The construction trades on the Treasure Coast are losing workers faster than they can replace them, and the organization working to close that gap says the barrier is not opportunity. It is awareness. Blue Collar Big Dollar, a program of the Treasure Coast Builders Association Charitable Foundation, joined The Current by TreasureCoast.com to explain the shortage, the pathways into a trade career, and why the conversation with high school students needs to change.
Key topics discussed in the conversation:
- The scale of the skills gap and what retirements mean for institutional knowledge
- Three distinct pathways into a trade career and who each one fits
- Misconceptions about the trades that persist among parents and students
- The soft skills and certifications employers prioritize over experience
- How the labor shortage affects homeowners and construction costs
- A scholarship fund that covers training, certifications, tools, and work boots
A Shortage That Is Also a Knowledge Loss
Blue Collar Big Dollar described a construction workforce where retirements substantially outpace new entrants, with a large share of Florida’s trade workers expected to leave the field within the next several years.
The more urgent framing offered was not about headcount. When an experienced tradesperson retires, the industry loses decades of accumulated knowledge that never gets passed down. That makes the current moment unusually valuable for anyone entering the field, board president Benjamin Haynes argued, because there are still veterans on job sites with 30 or more years of experience willing to train the next person. Wait five or ten years, he said, and far fewer of those mentors will remain.
Asked which specific trades are most in demand, the answer was that the gap runs across construction as a whole rather than concentrating in one specialty.
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Changing the Question Asked in High School
One of the sharper points in the conversation was about how schools frame the decision students face.
For decades, Haynes said, the question posed to high school students has been where they plan to go to college. He argued that question should be replaced with a different one: what kind of life do you want to build?
The case he made runs on a timeline. Someone who enters a trade directly out of high school arrives at their early twenties with four years of earnings, four years of accumulated skills, established relationships in the industry, and no student debt. His prediction is that college increasingly becomes the fallback for people who don’t yet know what they want, while the trades become a first choice for those who do.
Director of Workforce Development Jen Williams brought a personal angle to the same point. She holds a college degree but did not finish it until her early thirties, after figuring out what she actually wanted to do. The organization’s position is not that college is a bad option, but that it isn’t the right option for everyone, and it isn’t always the right option immediately.
Three Pathways Into the Trades
Williams walked through the routes available to someone interested in construction work, noting that most young people are unaware that more than one exists.
Entry-level work. Getting hired as a laborer, helper, or apprentice in any construction field. Coming in without experience is normal, and the learning starts immediately.
Pre-apprenticeship programs. Open to people between 16 and 24, running one to two nights a week, and available through several nonprofit partners across the Treasure Coast. Participants rotate through carpentry, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and in some programs welding, and finish with certifications including CPR, OSHA 10, and forklift operation. Because students can start before graduating high school, it functions as a way to test several trades before committing.
Registered apprenticeships. For those 18 and older, running four to five years in a single chosen trade. Apprentices are paid while they train under an employer, and in licensed trades like plumbing and electrical, the program leads to journeyman licensure and a significant pay increase.
The Blue Collar Big Dollar website serves as a starting point for anyone unsure where to begin. Job seekers can post a resume, local contractors post open positions, and the site lists pre-apprenticeship programs, training opportunities, scholarship links, and a calendar of area job fairs.
The Misconceptions That Persist
Williams said the most common thing she still hears, often secondhand from parents, is that trade work amounts to a job rather than a career, and that it carries less respect than a degree.
She pushed back on the assumption directly. Building a high-rise, a bridge, or an interstate overpass requires real technical capability. The hospitals, grocery stores, and roads people rely on every day are all products of blue collar work.
Haynes addressed a related misconception about advancement. The idea that a tradesperson stays a laborer, he said, ignores how quickly people move up in construction. Foreman, superintendent, project manager, estimator, and business owner are all reachable without a degree, and he argued the path is often faster than in fields where credentials gate advancement.
Both noted the conversation is shifting, partly because of growing awareness that artificial intelligence is reshaping white collar work. Haynes made the point plainly: AI can help design a building, but it cannot build one.
What Employers Actually Want
Asked about skills beyond the technical, Williams said this is a major focus of Careers in Construction Week, the organization’s summer program.
Employers consistently report they would rather hire someone with a good attitude and no experience than someone skilled but difficult to work with. The qualities that matter:
- Showing up, and showing up on time
- Staying off the phone during work hours
- Communicating well with coworkers and customers
- A willingness to ask questions and learn
- Treating a customer’s home with respect
On certifications, Williams pointed to OSHA 10 as the most useful starting credential. It is a basic ten-hour safety course that applies across industries and signals to an employer that a new hire understands job site hazards. Blue Collar Big Dollar offers it to Careers in Construction Week participants before the event so they arrive at the closing career fair ready to be hired. She also mentioned free online training programs from major retailers as another low-barrier option.
Haynes added that there is a role in construction for nearly any temperament. People with less patience for repetitive work often move toward supervision. Those stronger with numbers than tools go into estimating. Organized people become project managers. The prerequisite, he said, is simply starting.
Barriers to Getting In
The obstacles described run in both directions.
Williams noted that motivated young people sometimes cannot get hired because they lack skills, while employers compete heavily for the small pool of workers with two to three years of experience.
Haynes identified a different barrier, one he called generational. Young people accustomed to communicating by text and social media often find in-person interaction intimidating, including walking into a company to introduce themselves. He said he receives emailed resumes constantly, and what stands out is when someone delivers one by hand. That signals motivation in a way a mass email cannot.
Part of what the program does is give young adults the confidence to make that approach, and to hear directly from employers what it would actually take to get hired.
What the Shortage Means for Homeowners
Haynes, who owns H&M Impact Window and Door, laid out the economics. With hundreds of thousands of construction positions unfilled nationally, contractors cannot build as quickly or take on as many projects. Fewer bidders and slower timelines push costs up, which homeowners feel directly in what it costs to build or repair.
The same dynamic works in reverse for anyone entering the field. Scarcity raises the value of skilled labor, meaning wages tend to climb faster than they would in a crowded market.
Williams added the honest caveat. The physical work is demanding, and a heat index well over 100 degrees is part of the job. Not everyone can do it, which is part of why the demand exists. For those who cannot or would rather not work outside, she pointed again to the office-side roles that keep construction companies running, including scheduling and dispatch.
School Programs and Local Partnerships
Blue Collar Big Dollar works with school districts in St. Lucie, Martin, Indian River, and Okeechobee counties, often bringing Treasure Coast Builders Association members into schools for hands-on sessions lasting a day or half day.
Williams was complimentary of all three districts, saying construction programs that disappeared years ago are being restored. The constraint is funding. Welding and construction programs require expensive equipment and supplies, and districts must work through certification and approval processes to stand them up. Community partners help fill that gap, and the organization invited schools interested in hosting a session to reach out.
Some of that work reaches students who have no intention of entering the trades. Williams described teaching a young woman how to read a tape measure, a basic skill she said has value whether or not someone ever picks up a hammer professionally.
Careers in Construction Week runs each summer, with recent sessions held in Indian River County and at a Boys and Girls Club training facility in Martin County. The week combines hands-on instruction across plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and carpentry from volunteer contractors, ending in a career fair where participants can be hired on the spot.
Listeners interested in other local organizations working with young people may want to hear TreasureCoast.com’s conversations with Project LIFT and United Way of Martin County.
The Scholarship Fund
The Treasure Coast Builders Association Charitable Foundation began in 1988 as a scholarship organization, and that function continues alongside the newer programming that operates under the Blue Collar Big Dollar name.
Haynes emphasized that the word scholarship tends to make people think of college, which undersells what these cover. The fund supports any training that leads into the trades: OSHA 10 and OSHA 30 certifications, welding programs, HVAC coursework at Treasure Coast Technical College, and other certificate paths.
Williams added a use case that often goes unmentioned. If someone has a job offer but cannot afford the work boots or tools required to start, the fund can cover that cost and pay the employer directly, removing a barrier that would otherwise cost someone the position.
She also pointed to other local options participants learn about through the program, including a youth build program launching through the Boys and Girls Club in Martin County for people up to age 24 without a high school diploma or GED, which combines credential completion with a pre-apprenticeship.
Support and What Comes Next
Blue Collar Big Dollar hosted a fundraiser concert on September 26 at the Elliott Museum in Stuart, with tickets at $75 including dinner and live music. The event raised money to fund participant costs for Careers in Construction Week, which covers supplies, food, and certifications for each attendee.
The next Careers in Construction Week is expected next summer, with dates announced in the coming months.
More information about programs, scholarships, job listings, and training opportunities is available at bluecollarbigdollar.org. For more conversations with the people shaping Florida’s Treasure Coast, visit The Current by TreasureCoast.com.
