The Trade Talks

Mark Latham worked as a roofer in high school before becoming a firefighter for 22 years. Being a fireman taught him major life lessons, and how to lead others effectively. Latham would later start Firehouse Roofing Incorporated in 1997, earning the award of Best Roofer in DFW (Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex). They now specialize in all areas of exterior home services — roofing, siding, gutters, windows, and painting. He built his business the hard way, passing out flyers door to door. As a roofer in high school, he was making more money than any of his buddies which led to getting in some trouble and spending his money on “stupid stuff.” In fact, the paychecks were so good, he ended up quitting football and all other sports to focus on the trade. But it wasn’t easy. He tried several other side-businesses trying to find a way out of roofing. However, nothing could match the revenue or the pride he found as a roofer. His parents didn’t have the money to send him to college. So he tried his hand at the local junior college just so he could get into the fire academy. His mom was a teacher, and his dad was a small business owner doing insurance adjusting. Mark is still shocked his dad introduced him to the roofing industry because it is a wild bunch of guys operating in what are sometimes rough neighborhoods. But what hooked him was the grind, the hard labor. He developed a sense of pride and accomplishment. His sense of craftsmanship and pride came from his first boss.

To Mark, leaders are more important than ever when it comes to developing young tradesmen who will eventually go on to solve residential problems. Once Firehouse Roofing started taking off, Mark realized he couldn’t do it on his own. In fact, in the beginning, he didn’t even have money to spend on marketing — which is an entirely different beast these days. He also explains the differences between a roof repair and a roof install. As opposed to being familiar with an existing customer, a roof install is a brand-new venture on its own. And with roofs, customers don’t realize if it’s done well or not, all they really know is if there’s a leak. And Mark stresses the importance of doing the job with respect and care.

According to Mark, one of the major issues most business owners need to face are their systems and processes. If the operator isn’t good at it, then it would benefit them to hire someone who enjoys it. For young men and women who can’t get a job in their college major or choice, Mark recommends checking out your options in the skilled trades and labor market. Want to make thousands of dollars this summer? Try roofing, or any of the skilled trades. But as Mark stresses, there is no magic bullet. To build wealth, to grow your bank account and your status, it takes constant hard work.

Our Sponsor: LeakPro | Leak Detection Equipment LeakPro® has been providing reliable slab leak and swimming pool leak detection equipment for 40 years. Our products can help you find underground water leaks quickly and easily! Go to https://leak-pro.com __ Tradesmen built America. This is the "Blue Collar Channel"... Where you can listen to the top tradespeople around the world. Everything you need to learn about getting into the trades, becoming the best tradesman, starting your own business, and using networking and social media... To GROW in the trades!!!!

The politics in plumbing and the skilled trades can be nasty. They’re great for regulating policy, but behind closed doors where backhand deals are made between the regulators and the lobbyists, the industry is shaped by the few. For example, plumbers in Texas came within one signature of losing their license across the entire industry. What this means is that plumbers have little control over their own future. To prevent the legislation, a group of 7,000 licensed plumbers protested on the steps of the Texas state Capitol. Mike Prencavage, Jr. didn’t start out as a plumber. He was more interested in the role of an automotive mechanic. But then he eventually started plumbing 15 years ago as a sophomore in high school. In his words, “those water service lines don’t dig themselves.” He started as a technician, worked his way up to an installer and a shop foreman.

He’s now the owner and operator of The Family Plumber in Orange County, California. His father started the company, a grassroots effort. And now, Mike runs the business with a new school mentality and old school values. They are professionals, and don’t half-ass anything. They do their training through the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling-Contractors Association (PHCC). Never did he think it would transition from training for his guys, to a second profession as a board member at the local. According to Prencavage, a good plumber can earn a salary that would more than pay for their college tuition.

As a business owner, he’s willing to invest in your training, your tools, and everything else you need to be successful. The perception of tradesmen is changing rapidly. Their value is appreciating. It’s going to be a long time before AI and robots can do everything a plumber or tradesmen does. In this episode, Roger and Mike discuss the differences between plumbers and licensing between states like Texas and California. They discuss the value of training and networking, of best practices groups, and of establishing open lines of communication to help your business grow.

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Growing up, Lee Meazle never thought he would be the owner of his own plumbing company. However, the writing was on the wall. His grandpa and father were both plumbers. Following the death of his father, his mother worked three jobs to support him. High school he wasn’t fond of class or CNC. College was not interesting either. According to Lee, one of the overwhelming aspects of plumbing is all of the different specialties and required knowledge. From drains and gas lines to water, flow and backflow it was a lot of information upfront to become a good plumber. He questions if the journey to become a licensed plumber should take six years because of all of the information required to be a skilled tradesmen. But Roger Wakefield counters this argument, thinking the job could be done and as little as a couple months with the right teacher. Lee’s first job as a plumber was slab leak and leak detection. He was a plumber for 22 years before filing the paperwork to start his own company. He prefers hiring green plumbers over experience plumbers to teach them and guide them. The way a plumber should be as opposed to fixing existing plumbers bad habits. Lee credits God with placing him in the right place at the right time to become a great plumber, which allows him to pay off his wife’s college student debt and loans. In this episode, Roger and Lee recount not only their best plumbing stories like working in building and creating the great Wolf Lodge. It’s but also some of the worst most disgusting stories of leaks that had gone on for several years. One of the best plumbing jobs he recounts was working at MLB pitcher Clayton Kershaw’s house and the McDonald’s factory commercial job.

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Ben Alexander is a high school dropout, and he runs one of the largest, most professional handyman companies in the United States. He started out as an HVAC tech and worked up to the equivalent of a master’s license. He picked HVAC because there were more job opportunities. He-- never imagined he’d make the move from a designated skilled trades position to that of a handyman. What Ben couldn’t understand is the negative stigma associated with handymen. He believed there was little difference between a handymen and tradesmen. Additionally, he realized how much work handymen could create for the skilled trades, especially plumbers. It’s vital to have top notch customer service, as well as a great relationship with highly skilled local, licensed tradesmen.

According to Ben, handymen don’t do HVAC, plumbing, or electrical. His company has remodeled bathrooms, done paint and drywall, texture, window replacement, tile, carpentry, and exterior door replacement. College was never an option for him. His parents divorced. His father took the money and split. So he felt compelled to provide for his single, stay-at-home mom and his siblings. He went to the fire academy and found quickly it wasn’t the route for him. He tried flipping houses, and that wasn’t for him. Then he found out about HVAC and air conditioning in the classified ads of the newspaper. In trade school, he found he excelled at it — and realized he did poorly in school because he was bored. His first venture into the trades failed.

His second company, a new construction and geothermal installation business thrived. He managed the residential service portion, and within eight years they were a $9 million company with 45 employees. His strong work ethic was built from necessity. He’s couch-surfed and slept in garages during hard times, but the trades gave him a path to success, to a better standard of living.

Our Sponsor: LeakPro | Leak Detection Equipment LeakPro® has been providing reliable slab leak and swimming pool leak detection equipment for 40 years. Our products can help you find underground water leaks quickly and easily! Go to https://leak-pro.com

Tradesmen built America. This is the "Blue Collar Channel"... Where you can listen to the top tradespeople around the world. Everything you need to learn about getting into the trades, becoming the best tradesman, starting your own business, and using networking and social media... To GROW in the trades!!!!

David Butler had ambitions of being a doctor, so joining the skilled trades as a plumber was purely by chance. In high school, a man pulls up at football practice asking for players interested in digging ditches and trenches to help his lawn and irrigation business. By the end of summer, David was digging it, trenching it, wiring it, and connecting all of the irrigation lines and sprinkler heads. So naturally, plumbing was a logical transition during his time in med-school. He started out making $4 an hour. And his high school sweetheart, who’s now been his wife for 44 years, they were struggling, both pursuing intensive majors, so David dropped out of college and became a full-time plumber with the goal of one day owning a business. And in 1984 he got his masters license and started Butler Plumbing Company, with focused on commercial construction. At a young age, he was mechanically inclined. Learning to work on cars and change the oil with his dad. He made the transition from commercial to residential plumbing when he experienced the tradesman pride of satisfaction — fixing a problem that someone needs. He loves working with his hands and wanted to learn everything. He got his journeyman license within three years. His goal has always been to the be the biggest and the best plumbing with the highest job satisfaction. He sold his six-truck company in 2015 and is now the Responsible Master Plumber for Milestone Home Services in Dallas, Texas — a company that has gone from 3 trucks to 70 trucks and over 700 employees in 8 years. In this episode they discuss residential and commercial plumbing, home service, and even inside details of that dreaded dollhouse plumbers must tackle in Waco, Texas. David discusses that hard work will only get you so far. Many other things must fall into place. Never give up. Keep going. And everyone, at some point, needs a little help along the way. In David’s words, one of the hardest thing to do for an employer is to make payroll every Friday.

Our Sponsor: 

LeakPro | Leak Detection Equipment LeakPro® has been providing reliable slab leak and swimming pool leak detection equipment for 40 years. Our products can help you find underground water leaks quickly and easily!

Go to https://leak-pro.com

Tradesmen built America. This is the "Blue Collar Channel"... Where you can listen to the top tradespeople around the world. Everything you need to learn about getting into the trades, becoming the best tradesman, starting your own business, and using networking and social media... To GROW in the trades!!!!

Mark Rhodes is an instructor at one of the best trade schools in Texas, ForgeNow. Skilled in many trades, he’s a plumber but is also currently teaching a commercial HVAC class. ForgeNow specializes in fast-tracking green candidates and getting them job site ready in less than 8 weeks. He was trained and certified in HVAC through the Lindsey-Cooper Refigeration School. He has also worked in the skilled trades for over twenty years as a commercial and residential plumber. He learned his sense of discipline from his father, as well as the former military supervisors he trained under. He worked in residential service for ten years, and enjoyed it more because of the communication and engagement with the customers you’re helping. “To see the look one somebody’s that you helped when walking out the door is priceless,” he said. The brazing, the soldering, the welding, the hand-on, practical application at work is what appeals most to him. “Basically, anything with fire.” In this episode they discuss the difference between running gas lines versus water lines. Their love of setting and installing water heaters. Mark also enjoys setting fixtures and replacing toilets. His plans for the future are to become a master plumber and then maybe start his own business someday. From ForgeNow’s Website: ForgeNow equips, trains, credentials, and provides career placement support in the traditional tool-belt trades.ForgeNow offers intense, immersive, hands-on training courses designed for trades professionals. Crafted with the help of industry experts and contractors, our technical programs are designed for the unique needs of the field. Choose from four career pathways and embark on a new future with ForgeNow.

Go to: https://forgenow.com

Our Sponsor:

LeakPro | Leak Detection Equipment LeakPro® has been providing reliable slab leak and swimming pool leak detection equipment for 40 years. Our products can help you find underground water leaks quickly and easily! 

Go to https://leak-pro.com

Tradesmen built America. This is the "Blue Collar Channel"... Where you can listen to the top tradespeople around the world. Everything you need to learn about getting into the trades, becoming the best tradesman, starting your own business, and using networking and social media... To GROW in the trades!!!!

Megan Kendall had an atypical route to the skilled trades. She grew up in the well-to-do suburb of Highland Park, Texas, and graduated from Penn State University. As the Deputy Director of Education for the trade school, ForgeNow, she enjoys working with over 100 tradesmen daily, stressing that not only are tradesmen undervalued, but they are an extremely smart group of mostly men and women. She has been involved in lowering the certification time for HVAC, Electricians, and Plumbers to a 7-week course — something that could take aspiring apprentices and tradesmen years to complete through night school. HVAC students at ForgeNow start green, then within seven weeks, they come out qualified as an entry service technician, which, for HVAC, is a step above an installer. ForgeNow equips their students with the knowledge, the hard skills, and the soft skills to be a successful tradesman that can grow and rise through the ranks. Megan believes the effects and fallout of the skilled trades deficit and shortage of laborers will be seen for years unless more young men and women start getting into the trades. ForgeNow was founded for two reasons: to help bolster the nation’s shrinking supply of skilled technicians in the traditional infrastructure trades, and to launch careers by training the future technicians in the most immersive, hands-on, and efficient way possible. Every month, with a graduation rate of 85%, ForgeNow averages 50 graduates who go on to have a career in the trades. Many of their students come from the military, transitioning from active duty into civilian life.

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FORGE NOW https://forgenow.com

 Tradesmen built America. This is the "Blue Collar Channel"... Where you can listen to the top tradespeople around the world. Everything you need to learn about getting into the trades, becoming the best tradesman, starting your own business, and using networking and social media... To GROW in the trades!!!!

Mike Millsap grew up in the drag racing world, but he never thought it would lead to a shop allowing him to build the coolest cars in the world. He always had a passion for fixing cars, but after high school, never thought it would be more than a hobby and be a running, growing business. He asked his mom every day after football practice to drive him by his father’s shop to see how the new build was going. Eventually, he bugged them enough that at 14, the mechanics of the upholstery shop gave him a job sweeping floors one summer. This led to the birth of a welding shop which provided enough supplemental income so he could work on cars in his spare time. Within three years, he doubled his square footage, continuing to do so every 3-5 years after that. Since high school, he’s been so busy building hot rods for clients, he hasn’t had much time to build one of his own. But now he’s working on a ’62 chevy station wagon. Now, his focus is on the Hot Rod Power Tour. 3,000 miles in 7 days. He is the owner of Sachse Rod Shop, a full-build shop specializing in custom cars and auto restoration with a complete showroom. Go to: https://sachserodshop.com Matt explains the famous reality shows like West Coast Customs and Orange Country Choppers have not only helped the industry, but they’ve also made it worse in some ways. Our Sponsor: LeakPro, Leak Detection Equipment LOCATE LEAKS LIKE A PRO. American-Made Leak Locating Devices LeakPro® has been providing reliable slab leak and swimming pool leak detection equipment for 40 years. Our products can help you find underground water leaks quickly and easily! Go to https://leak-pro.com

Tradesmen built America. This is the "Blue Collar Channel"... Where you can listen to the top tradespeople around the world. Everything you need to learn about getting into the trades, becoming the best tradesman, starting your own business, and using networking and social media... To GROW in the trades!!!!

“As a tradesmen, if you don’t know something, you must learn it.” That is the basic foundation which led to Roger Wakefield having the biggest YouTube plumbing channel in the world. He started making videos as a means to advertise for his plumbing business, but what followed wasn’t in his wildest dreams. He is walking proof that you’re never too old to start a new career or learn a new skill. At the age of 54 he started his social media journey at a conference in which he heard YouTube was the second largest search engine in the world. As he started to leave, thinking the speaker was an idiot, the speaker said, “And it’s owned by Google, the largest search engine in the world.” That was the berth of the Expert Plumber as you know him today. He’s studied under Michael Gerber and Darrell Eves, finding innovative and exciting ways to bring plumbing education to the masses. Many people are negative and wonder what if something doesn’t work. Roger follows the principle set by the GoDaddy.com founder who asks the question: “What if this does work!?” Sponsor: LeakPro Leak Detection Equipment https://leak-pro.com 

In high school, Queena Johnson learned of a looming threat in the plumbing industry: ten plumbers were retiring for every one hire. That meant job security. So she took the apprentice exam and scored very high but didn’t accept a position until she graduated, eventually becoming a master plumber at 23 years old.

Her first job was at DSI screwing in check valves at the Great Wolf Lodge — it lasted two weeks and she was told, as a female, she was garnering too much attention from her male employees. After they “let her go” she moved over to Brandt (a mechanical, electrical, and plumbing service provider in DFW) where she worked the rest of her career in the Local 100 Plumbing and Pipefitters Union on high profile projects like Children’s Health and Parkland Hospital. In fact, one of her first instructors in the union, for the LEED AP class, was the expert plumber himself, Roger Wakefield. 

She excelled at reading blueprints. Her favorite classes were isometric drawing and soldering and brazing, and orbital welding as a 5th year. She enjoyed rigging class even though it was difficult.  Overall, Queena recommends going straight into the skilled trades out of high school, and if parents are pushing their kids to college, they’re most likely projecting their own aspirations onto their children.

Now she is the owner and operator of the full-service company, HER Plumbing serving the Dallas Fort-Worth Metroplex.