular, that's a huge issue because we are told that we have to be the providers, right? And I think, you know, that is changing quite rapidly if you look at just the four-year degree rates. know, women are outpacing men. I think it's somewhere in the mid-50s now as college campuses are comprised of women versus men.

Where are those men going? And how do we find them opportunistic pathways and positive pathways to go out and find a career? Because it absolutely underpins. It's a social determinant for mental health.

Lia (29:22.902)
Absolutely. Dr. Kelly Lambert's research supports that when you work physically to achieve a goal, there is a lot of dopamine that's released and her

research about the suicide rates and mental health in the US, there's a correlation between getting away from doing work with your hands and your mind and just sitting in front of a computer all day or in a cubicle or at an office, right? And there's a correlation there why mental health has come to the point it has. Now,

She has this really cool research project with like rats and Froot Loops. Matt, who's our production Sparky Life producer. If you wouldn't mind popping that up here, a little research of Kelly Lambert, Dr. Kelly Lambert. And the basis is around the importance of being physically and mentally active and seeing the result of your work.

those two core things, right? That being said, my confidence level just went through the roof. My self-love went through the roof when I entered the skill traits. And I firmly believe it's because I was able to use my body and my mind and visually see my progress.

no other career in my life gave me what the skill trades gave me. On the other hand of that, I would look around at me, primarily men, and the guys were not happy. They were very, very much hurting and having mental health challenges. And I couldn't at first understand why.

Mark Hedstrom (31:12.709)
Hmm?

Yeah.

Mark Hedstrom (31:23.621)
Mm-hmm.

Lia (31:28.824)
Like here I am, you know, I'm experiencing this incredible growth. What's different? And I started to realize the construction culture, the environment is toxic. These guys had no idea how incredible they are. They didn't understand the magnitude of what they were contributing.

because the environment kept treating them like they were a number. Society looked at them as though their job was a job, not impressive. And when you get pounded away at and pounded away at like that, I don't care who you are, I don't care how strong you are, eventually it's gonna wear you down. Your mental state is gonna be worn down.

Mark Hedstrom (32:02.189)
Hmm.

Lia (32:21.516)
That's one of the reasons why I started Sparky Life because I was like, this is injustice. This is insane. These men literally create civilization. If you live in a third world country and there's no running water and there's no electric and there's no roof over your head, the worst of humanity comes out of us. We are cruel.

We are really cruel. And when you provide those things, which is all the foundation of the skilled trades, that's when we tap into the philanthropy, the giving, the nurturing each other. That's where that comes from. If we're constantly focused on survival and just the bare minimum, you're never going to see acts of kindness like that. They're few and far between. It's much harsher.

Mark Hedstrom (32:57.189)
Okay.

Lia (33:09.9)
And if you don't believe me, travel. Go to a third world country and tell me what you see, right?

Mark Hedstrom (33:12.397)
Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, I think, you know, in all this language is incredibly important. Look, I spent time in Haiti about 14 months ago. Some of those giving people I've ever seen with absolutely nothing. We have a long conversation about how they got there and it was largely not because of them. As a society, was everyone else that was kind of pushing.

on the Haitian society. But I think the challenge, just to come back to something you said around men in the construction trades are in the workforce. The intersectionality that I talked about between the work now and the work that I did previously is the reality, and this goes to social media and this goes to where men are showing up or not showing up, is loss of social connection and isolation. And a job site allows for social connection.

A job site allows for that opportunity to connect with someone and be a peer and have a conversation and show your talent. I think that the challenge in all that is breaking through a little bit of, you know, how men have been raised and giving them better vocabulary. And look, the call out here is just our work in my previous life and my work now is not about creating, you know,

men that act like women or women that act like men. It's just about allowing men the space and opportunity to show vulnerability and to show emotion. As a father of an 11 year old boy, I can tell you for matter of fact, it's hard to do, but this isn't about putting your mask on and shielding yourself from the criticism that come across the job site to you.

But I think it's finding ways through where we just, have to understand that men are men are isolating more and they're losing that connection to your point around being in an office environment versus being on a job site. Like that's a natural opportunity for you to be connecting with other people in the job site and having conversation as a species that's we're built on that, right? That's why we have societies. the, the other component part is, well, we've also got to, we can allow men to express themselves and find that vocabulary and not push back when they start expressing it.

Mark Hedstrom (35:35.275)
And look, I can tell you as a older man and working with a lot of men over the last several years, we lack that vocabulary. We have a hard time expressing how we feel and our emotions. we end up, in my case, I refer to it as duct tape and dirt. You just put duct tape on it or you rub dirt on it and you just move forward. That's not terribly healthy. We've got to be able to, but we have to encourage men.

Lia (35:57.078)
No. No.

Mark Hedstrom (36:02.617)
to find that space and find that vocabulary so they can talk. Because there's no way we're gonna know what's going on in someone's head if we don't give them the space to have that conversation. And at the same time, you've got these places where they're working on a job site, which allows for that connection. And just like, how do we balance those two things and find way to break through so men feel more confident in what they're doing and not so closed off.

from those in the site or those in their lives. And I think that's, you gotta get that balance right. And I think we're getting there, but there's still a ton of work to be done.

Lia (36:44.47)
There's a lot of work to be done, especially on construction sites because what a crew has to offer, how working as a team can improve.

your mental health and your overall life. We spend what, 40 hours, anywhere between 40 to 80 hours a week of our lives at our jobs and our careers. And if you're not enjoying the environment you're in, that's 100 % going to affect your mental health. Now,

Mark Hedstrom (37:17.445)
You

Yep.

Lia (37:23.416)
Don't misunderstand me when I talk about third world countries. Of course there are good people, loving people in those communities. However...

Lia (37:38.134)
The amount of suffering and the amount of survival and brutality that is there is far different than when you go to the United States or Europe or Canada.

Mark Hedstrom (37:42.373)
Hmm.

Lia (37:54.508)
And that's because they don't call America the land of opportunity for no reason. Now, if the construction culture changes to create a healthier environment,

We're going to have an influx of people who want to work there.

Mark Hedstrom (38:20.259)
Well, it's it I mean, in another way of saying that is employer of choice, whether it's in the construction trades or it's just in employment. I think you have to move my opinion, and this is somewhat based upon experience. You have to look at those that work for you as human capital. That is the most important capital you have. And the best the. The the best way to.

Lia (38:41.388)
Yes, thank you.

Mark Hedstrom (38:48.613)
you know, of grow your business. And look, I was having a conversation with someone today about this, you know, the best way to grow your business is look at, what are you trying to do? then surround yourself with the people can help you do that. And, but don't forget that you're surrounding those people and you've got to retain and retrain and, you know, maintain that relationship with them because you brought them in for a reason. You expended all this energy to get them on board and don't forget about that. And that human capital, whether it's, you know, a frontline worker or a CXO.

Lia (38:58.156)
Yes.

Mark Hedstrom (39:17.701)
Like those people are important. And yes, people change jobs and you're in your seventh or eighth job and I'm definitely in my seventh or eighth job. But the reality is the way I look at the people I've worked with is I hope that I've helped them get that next job. I hope that I've helped them have a good experience in working with me. Cause I think that's incredibly important. But as an employer, as an organization, we have to start looking at, I don't know, this is a bit anti-capitalism, but

you know, when you look at capital, it's not just the top line and the bottom line. It's actually the people that are making that happen and having a healthier workforce, both mentally and physically is going to help that only improve. Right. So don't lose sight of the humans that make up the organization and make it run and make it successful. I think it's incredibly important that we, you know, we start talking more openly about mental health in addition to physical health. I always use the term

Lia (40:08.95)
Yes.

Mark Hedstrom (40:12.441)
you know, other than, you know, men always rub duct tape and derp on their mental health issues, you can physically see someone when they've broken their arm. You can't see someone when they've come out of their home environment, let's say they had a stressor warning, the kids were being a pain, you know, you're trying to get them out the car to the various three schools you're trying to get them to, and then you have to show up at work. And like, it's so hard to disconnect that. And then maybe you have a bad day at work, terrible meeting.

Lia (40:20.088)
Yes.

Lia (40:35.821)
Yes.

Mark Hedstrom (40:39.471)
customer drops you whatever the case may be and then you try to go home and like reset yourself. Like that fluidity is always there and so I think we just need to be looking at people as more human than just you know someone who's producing a widget.

Lia (40:52.674)
Yes, absolutely. think the key word there is human. When I was on the construction sites and to this day, I see how they interact with each other, especially the higher up the leaders, right? Because it starts from the top down.

I mean, I think I use this example in one of my past episodes. I was an apprentice and I was in Virginia at the time. There's a lot of deer in Virginia, especially around like 4 a.m., 5 a.m. when you got to get to the construction site, okay? And accidents happen, right? We like to say the deer hit us. We didn't hit the deer, okay? And I remember the foreman screaming.

Mark Hedstrom (41:20.761)
Yeah. Exactly right.

Mark Hedstrom (41:29.925)
Mm-hmm.

Lia (41:36.928)
at this guy on the phone basically saying, I don't care if you don't figure out a way to get here, I'll get someone else. And it's that kind of mentality that really breaks down your crew, breaks down your team and really takes away from your overall profit. Cause if you're not investing in your people, how do you expect them to invest in you?

Mark Hedstrom (41:53.829)
Hmm.

Mark Hedstrom (42:02.533)
Yeah, exactly. mean, look, some people are going to punch in and punch out. I think that just happens. And some people are there for a paycheck and let's just acknowledge that. And I think that's okay. investing in your workforce and making sure that when they're showing up and then they're leaving work, that they're moving through that transition.

Lia (42:12.076)
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that.

Mark Hedstrom (42:28.069)
as healthily as possible. And while they're with you, they're as healthy as they can be. It's not always going to be that case. mean, there's underpinnings to people experiencing trauma with their lives or other social determinants that have driven them to that place or family histories of. So you're never going to solve for that problem. But I think what you're trying to do is create an environment that people want to show up and do the best. I don't think, I think there are very few incidences and I'm sure people will disagree with me. People show up and say, I want to do a bad job today.

Lia (42:56.396)
Yeah, no, no. No.

Mark Hedstrom (42:58.532)
I don't think that's actually, mean, they might already be in a mindset, they might be in a mindset like, oh my God, how am gonna just transition from the kids were screaming at me as I'm trying to get them to school to actually showing up. That's where that transition happens. But so how do you find that way to kind of let, you know, move people into their workday, acknowledging that they've come from somewhere and acknowledging they're gonna go back to somewhere, right? And understanding how that influences how they show up.

Lia (43:24.502)
Right.

Mark, thank you so much for coming on the Sparky Life. This was so valuable. Please let us know how we can support you. Where can we go? What can we do?

Mark Hedstrom (43:38.405)
Yeah, so I mean, look, we're a coalition, right? We come out of philanthropy. So our approach is always like, how do we show up and help? Where can we be most additive? So if you're having these conversations or you're looking at this from an employment perspective or an employer perspective or you're in an industry, manufacturing, construction, whatever the case may be, skillcareers.org is our website. That's more for folks like myself, bit older. But skillcareers.org is where we're connecting that coalition together. You'll see some of our partners.

that have come on board and some of the other folks that we're bringing into this conversation. And our approach again is further faster, right? Everyone in construction is trying to solve this problem. Everyone in manufacturing, everyone in the industrial space, and we're all having these challenges with workforce. Well, I can tell you there's definitely people across all of those different sectors that have figured out some best practices to solve for some of the continuous and continuing problems we have and our collective problems.

Lia (44:14.189)
Yes.

Mark Hedstrom (44:35.171)
That's where we spend our time talking about the coalition. So skillcareers.org. And then if you want to understand what we're trying to do in talking to young students or younger individuals and using that positive approach to leveraging social media to show their and showcase their talents. Skills Jam. So we're on Instagram, TikTok and on YouTube like Skills Jam. have short form TikTok content. have longer form. We've engaged Ty Pennington. He's come on as an ambassador for us.

and just get an understanding of how we're positioning us and how we're talking. And actually just watch the students, watch these young entrepreneurs, these young trades people demonstrate and talk about their passion. I think that's probably the best visual we can give you of what's coming and how driven these younger individuals are about their careers.

Lia (45:23.03)
I love it. love it. Thank you so much for coming on the Sparky Life and sharing with us. I appreciate you.

Mark Hedstrom (45:27.767)
Sure. Great. Thank you. Appreciate the time and appreciate the opportunity.