Welcome to the first episode of Working Man, the official podcast of Harmel Academy of the Trades. 

Harmel Academy is a residential, Catholic trades academy that forms men in their Catholic faith while training them in a high-demand, skilled trade. For more information, please visit us at HarmelAcademy.org or you can follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Our guest today on this inaugural episode is Brian Black, the co-founder and president of Harmel Academy of the Trades. Before co-founding our academy, Brian spent decades in the skilled trades working as general manager of Grand River Builders in Grand Rapids, specializing in historic building restoration. He and his wife Diane homeschooled their seven children, but now that all seven are raised and out of the house, they’ve turned to their next adventure: founding the first residential, Catholic trade academy in the country.

In this episode we talk a little bit about the reasons Harmel Academy exists, what the Church has to teach us about the deep meaning of human work, and the virtues a man must have to learn to work well. This episode was recorded literally hours before the state of Michigan went into quarantine for the coronavirus pandemic, and so the audio is a little wonky. But since we can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, we’re rolling with it. I hope you enjoy it.

The music in this episode is “The Grind” by Justin Mahar,  "I’ll Follow You" by Density and Time, and "I Feel Like Partying Right Now" by Nat Keefe & BeatMower.