Mechanical Contractor Hermanson Company Offers Trade Experience to Underserved Teens
Words & Photos courtesy of Hermanson Company
After six weeks of hands-on experience in piping, plumbing, and sheet metal, nine Auburn School District students in the #HeavyMetalSummerExperience program celebrated their graduation at Hermanson Company in Kent, WA, on Thursday, August 4, 2022.
Co-founded by Hermanson Company and Western Allied Mechanical(Menlo Park, CA), the Heavy Metal Summer Experience (HMSE) is a free program for underserved high school students to gain exposure to all aspects of mechanical construction. Hermanson is committed to promoting awareness of career options for students and creating more diversity within the building trades workforce.
“Our job is to give the students experiences to explore and let them find what they’re great at and where their natural genius is,” said Rick Hermanson, CEO of Hermanson Company. “This allows kids to find what success looks like for them and learn that the building trades offer great careers and pay well. It also creates the awareness that there are alternatives to college.”
With shortages of skilled tradespeople entering the industry, programs like HMSE are part of a national movement to help young people discover rewarding careers that shape the skylines of their communities. In its inaugural year in 2021, HMSE was launched at Hermanson in Washington State and Western Allied Mechanical in California. This year, the program has grown to 11 hosting companies in five states across the United States.
Author, TV Host, and Hermanson’s Director of Oregon Operations Nick Kasik joined the graduation celebration as a guest speaker. He shared his personal experience as someone who has built his career working in the trade industry and now promotes the trades and vocational career options.
“These trades careers can take you places you can’t imagine if you just let it,” he said. “My life has truly been an adventure, and no other career could have taken me where it’s taken me or allowed me to see what I’ve seen. It can be the same for you. Be different, go into the trades, and allow them to take you somewhere different.”
Over the course of the free program, these hard-working students attended training sessions hosted by Hermanson craftspeople, toured local apprenticeship centers, and learned about what a career in the trades can offer. Students showed off their skills and pride in craftmanship by creating various projects, including sheet metal lanterns, welding belt buckles, toolboxes, and more. They also toured Local 66 and Local 32 Plumbers and Pipefitters, where they met instructors and learned more about joining the trades.
“This opens the doors and shows kids who may not be able to afford college that they don’t have to work minimum wage jobs,” said Cindy Wright, whose daughter Alex graduated from the program. “You can survive and thrive. We went from ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do after high school’ to ‘I’m going to join this union.’ It’s been huge.”
Thanks to generous donations from partners and sponsors, like Milwaukee Tool and Northwest Sheet Metal Workers Organizational Trust, HMSE provided each student with work boots, standard construction industry personal protection equipment (hard hat, vest, safety glasses, and gloves), and a complete toolkit. The tools and boots were theirs to take home at graduation. SMACNA-Western Washington also supports the program through funding and administrative support.
The six-week Heavy Metal Summer Experience career camp will return to Hermanson in 2023 when a new class of high school students is introduced to what careers in the trades can offer. Parents and students interested in attending or learning more can contact Jana Burbank at jburbank@hermanson.com.
For companies interested in hosting a HMSE camp at their facilities, please visit the Heavy Metal Summer Experience website at hmse.org.
Hermanson Company is a full-service mechanical contracting, engineering, and service company with over 700 employees in Washington and Oregon. ▪
The HMSE Playbook
The HMSE Playbook is a 125-page manual developed to share with interested contractors or JATCs to aid them in hosting camps at their facilities. It provides sample applications, permission releases, and video and media releases, as well as sample schedules, projects, and lessons learned.
“We tried to think of everything they might need to run the camp,” says Angie Simon, co-founder of HMSE. “I have received feedback from numerous camps last summer that the playbook was very valuable to help them plan their camp—it is designed to be a ‘Easy Button’ for the camp hosts.”
The Playbook details the curriculum and sample itineraries based on Western Allied Mechanical’s and Hermanson Company’s inaugural camps, and includes several photos of classroom and shop activities, projects, and exceptionally happy-looking students.
HMSE in the Summer of 2022
This past summer, the following local areas hosted HMSE camps:
- Greater Los Angeles area – 2 camps (Superior Duct Fabrication and LA JATC)
- Greater Bay area – 4 camps (Western Allied Mechanical, Silicon Valley Mechanical, ACCO, and Peterson Mechanical)
- Greater Seattle area – 2 camps (Hermanson and Johansen Mechanical)
- St. Louis, Missouri – 1 camp (SMACNA St. Louis, held mostly at the JATC with tours of contractors’ shops)
- Boston, Massachusetts – 1 camp (JC Cannistraro)
- Birmingham, Alabama – 1 camp (Hardy Inc.)
“We anticipate about 30 locations around the nation next summer—the above 11 plus the following locations: Buffalo, Atlanta, New Mexico, Nebraska, two in Iowa, Chicago, one just outside of DC, another Boston, another Seattle, Michigan, maybe Texas, San Diego, Wisconsin, and hopefully New York area,” Simon says. “Last summer we had about 170 students, and next summer I anticipate 425!”
Learn more at hmse.org
