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Breaking new ground:
New school embraces Old School valuesBradley Tech poised to supply industry workforce
By Candace Doyle
Editor
"Our job and our responsibility in this school is to get kids so fired up about technical jobs they can’t wait to pick one ."
Fred Schroedl
Assistant Principal
Bradley TechIt may be a stretch to believe that the Super Mario Brothers from the video game Donkey Kong could inspire a career path.
Believe it.Miguel Diaz, 18, is following in the footsteps of the Nintendo game characters by pursuing a career as a plumber at Milwaukee Tech.
At least that's part of the reason. The other part is the school's program itself, he said.
"Actually, I've been interested in plumbing since I was little," Diaz said. "I never had anything else I wanted to do. I'm into repair. I want to fix and remodel things."
Diaz said his decision to become a plumber and attend the tech school was encouraged by his family.
"My mom kind of told me something about it," he said. "I have an uncle who's in the trades- he's an electrician."
For Diaz, the school and its offerings are ideal. He has no interest in continuing school once he has his diploma in hand.
"I'd rather not go to college. I'm not too into school. Actually, when I get out of here, I'm going to try to get a job with a contractor. Then I'm going to take the apprenticeship test."
And his teachers at Milwaukee Tech are preparing him well for that move, he said.
"They have a prepping for the test. They tell us about the money, how the raises work, how the pensions work. I'm really into it."
They also tell Diaz and his classmates about the work skills they'll need when they graduate. Diaz said once before class when he and his friends were talking, their teacher kept track of how much time-and potential earnings-they wasted.
"If we were like that everyday, he calculated what we would not make," Diaz said. "We sort of got the picture."
Diaz knows his options well. He knows he can complete his high school education and work toward a plumbing apprenticeship. He knows he can attend a two-year college or a four-year university.
Diaz also knows himself and what he's passionate about - plumbing. So when faced with deciding whether to go on to school or head to the world of work, the choice was clear.
"This is the short cut to skip that step and save some money too," he said of not continuing his education.
Presenting students with information to base intelligent career decisions on is the aim of the Lynde and Harry Bradley School of Technology and Trade, said Kenneth Munson, the director of the school that will replace Milwaukee Tech.
"What this school is really all about is giving kids as many options as possible," he said.
Munson said the new $50 million, 280,000-square-foot school will have no trouble recruiting students either. The school's capacity is 1,440; Milwaukee Tech's is 1,700.
"Milwaukee Tech hasn't had trouble getting kids in," he said. "For us, now, it'll be making sure they know what the school is about."
Munson said recruitment efforts will be honest - the pros and cons of trades will be addressed.
"Plumbing is hard work," he said, "but it can be satisfying."
For those students who want to pursue construction management, the school can steer them in that direction as well.
"The school will offer them that too," Munson said. "It comes down to being honest and being explicit."
The school's assistant principal, Fred Schroedl, agreed: "We want to make it clear that the school is not just for kids who want to go into the trades. Some kids might go right into work. Some will go on to a four-year degree. Some will go on to an associate degree, and some will go on to an apprenticeship.
"Our program will be successful if a student pursues any one of those."
"I never used half the tools I use here. I didn’t know the names of the tools. I learned everything here."
Miguel Diaz
Milwaukee Tech studentBut whatever option students choose, Schroedl said they need support each step of the way. And Bradley Tech, as the new school is known, is positioned to provide that.
Schroedl said that, in the 1980s and early 1990s, when the construction economy was not doing as well as the more recent past, relationships the school built up with business and industry faded.
"The linkages we had fell by the wayside," he said.
The players changed and the communications network that had been established broke down.
"Now, partially through the new school, we're able to reestablish that network," he said.
That network is essential, Schroedl said, as the school could not succeed if business and industry leaders did not take an active role in letting students know about their options.
"Our kids come from a nonexperiential home environment," he said. "There's minimal exposure to, and encouragement for, kids to go into these nontraditional fields from the home. That's why this ongoing support network is so essential for the kids."
Schroedl said it's up to the industry itself to sell students on careers in the field. That can be through job shadowing, apprenticeships or internships.
"They need professionals in the field to talk to them," he said. "Maybe this becomes a mentoring system. We want to use upperclassmen to help our underclassmen."
At the heart of all that, though, is providing students with honest appraisals about the field.
"What are the trades offering?" he asked.
Students like Diaz, who choose to be craftsmen, should know what the pay ranges and hours are. Likewise, students who opt instead to be in management should understand what their workweek would look like.
"You're going to work 70, 80 hours a week," Schroedl said management-driven students need to know. "You're probably going to be salaried, not on an hourly wage."
Those involved in reinventing the school - and there were many, including Lyle Balistreri, president of the Milwaukee Building & Construction Trades Council, and John Goldstein, executive director of the Milwaukee County Labor Council - have high hopes Bradley Tech will train the construction industry's future work force.
The building, which could be occupied as early as fall of 2002, would serve students in grades 9-12. Hunzinger Construction, Milwaukee, and Clark Construction of Bethesda, Md., have formed a joint venture to provide construction management for the project. Ground was broken on the site in March.
The new school will be much smaller than the 420,000-square-foot Milwaukee Tech, which was built in 1911 at 319 W. Virginia St. and underwent more than 16 additions over its lifetime.
Despite those efforts at upgrading the school, it had become outdated in the 1970s.
No one showed a real interest in the tech school until 1996, when Milwaukee philanthropist Jane Bradley Pettit learned of the need for technology education. She alerted her father, Harry Bradley, and the idea for the school was born. The new school is named after her father and uncle.
The Bradleys offered $20 million for a new tech school, provided another $5 million could be raised privately. The Greater Milwaukee Committee took the Bradleys up on that challenge and raised $7 million for the school.
The city of Milwaukee followed suit, contributing $15 million for the effort, as did Milwaukee Public Schools, which offered nearly $9 million for the project. Other donors include: Rockwell Automation, which donated $1 million in cash and equipment over five years; the Fleck Foundation, $100,000; Journal Communications, $50,000; the Joseph Johnson Charitable Trust, $15,000; Payne & Dolan, $10,000; and Associates for Health Care, $5,000.
Additionally, the school's $12 million annual operating budget is to be provided by MPS.
An 11-member commission representing unions, educators and the neighborhood has been formed to oversee the project, and Hammel Green & Abrahamson was hired to design the school.
Schroedl said the new school will have three primary academies: manufacturing, communication and construction. And each academy will have four standards that students will need to reach: an academic standard, a technical standard, an information technology standard and an employability standard.
The employability standard, he said, is "probably one of the most significant standards" as students who master it will learn invaluable work skills such as time management and working as a team.
"You come here as a young adolescent, but you leave here as a young adult," he said. The employability is stressed through the four high school years, Schroedl said, and it's not until the middle of the sophomore year that a student needs to elect an academy.
"We think we need a good year and a half to two years to lay that base of understanding," he said.
In the construction academy, that base includes learning about what he calls "the soft side of the industry" - real estate, management.
"The notion is not that everyone is going to be a craftsperson," Schroedl said. "The industry has much more breadth than that.
"This is not about going on to college or not going on to college."
Mike Fabishak, the executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors of Greater Milwaukee, said he hears anecdotal evidence from members that there is a skilled labor shortage in the construction industry.
"You couldn't find an electrician if you gave away your firstborn son," he said he's heard members lament.
But what specific trades are hurting and by how much is data not readily available. And, it's data that literally changes with the weather, Fabishak said.
Yet Fabishak said he's concerned more about the future - 10 years from now when more and more in the industry retire.
Despite the best of intentions, Bradley Tech can't solve that problem on its own.And it doesn't have to.
The 21st Century Urban Technical Education Program was designed to address such issues.
Dale Dulberger is the project manager of the Milwaukee Area Technical College program and helped secure a more than $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to take a look at the labor market, construction's included.
Dulberger said results of an NSF-funded survey are not yet in, but the information sought includes what jobs are in demand and what skills are needed to fill those jobs.
That type of information, he said, will help MATC align its curriculum to that of Bradley Tech - and other high schools - so students can effectively make the transition to post-secondary schools if that's what they want.
Beyond that, though, Dulberger said the MATC program is striving to attract students to careers in technology and the trades by offering career fairs and linking students up with appropriate trade associations.
He's also helped line up student tours of Miller Park, and Dulberger said the Carpenters Union has given students tours of sites.
"We're doing a variety of things," he said. "Our program is multipurpose."Like Munson and Schroedl, Dulberger said students need accurate information about trade jobs if barriers to entry are to be overcome.
"Construction does have a reputation as it's hard work," Dulberger said. "And one of the big concerns is the issue of safety. Employers have to do a much better job (of making sites safe)."
But the up side is that the money's good, he said, and most job sites are safe.
"I think when an issue comes up like the Miller Park stuff, it gives the industry sort of a black eye," he said. "But it's not representative."
Milwaukee Tech's Diaz is not too concerned about safety right now.
And while he knows the money he can make is good - $11 an hour as a first-year apprentice - he isn't giving that much thought at the moment either.
What Diaz is thinking about is all he's learning.
"I never used half the tools I use here," Diaz said about Milwaukee Tech. "I didn't know the names of the tools. I learned everything here."
Diaz is excited about his prospects, and he's even got a first project in mind when he graduates: He plans on installing a shower in his family's house, which only has a bathtub now.
"That's the first thing I want to do," he said.
That kind of enthusiasm is what Schroedl said the school strives for: "Our job and our responsibility in this school is to get kids so fired up about technical jobs they can't wait to pick one."
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