East Hartford, Connecticut is yet another municipality addressing the growing skilled trades shortage. Last week, in an open-ended meeting between local business leaders, Senator Gary LeBeau and three state representatives, the agenda was the municipality’s inability to deal with a variety of problems due to a lack of skilled workforce.

Harold Harris, of Concepts and Plastics, a Manchester industry, said “We need a lot of tradespeople, but nobody is interested in that. Nobody is talking about sending kids to trade, because they can’t all be College level. You need another level that they can go to and earn a good living, and be able to provide society.”

Scott Livingston, of Horst Engineering chimed in, “We are reaching the point where we can predict when we are going to lose the key people that actually sustain us in business today, when you see retirements coming. There is a wave of [retirements] in the next seven years, when we will probably lose thirty percent of our workforce. We don’t create the next generation of people working in manufacturing.”

State representative Chris Stone recounted a similar experience at the Metropolitan District (MDC) where he is also a commissioner. “We are doing an $850 million dollar investment at MDC to improve out sewer system, and MDC is having a very difficult time finding the sewer line guys and gals, and the trades’ people – the electricians and plumbers – a very difficult time. The capacity for that type of work does not exist, and they are creating capacity. They are providing some of the training we are talking about.”

Solutions to the skilled trade shortage in Hartford 

Senator LeBeau said, “We have two generations of kids believing they shouldn’t go to manufacturing, that there will not be jobs there. And I think the same for science and math. We have to go down to sixth, seventh, eighth grade [and] show kids how there are really tremendous opportunities out there and have them say ‘I can work on photonics, I can work on lasers.’”

Leaders agreed with Stone’s assessment that there has to be an attitude change, as a beginning solution to the problem. “The regulations agencies pass are based on broad proclamations of the legislature, and we don’t get into the fine tuning of these regulations,” said Stone. “There has to be a change in attitude from the top, and if there is, these bureaucracies hopefully will make a difference.”

LeBeau put forth another idea he had found intriguing: “angel investing” or “early entrepreneurial investing,” that supports new companies, inventors, and entrepreneurs at their first steps.

“Thirty five other states have [programs] and Connecticut does not,” said LeBeau. “Last year $29 billion dollars were invested by ‘angel’ investors. I think $5 million came back to the state, and that is an incredibly small number. And I say ‘came back’ because where do you think these investors live? On the Golden Coast, right here. But we don’t give then any tax credit for these kids of investments, so the money goes out of the state to start businesses elsewhere, without capturing, in a sense, our fair share. And given the fact that we have tremendous advantages in the technology area, that there are wonderful kids coming out of the schools and universities, we can get them on he ground floor.”

Eliot Ginsberg, CEO of the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT), said that any decision for change or renewal must be made soon and it will come at a price.

“I am not sure that we are valuing time as we did in the past,” said Ginsberg. “If we can think we can wait five years, or ten years, we are talking about states that are hungry for the technology, states that are almost bidding for these companies. There needs to be a recognition either that manufacturing must be maintained in this state, and promoted, and increased, and we have a culture, that starts from the legislature, that it’s worth investing in it, or we have to chose not to [invest in technology and trades], and put resources into other things, and have our kids get their jobs elsewhere in the country.”