{"id":108,"date":"2017-09-19T20:23:17","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T20:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.djcorprod.wpengine.com\/skilledmag\/?p=108"},"modified":"2018-10-03T19:57:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T19:57:54","slug":"from-trade-school-to-business-ownership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/2017\/09\/19\/from-trade-school-to-business-ownership\/","title":{"rendered":"From trade school to business ownership"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tradeschool\"A Q&A with Brandon Stowe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brandon Stowe has done it all. He\u2019s owned a business, been a teacher, been in the military, went to college, worked for the state, and even helped his grandpa fix refrigeration systems in mom and pop stores across the south when he was as young as twelve years old.<\/p>\n

While none of these experiences were more important than the next to get him to where he is now \u2013 running Stowe Mechanical Heating and Cooling in Long Beach, Washington \u2013 he wouldn\u2019t have accomplished any of it without the skills he\u2019s dedicated his life learning as a HVAC professional.<\/p>\n

We sat down with Stowe to talk with him about his career, and the importance of the education he received at the Northwest College of Construction in Portland, a craft, technical, supervisory and management education facility where he\u2019s now an instructor.<\/p>\n

How did you find out about the Northwest College of Construction?<\/strong><\/em>
\nI worked for a company down here in the Pacific Northwest that was an apprenticeship training sponsor and worked with the Northwest College
\nof Construction. It was a requirement that their employees went through the schooling. When I joined up with the company I\u2019d already had a lot of years of experience in the trades from working with my grandpa growing up, but the state of Oregon requires you to have a journeyman card for journey level work and a limited electricity class B license.<\/p>\n

When I started, my intention was to just sit through the classes, not pay many dividends to what\u2019s going on, take the tests and get out of there because I already had so much experience. What I learned quickly, and what was pretty eye opening, was that even for an expe-rienced individual like myself, there was still so much to learn. Even in year one, when we were learning the basics, the curriculum really filled in the gaps from the things I did know to the things I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

What got you interested in the trades and this type of work?<\/strong><\/em>
\nWhen I was younger, my grandfather did HVAC. He used to take me out to his jobsites and let me clean the coils or do other helper work. But what really got me interested in it was anytime he would change out a motor he would have me dissect it the same way you would a frog in science class. I was just fascinated by how reels of copper and metal can form a moving mechanical motor that can drive something or per-form a task. At first I was just intrigued, then I started to figure out how it all worked, and that\u2019s when I knew I was interested in it as a career.<\/p>\n

You already had a job lined up when you started going to Northwest College of Construction, but did your job opportunities increase once you graduated?<\/strong><\/em>
\nAbsolutely. I started the school and the curriculum with a local company, but the licenses, certificate and education I received through the program was the key to getting my next job, as the energy engineer for the State of Oregon. The engineering degree I already had wasn\u2019t a requirement for the job, but what was required was the certificate and licenses. I had a relatively good job, but those licenses, are what got me the career people strive for \u2013 a civil job with high pay, good health care, a pension, 401k and the whole nine yards. I wouldn\u2019t have gotten the job without the program. But not only was I able to get the job, but because of the education I got from the Northwest College of Construction, I was able to perform, and be utilized, in the way the state was looking for.<\/p>\n

So you not only got the requirements for the job, you got the skills to actually perform the job once you had it?<\/strong><\/em>
\nExactly. I was confident to perform all my tasks because we\u2019d gone over them in the classroom, and in the performance evaluation where you\u2019re actually doing the hands-on training. I hadn\u2019t just seen it in a book, I\u2019d done it. Those types of experiences were good for me because I\u2019m an audio and visual learner, but I\u2019m also very tactile.<\/p>\n

So how did your time at the Northwest College of Construction help you in what you\u2019re doing now, running your own successful business?<\/strong><\/em>
\nThere are two courses that really helped me beyond just the technical training. In year one there is a course on communications and how to talk to your clients. Then in year four there is a course on leadership, which teaches you how to be effective running a jobsite, foreman or even a business owner. Both of those courses were very beneficial to transitioning me to where I am at today running a company that\u2019s in its second year and grossing $4 mil-lion in revenue.<\/p>\n

Outside of your technical skill, what has your experience with Northwest College of Construction taught you personally?<\/strong><\/em>
\nConfidence building in a structured learning environment is important to everyone. We deal with a lot of peo-ple who come into these schools and feel as if it\u2019s a level below traditional institutions like a four-year college. So, a lot of the time there are some confidence issues with the person starting the program. They feel like this isn\u2019t as successful as a path as some of their peers. But honestly, after going through this program, these programs are geared to change that way of thinking and to show you the opportunity in your chosen field.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s face it, I can teach you a technical skill, but if you don\u2019t have the confidence to go succeed with it, you won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I went through a four-year college before I went to the Northwest College of Construction. That shows you that there isn\u2019t a magical pathway or formula. What we try to teach everyone is that you have just as much ability to be successful in this world as someone that becomes a nurse, a doctor or a lawyer. A trade doesn\u2019t have a cap or a limit as far as what you can do or what you can earn. The only person that can put that cap on you is yourself.<\/p>\n

Lastly, what have been the key differences between the four-year university you went to and the Northwest College of Construction?<\/strong><\/em>
\nFor me, both are very positive paths with loads of potential. I would never bash a four-year college or more traditional learning environment. They\u2019re all there to help facilitate your next phase in life. There are positives all around, but with trade schools their aim is to be more specific in what they\u2019re teaching you. And if you look at what they\u2019re teaching you, these are skills that are highly in demand, and will continue in demand. You\u2019re seeing a lot of the work-force in other industries diminish with technology. That\u2019s not happening in the trades.<\/p>\n

The advantage of these programs is that you\u2019re going to be able to find a job, it\u2019s going to be a job in what you studied, you\u2019re going to be able to work just about anywhere you want to, and it\u2019s going to pay you a living wage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Q&A with Brandon Stowe Brandon Stowe has done it all. He\u2019s owned a business, been a teacher, been in the military, went to college, worked for the state, and even helped his grandpa fix refrigeration systems in mom and pop stores across the south when he was as young as twelve years old. While …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5540,"featured_media":405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5540"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}