Shownotes
This week on the show we're talking about something most business owners never think about until they can't find people to hire the pipeline. Tom Hermann is an educator who spent 24 years as a principal and now works on connecting schools with businesses through experiential learning. And he's got something important to tell you.
There's a massive gap between what schools teach and what the real world actually looks like. No amount of videos or lectures can bridge that. A student can learn construction theory in a classroom, but until they're 25 feet up in the air on an actual job site with nothing to grab, they don't really know what it's like. That's where you come in.
The shift happening right now in education is that schools finally understand they can't do it alone. They need businesses to open their doors. Not for a year-long commitment. Not for a massive time investment. For a half day. An hour. Even just a conversation. Let a teacher walk your facility for 30 minutes so they can go back and tell students about the real work happening in their own community.
But here's the bigger piece when you bring people into your organization, whether they're students or new hires, they need to understand they belong to something bigger than their job. They need to see the whole picture, not just their task. And they need to know there's a path forward. That sense of belonging and purpose matters more than the paycheck now.
Highlights:
- There's a gap between school and work that experience is the only way to bridge.
- Most schools need businesses to help. The commitment level is very low start small.
- New employees need to understand how their role fits into the bigger picture.
- Belonging and purpose matter more to younger workers than the paycheck.
- Clear growth paths and "what's next" conversations change retention dramatically.
- Your best recruitment tool is your local school.
Make sure to subscribe to Blue Collar BS where we talk about the things most don't want to talk about so we can help move the trades forward. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear real conversations from people actually working in the trades today.
Helpful Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQZokbCmCkg&authuser=0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMu4ySZKVZE&authuser=0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wd0J-Uk9Eo&authuser=0
Get in touch with Tom:
Phone - 262-497-6351
Get in touch with us:
Check out the Blue Collar BS website.
Steve Doyle:
Brad Herda:
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
Hey everyone, welcome back to this episode of the Blue Collar BS podcast. This is a little bit different episode today in a start because my co-host, Steve Doyle has decided to go to Arizona and it is cold, snowy and windy here in Southeastern Wisconsin and Detroit. So he couldn't have picked a better time to bail on me to host this show. But I am blessed to be here with Tom Herman as my guest and we sit on the Home Building Trades Foundation together.
Tom Hermann (:Ha
Brad Herda (:Tom is a former principal within the Union Grove High School here. He works currently in the Southwest Milwaukee Consortium. He's been there, done that, seen things, all kids, all types of things, all parents, and we are grateful, Tom, to have you here today to bring your knowledge and education to our audience. So thanks for being here.
Tom Hermann (:Great to be here. Thank you very much, Brad.
Brad Herda (:You know what? Every guest says that. Great to be here. I sometimes I just don't wonder. I think you're just in too kind. So. That's true. Thank you for that. We appreciate that. Steve's question that he tends to sometimes forget that I get to take over is what generation are you part of belong to? Where do you fit into the generational ecosystem?
Tom Hermann (:Just following the script you sent me,
Tom Hermann (:I am a Generation X, proud to be 55-year-old individual.
Brad Herda (:Okay, we are that same generation. Steve will claim that he is also part of that Gen X, but we know he's not. That's not his behaviors. If you listen to the show, you'll know. So how did you get into the education world to begin with and what led you down that
Tom Hermann (:Well, I think it was nature and nurture working against me. Three of my siblings are in education. My mother was an English teacher. My grandmother was an art teacher. Everybody went to Marquette University, believe it or not. mean, truly, all the way through my grandmother. I think they were doing art on stone tablets down on Wisconsin Avenue when she was there.
Brad Herda (:Wow.
Tom Hermann (:Anyways, so I started out as an English teacher. I came out of school at a time when there were three to four hundred English teachers applying for the same job. So that was wild. So I ended up going actually to Arizona to find a full-time job. Absolutely loved it. Did that for three years. Called up the principal of Union Grove High School said, hey, I'm coming back to Wisconsin. I would really like an interview and
Thank God I got in there. I was an English teacher there, then I was a assistant principal, then I was the principal. So my whole stint there was 24 years. And then towards the end, we started to do some things that were very interesting and I wanted to do more of it. And that's what led me to the job that I have now. The five superintendents that I work for actually were very forward thinking. They basically said, we need somebody to get our kids out of the building.
We do school very well. We have been killing it since the 80s. We can get kids into Madison. We can get you the ACT score that you need. We know how to do school very well. But there's more to school. There's experiential learning that our kids are not getting. So here I come along and they're like, definitely want to have you open some doors, connect with businesses, and get our kids out the door, especially in their senior year.
When kids are kind of mature and they're kind of done with school, know, they're kind of like I'm out, you know I need something else. Okay And as a former English teacher, I can tell you they weren't running from the parking lot to get into my class, you know, I I'm quite sure Yeah, that's right
Brad Herda (:Are you sure? Try to use the right punctuation. mean, especially, especially in their text strings, are they using? So here's a question. So as an English teacher, are emojis part of the English teaching opportunity today or not? Are we using emojis as part of our, our English speaking or part of our language?
Tom Hermann (:Absolutely not. Every English teacher is on a crusade to fight against text language emojis. Brad, this is no joke, okay? And you're gonna think I'm a little strange. I have never used an emoji in my life, ever, never ever. No, no. No, I'm not gonna jump over there. I'm not gonna ruin the, I'm not ruining the King's English, okay? No, we're not doing that, sorry. I just couldn't do it. I'd have to like,
Brad Herda (:you should try it just once. Just try it just once. Get past the fear. Get past the fear.
One thumbs up time, it's all it takes.
Brad Herda (:One thumbs up, one omitted period.
Tom Hermann (:cut off my English teacher card, you know, or something.
Brad Herda (:one omitted period, one omitted comma, one hyphen, just try it.
Tom Hermann (:The fact that we don't have two spaces after a period now, I mean, that's the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. No, not just kidding.
Brad Herda (:So, so, so this experiential learning piece that your visionary folks years ago were looking at. so that was that experiential learning the opportunity to, to focus more on that? Was it all industries? Was it everything? Was it healthcare industry? Was it all of it? Or, or did you find a path to kind of lead down the, the trades world and different things or?
How did it all work out for you?
Tom Hermann (:It's both. It's not equally distributed among industries. The number of industries that have entry-level positions favor construction and healthcare in this area. if you're in one of those areas, we got a really easy path for you to get in and start working, launch your career. Computer science, much more difficult. Engineering, much more difficult. So some are easier than others. But the state is actually becoming a really broadening thing.
Okay, so they just started education a couple years ago Which is okay what like we didn't think of that first, you know Because we're short teachers. Yeah, sometimes it's like what are we doing, you know? So they're broadening the pathways. It's just a matter of do we have employers? You know that are out there that are willing to take on high school students And I'm not talking about the full youth apprenticeship like a full-paid job I'm talking about just connecting with them and doing
an interview like this, okay, or doing a job shadow or coming in and speaking to our students, anything that is, here's what we are gonna learn and now we're gonna somehow apply it or use it in a different context so that it now is a lot more relevant to you and you got to actually see an application of it instead of just learning it for the sake of learning it and turning it into Mr. Herman on Friday for a grade, you know. That's how I went to school, know, everything was like study for the test on Friday.
Why did you do it? Well, I had to because I had to get points. I needed points for a grade. Thank God the school is a lot different now.
Brad Herda (:Write, state, read, regurgitate, memorize.
Brad Herda (:Right. And ironically, that experience aside, so Sussex IM, one of their leaders sits on a board with us at the chamber and, you I him to sign up for, be part of the Home Building Trades Foundation group, right, to try to bring in apprentice or shadows or different things. And we've got an elementary school principal that's on our board and like, you guys need to connect and get these fourth and fifth graders into your, into your organization and see the things and
Tom Hermann (:Yep.
Brad Herda (:and see the makeup cases and things that you're making that might be sitting on the bathroom counter, you know, in their house that mom's using or their sisters or brother, whatever, whoever's using whatever that is to say, hey, you know what? I went to this place today and I saw where they make this. Right. And those types of things are so beneficial and impactful. how are you so so experiential learning piece? Have you seen a transition just from
in all years of education that that is becoming more impactful than the standard, let's sit at a desk, read the things, do the things and take a test. Is that becoming more of a norm or is that being disparate?
Tom Hermann (:Yep. yeah. Yeah.
Tom Hermann (:Just in the last five years, schools have now hired people like me. Jim Mitchleg, who you know is over at Muskego, Dustin Layman's over at McGonagall, Chris Trottier at Elkhorn. So they're intentionally finding, okay, we need a champion of this. You can't just expect the guidance counselor to make all these connections on the side while they're doing a full-time, or a teacher for that matter. They have full-time jobs. So we need to hire somebody that's gonna make these connections.
create these opportunities for students, whether they're a one-off kind of field trip or there's an ongoing thing. So it's a very intentional approach to school, which is far different than, I mean, I didn't even go to a, I didn't even go on a field trip when I was in high school for four years, okay? I'm pretty sure no one went on a field trip in my high school in four years, you know? Very much like, you know, your standard eighties, you got somebody in the front.
the font of knowledge, spewing forth everything and a bunch of people in the rows sitting there just taking it all in, hopefully taking it all in. And I'm not to say that lecture is a bad, bad mode and everybody was trying to do their best then. That was what we had. Now we have so many more opportunities. And I think the biggest thing, Brad, that I noticed within the last 15 years
is business opening their doors for education. For so long, we were very much siloed. And it was like, all right, we're gonna do our thing and then we're gonna pump out a kid and then that kid will switch over, you come into your world and then you do your thing. And there was no interaction. Now, boy, the doors are open. And I really think it's just, they need a talent, they need to hire people. And I think also too, they just wanna be good corporate citizens.
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Tom Hermann (:They know the value of, if we have something that we can help kids along, even if the kid doesn't work for us, they're going to work somewhere. They're going to be in the community. They're going to be a good citizen. They're going buy a house. They're going to pay taxes. So just a mindset from the business world has changed dramatically, too, for the better, which makes those experiential opportunities so much easier to make happen.
Brad Herda (:Thanks.
Brad Herda (:So let's just, let's take that experiential piece into the onboarding process for a business, right? So you get to see the students and the kids and see what they're doing. And most organizations, whether it's healthcare or trades or construction or whatever, the onboarding process is, the experience is not very experiential.
Go follow George or go follow Sally or Alans for three weeks and eventually you'll learn it because you're watching somebody do it. What would be some of the things you may suggest to our audience for when they're bringing people on board to help the engagement and the onboarding process of bringing somebody either in as a part-time or full-time young individual into their organization?
Tom Hermann (:Right.
Tom Hermann (:Right.
Tom Hermann (:Well, you definitely have to have them on site. Our HBTF job shadowing program, I think that that is an absolutely invaluable experience. What you want to make sure is that that employee wants to be there, that they fully understand what they're getting into, that their eyes wide open. And there's no way you can replicate that without them being on site, walking behind Sally. It doesn't have to be three weeks, but it's got to happen. The other thing is that you have to give them a global perspective of the company.
They're one little cog within this larger thing. Okay, we're all driving the same direction. We're all moving in the same direction. This is where the process... Okay, I'm giving people the benefit of their doubt, not know who sounds like an old curmudgeon. My God, you know? My goodness, you know?
Brad Herda (:supposed to be.
Brad Herda (:What the?
Tom Hermann (:We're all dry, let's just take a manufacturing plant. The raw material comes in over here, our final product goes out here. Let's walk through the entire process. Yeah, you're gonna be, I don't know, we're making something and I'm the paint guy. Well, if I don't know where it comes in and I don't know how it looks when it leaves, I'm just the paint guy and I don't really care about anything else. Now, all of a sudden, I can see that I'm a much, I belong. I belong and I'm part of something that's bigger than just me. Yeah.
At the end of the day, I got to know how to do my job. I got to do it really well. And I'm working for a paycheck. OK, let's be honest. I got to get paid. But if I feel like I have some investment in this because I'm making a product that someone's going to use, it's going to be helpful for them. It's going to make their life better. It's going to make their life easier. Whatever it is that we're making here. If you can have that perspective in that new employee from the get go, I think that that pays dividends.
As far as, you know, doing a lot of, I hear about,
Brad Herda (:I just want to, I want to make sure our, if our audience did not listen to that last two minutes from Tom, you need to go back and re-listen to that about how that sense of belonging and purpose and being part of a bigger thing than just being an employee doing a task. That piece is vitally important to today's workforce more so than ever before. So if you didn't hear that before, if you just passed through those couple of minutes, go back and re-listen to that because that is the foundation of
retention and recruiting. Sorry, I just wanted to make sure we made that very clear because that was very well stated and I am in violent agreement with you that that sense of belonging and purpose is far greater than the paycheck.
Tom Hermann (:I think also to the, this younger generation, I sound like I'm 80, back when I was a kid, they wanna know what's next for me too. Not on the first day, not in the first week, but very early on, what can I do next? And that might be in three years. That might be in five years, whatever. What's the path for growth here? What can I actually continue to do? Because once I...
get it and I'm good at what I do. There's a certain level of comfort that I wanted, you know, hey, you know what, I don't have to think through everything when I go to work. I don't have to be all stressed out. I got it. Okay. I got my legs under me, but you know, as well as I do at some point, I got to be challenged again. I got to be, I got to move on to something else. Okay. And the company needs people to fill different spots as people leave, you know, well, why not grow your own? So if I know the path that I could potentially be on,
The chances of me staying there, I think go up significantly. Because now I know that they're even thinking about me being in another role down the line means that they really kind of cared about me. That they really, that there is some, and it might just be transactional. It's not like they're putting their arms around me and sending me flowers, but it's, you know, it's, you know what, I got a place here.
next year and the year after that. And I could see myself with a little training if I do well for myself here, okay? I come to work, I work really hard, I ask good questions, I'm coachable, I'm doing stuff, okay? They're gonna take care of me. And here's some of my opportunities down the line. That I think is extremely important for younger people to know. So what's next?
Brad Herda (:Right. So your job role that you're now in this this experiential coordinator or, you know, kind of going out into the marketplace and to connect the dots between education and, you know, business world, so to speak. How does a or I'm going to bet half our listeners, if not more, didn't even know those roles existed, even though.
Jim was on the show a couple years ago. So we made people aware how how do community members or businesses that want to get involved in their in their school, besides just calling the principal or the office, how do they find your job role in their districts and their things to get involved? And what are some of the things they can do to to leverage their their community system?
Tom Hermann (:Right, Yeah, especially if they don't have kids in that district, you know, because they're brand new and they're 25 years old and they've just assumed into a leadership role and they, know, part of their job is to connect with schools. You know, I don't have kids yet, maybe. I don't even know anybody or my kids are in kindergarten. So how do I know anybody at the high school? You know, I get it. Quite honestly.
I think as a former principal, I would love it when people would call me and say, how do I connect with your science farmer? How do I connect with your tech ed people? How do I connect with whomever, you know? And I think it's just that easy. And if they don't know, if it's in the state of Wisconsin, they can call me and I'll make the connection for them. I'll give you my phone number too, if you want. know, literally, if that's what it takes, I will.
I will make that connection for you. And I'm not being facetious or whatever. just saying, I don't want any barriers. I don't want any hurdles to get in the way of that. If you're willing to connect with a school, do that. Let's make that happen. I had one.
Brad Herda (:What's the commitment level that you're looking for from those partners coming into a school typically? mean, are we talking about a one in nine?
Tom Hermann (:Very low, very, very low. Yeah, very, very low, okay? I've come to understand, from an educational world, I know enough about business to know that everybody in business, their time is absolutely, time is money. We always have to be cognizant of the fact that they're talking to me, they're probably not making money. They're probably, you know, there's a give and take, okay?
And so we have to be very cognizant of the fact that if they're willing to engage for half a day, okay, a half a day is a lot of time. If they're unwilling to engage for an hour, okay, that's still they're taking time out of their day. So I would say very low, okay? And that's because I don't want anyone to get scared off. I don't want anyone to be like, well, I don't know if we can do this and be overwhelmed.
It's so much better to start small and just build. That might be none other than me sending my teacher over to your manufacturing plant to walk around for a half hour and just find out what product you make so that that person can now be a brand ambassador for XYZ Manufacturing Company, which is, by the way, one mile away from the school, go back, talk to the students in their class.
about, know, in your own community, this is what they're making. You know, this is pretty cool. You know, in Union Grove, there was a company that actually made things for the F-35s. And I was like, what? I didn't know that, you know. I like this is this is like high tech stuff. And we're making it in a little Union Grove here. I am phenomenal. You know.
Brad Herda (:Well, in Wisconsin, we're disproportionate to manufacturing jobs compared to the rest of the country on a per capita basis. We're like a two to one ratio of industrial jobs relative to other states around us. And it's really important, at least for the upper Midwest here, that we keep filling the pipeline and keep providing opportunities and bringing awareness because...
you know, by fourth or fifth grade, kids know what they don't want to do, but they don't, they know what they don't like, but they don't know what they want to do. And so creating that exposure is really important to have people see and feel. so don't be afraid, I guess, from an audience members, go find your local school. That is your best recruiting tool. You can be your best recruiter at your school to volunteer, to be involved, to...
Tom Hermann (:Exactly.
They start scratching stuff off. Yep.
Brad Herda (:you know, sponsor the robotics program, the DECA teams, whatever it is, just go out and get involved so you can get to know the kids because you all have positions that are, whether it's direct labor or indirect, you all have needs to fill.
Tom Hermann (:Absolutely. And we'll find a way to utilize you. It might be as simple as we'll have you come over for a business lunch and talk to a bunch of students about what is your industry, what are you looking for in employees, what's the labor market outlook, what do I have to do to get into your place? mean, just that exposure to the real world is invaluable for students.
Because Brad, I didn't say this from the beginning, there's a gap no matter what we do in school and we do school very well. To go from there to being a productive member of an organization, there's still a gap. And there's really no way without experience for us to bridge that gap. I can't give them a book, I can't show them a video, can't give them a lecture. There's just a gap, okay? Especially when you're talking about things that are hands on like construction, okay?
We can have the greatest building program, we can build a lot of cool stuff in school, but it's still school. Until I go out on the job site and I'm living it, I'm breathing it, I'm smelling it, it's not.
Brad Herda (:You're 25 feet up in the air with nothing else around you and not a ceiling to grab with nothing overhead. Yeah, you don't know what that really was like.
Tom Hermann (:Yeah, yeah, that's not something I can replicate easily in school. So yeah, I appreciate you throwing out the welcome mat to anybody. Go and talk to them. if you can't find them, I will find the person that you need to talk to.
Brad Herda (:Okay, before we go on to our rapid fire Q &A, how do people find you, Tom? Where do they get a hold of you? How do they connect with you to help facilitate those opportunities around the state or regionally?
Tom Hermann (:Tom Hermann (22:32.812)
They can call me. You want my phone number right now?
Brad Herda (:That would be easier if you gave it to them so they could call it.
Tom Hermann (:Yeah, 262-297-6351. You can text me. can call me. Again, 262-497-6351. I'd love to talk to you too, because I'm always learning too. Remember, I'm an English teacher. So whatever you're doing in your industry is something that I'm going to learn from. It doesn't matter what you do. You could be a landscaper. You could be a manufacturer. You could be whatever. I'm learning too.
And I have to learn too because that way I can be that much more intelligent when I'm speaking to whether it's fourth graders or 12th graders, this is what this industry is. This is what they need to do. Is this something that sounds good to you?
Brad Herda (:Yeah, I guess I want to give you props too for having one of the largest events in the area from a hiring perspective, job fair perspective as well, that you and your team have been able to do that regionally to make that happen. So congratulations to you and your region for being able to make that happen. the results of hearing those things that you're putting people into positions and finding those connections.
You gotta have that community support going both directions to get these kids opportunities at a young age to to build the pond. Now will that kid be there for 30 years? Maybe, but if we build the pond of deeper talent along the way, we can be better community. So.
Tom Hermann (:Exactly, exactly. I was always upset when a teacher left our school. It didn't happen very often, but they did. And as long as they stayed in the profession, okay, I'm not gonna be graduate. Maybe it's a better thing for your family or whatever. You're still in a profession, you know? And the time you learn something here, you're gonna take that to your next school. Fantastic, you know?
Brad Herda (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:So rapid fire, just some questions, hopefully some quick answers. What's the dumbest thing you've ever heard in a meeting?
Tom Hermann (:Wow, that's a great question.
Brad Herda (:Apparently you haven't heard a lot of dumb things because nothing sticks out.
Tom Hermann (:I would say it's more annoying, like why are we here? That kind of stuff. And I say that because that to me usually is a sign that maybe we didn't need to be there. Again, I'm very conscious of people's time. And when I ran meetings, I ran very tight meetings. If we start at three, we're starting at three. If I say we're done at 3.30, we're not done at 3.31, we're done at 3.30, we're done.
Brad Herda (:That's it.
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:of that.
Tom Hermann (:We're gonna get stuff cranked out. If you can't keep up, I don't know, then take notes. Get an AI bot, whatever, I don't know. Exactly, you got other things to do, so do I, so let's go. Next question. Yeah.
Brad Herda (:Use emojis, higher graphics.
Brad Herda (:I. You got you got a time machine. What you're going back to and why.
Tom Hermann (:Honestly, I really don't ever think about going back. If I had to pick a time, I probably, as an educator, probably back when I really liked school, when I was in kindergarten. mean, that was just, know, talk about like when summers are forever. Like summer is like, it feels like forever. Okay. It, you know.
Brad Herda (:Yes. was decades long.
Tom Hermann (:Now at my age, months feel like weeks, weeks feel like days. And everything is just flying by. But when you're a little kid, summer is like a year, you know? It may as well be a year. And you got nothing going on. What am I gonna do today? I don't know. I'm gonna go swimming. I'm gonna go to the park.
Brad Herda (:That might be so kindergarten retirement might be similar. I'm not sure. I'm not there yet. We'll find out some point.
Tom Hermann (:Ahem.
You to choose where it would be. It would be around that time, you know?
Brad Herda (:Okay. What's your go-to excuse when you're running late?
Tom Hermann (:You know, it's not even an excuse more of a reason it was just I didn't budget my time well enough, you know, I I'm not always running out of Lombardi time, but I try to
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:Okay, beer bourbon.
Tom Hermann (:Here, I don't understand the bourbon thing. I really don't. I mean, don't.
Brad Herda (:Coffee or or a drink?
Tom Hermann (:coffee all day long.
Brad Herda (:Go to Curse Word. Here you go, kids. This is for you.
Tom Hermann (:Did you know, Brad, that the F word has like 23 different senses of it? I mean, it is one of the most useful words in the English language.
Brad Herda (:So is that the go-to curse word as the English?
Tom Hermann (:Absolutely, without a doubt. And it's also, you know, as a former basketball coach, you couldn't pull it out more than maybe two or three times a year. But when you needed their attention at that very moment, an F word properly timed was invaluable.
Brad Herda (:Are you a text or call guy?
Tom Hermann (:Well, text just because most people are text people.
Brad Herda (:Don't use emojis. You'll never get an emoji back from Tom, so don't worry about it. Early burner night owl.
Tom Hermann (:I'm more early bird now than I have ever been.
Brad Herda (:Best pizza topping.
Tom Hermann (:sausage, without a doubt.
Brad Herda (:Okay, most overused phrase at work.
Tom Hermann (:anything corporate speak wise, you know, we're going to put a pin in that, we're going to circle back, we're going to leverage this, we're going to, you know, I mean, come on, let's be original here, okay?
Brad Herda (:Favorite TV show to binge.
Tom Hermann (:You know, just about any thriller on like Netflix or like Amazon Prime, you know, anything that's a thriller kind of thing. Night Agent we're watching right now, Night Manager, you know, there's a little bit of drama, there's a little bit of humor, but it's, you know, there's a lot of action. There's a lot of build, you know.
Brad Herda (:Okay Favorite movie quote
Tom Hermann (:We all gotta die sometime, Red. That's from Platoon, 1986.
Brad Herda (:Favorite music?
Tom Hermann (:Rock music.
Brad Herda (:Favorite sport.
Tom Hermann (:Basketball.
Brad Herda (:Bucket list vacation.
Tom Hermann (:I've never been to Europe, so anywhere in Europe really.
Brad Herda (:Okay, living and dead, who would you want to have a conversation with?
Tom Hermann (:I heard this before and someone's answer was living.
Brad Herda (:It's kind of the, okay, thank you, teacher. Thank you, English teacher, taking it from a literal perspective. Let's stop missing the context of the questions. Thank you very much.
Tom Hermann (:you
Tom Hermann (:Yeah, yeah. Living or dead? Well, living, yeah. You know, sometimes I would like to go back to my ancestors and just ask them, what drew them to Wisconsin? Because it is horrible here weather-wise. I want to know, why did they stop? They could have just kept going, OK? They must have come here in summertime, all right? That's all I'm saying.
Brad Herda (:It is not. It is not.
Brad Herda (:It is not horrible. Live where you live, work where work. If you don't like it, change one of them, right? It's all good. All right, last question. Ginger or Marianne?
Tom Hermann (:I hear you.
Tom Hermann (:Ginger ginger yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. Well you see this one show These equally hot but different for different reasons
Brad Herda (:And you're going have explain that to your kids when they listen to this show.
Brad Herda (:All right.
They're like really that's what that is they have not today's TV is way way different so
Tom Hermann (:Yeah, Brad, what if I came back with Lovey? Mrs. Howell, you know? What if I said it was Mrs. Howell? OK.
Brad Herda (:That would be awesome. Awesome. So, Tom, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day. What you do is nothing short of spectacular to create that connection between industry and students and the success you and your districts are having is phenomenal. And thank you for being part of the Omnibili Trades Foundation and getting on board. And I know we're having positive momentum there and I can't
Thank you enough for taking time on your day to share with us.
Tom Hermann (:Well, thank you very much. It is definitely my pleasure and I'm not just saying that because it's my passion. Seeing kids actually get out of school into a profession, whatever it is, again, lots of them going to construction and nursing and stuff like that for us, it's just very, very rewarding. And I know that there's adults that are my age that think that this generation, there's nobody that wants to work and all the negative,
Brad Herda (:Not true. is the furthest thing from the truth.
Tom Hermann (:Yeah, exactly. Most of the kids that I meet, okay, some are immature, so they're not there yet, but most of the kids that I meet wanna do a good job, they're coachable, they listen, they just wanna be a part of something and get somewhere in life. mean, it's actually, things haven't changed much since that person that's complaining was their age. It really hasn't.
Brad Herda (:you are a spot on sir. So again, thank you for your time and we'll talk again soon.
Tom Hermann (:All take care. Thanks. Have a good weekend.