[Video overview: Through the voices of business owners, trainees, and industry leaders, this video explores the growing demand for skilled trades workers in Alaska. It showcases the role workforce training plays in helping people build rewarding careers and helping local businesses thrive.]

[Music]

[Mike Rowe, CEO, mikeroweWORKS Foundation]

Every small business owner I ever talked to they all told me the same thing: Finding people who would show up early and stay late and master a useful skill. That was the single biggest challenge I heard every day for 20 years. And every time somebody told me about that challenge, I would say, ‘You ever been to Alaska? They get it. They know.’

[Eric Engebretsen, Owner and CEO, Bay Weld Boats]

Our primary limitation at Bay Weld is workforce, the skilled people to do what we need to do. The only way we can produce custom aluminum boats, we have to have the highest skilled tradespeople anywhere.

[Cory Ortiz, Division Director, Alaska Vocational Technical Center (AVTEC)]

AVTECH is a post-secondary vocational training center. We really focus primarily on hands-on training. More students are recognizing that there’s a significant return on investment for doing skilled trades.

[Alison Hawkins, Head of External Relations, Wells Fargo]

We chatted a little bit about what his needs were and felt like investing in Alaska would be money well spent.

So, we are, happy to announce a $250,000 donation to AVTECH.

[Applause]

[Sam Mazzeo, Commercial Banking Leader, Wells Fargo]

Skilled labor, from electricians to welders to plumbers to carpenters. We need about 1,500 people in those trades every year right now.

[Mike Dunleavy, Governor of Alaska]

The best years for Alaska are the next 50 years. And you guys have been the ones that built Alaska. You will be the ones that build Alaska. And I just appreciate everything you do to build this great state.

[Allyson Chryss, Welder, Bay Weld]

My dad is a naval engineer, so I wanted to work with boats and learned that welding was really fun.

[Amy Schumacher, Director, Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center]

The whole reason FPTC was built was to bring the trades together, to train together, because you go to the slope and you work together, so you might as well train together first. We have a pipeline training and everybody gets together. We build a mock pipeline, everybody knows a little bit about everybody else’s job so that you can orientate yourself when you’re on the slope.

[Rowe]

What are the risks? Okay. Where’s the danger?

[Danny Ruerup, Assistant Director, Alaska Laborers Training School]

So, the danger is literally getting out of bed every day. You’re working in climates that are anywhere from zero to 75 below, 80 below.

[Unidentified speaker]

We’re loading up this truck here.

[Unidentified speaker]

You’re under control, right?

[Rowe]

I can’t believe they tossed me the keys to the crane. It’s unbelievable.

[Music]

[Dan Sullivan, U.S. Senator, Alaska]

I never tire of bringing federal officials up here to see it.

[Vern Miller, COO, ASRC Energy Services-Houston Contracting Company, Inc.]

So, I think that these are important ways in which we can increase our skilled labor force. Without places like this, to train people to do this work, America falls apart.

So America’s biggest resource is the people that’s in it.

[Mary Knell, Vice Chair, Wells Fargo Commercial Banking]

That is why today I’m very proud, on behalf of Wells Fargo, to announce a $250,000 philanthropic investment.

[Whistling and applause]

[Schumacher]

We plan to update some of our equipment. We have a couple welders here, in fact, that we need to modernize. And, we will expand the introductory classes that some of our students take here at the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center.

[Rowe]

All we can do with what we know in the moment that we’re in is tell the best stories we can, and the stories that we need to tell are right in front of us. They’re the graduates of your program.

[Ruerup]

I was going to explain to my wife, ‘I just quit my job.’ Found the laborers hall, signed up, and a week later I was on the job making three times more money than I’d ever made in my entire life.

[Rowe]

It’s the American dream.