NEA Impact: Ep. 14 - Chris West

Well, a lot of people think it's just a second choice.

It's a dead end.

You know, you know, it's a you're settling and there's so much opportunity in skilled trades now.

And the thing is, is you can do it anywhere in the world.

And you don't necessarily have to do it once you learn it.

You don't necessarily have to do it for a plumbing or HVAC or electrical company or fire protection.

I mean, you can end up getting positions at schools, hospitals, colleges.

There's missionary work all over the world where they're, you know, if a plumber shows up on a mission trip, they're like, oh, you know, you're like the second coming to those people.

Because obviously in America, we just have taken for granted that you can turn a faucet on and water flows and it's clean water.

and the water's heated and your home is warm and cool and you're safe.

And so obviously we're in the clean air, clean water business.

That's a need that's needed all over the world.

So when you get into skilled trades, I mean, you are literally the foundation of modern society.

You take away skilled trades from modern society.

I give it three weeks and you'll see things that you've seen on the news and other parts of the world or when we have natural disasters.

And that's when people realize how important.

And as forest plumbers, we have prevented more disease than doctors could ever cure.

But Modern society has lost sight of that.

So, you know, as far as, well, you don't have to be very smart.

No, you have to be really smart.

I have an equation.

A four-year degree with a college is, if you study...

The allotted time to study for every classroom time you sit down, it's 5,400 hours.

Most people will tell you they did not study all of those allotted times.

So it's very rare that a four-year degree college student actually applies 5,400 hours.