FERGUS – The South Wellington Lions Club is hosting a trade show and symposium to encourage young people to consider a trade as a career option.
“We want to disseminate information to young people to try the trades,” said Carl Gray, a retired electrician and Lions member.
He is also co-creator of Trade Tracks – the name of the event that will be held at the Centre Wellington Community Sportsplex on May 5 and 6.
“We want to change the misconception about trades,” said Gray.
“It always seemed like a second choice to university, but you can find a great career in the trades.”
Coming out of COVID, there’s already a dearth of tradespeople and that’s expected to get worse as baby boomers continue to retire.
“Sixty-five per cent of tradespeople are over 50,” Gray said.
“There will be a huge hole very shortly. They are predicting a shortage of 100,000 tradespeople in the next 10 years.”
And it’s not just the workers that will be lost, it’s the knowledge too, Gray said.
Working in the trades is often hands-on work that’s better learned by working alongside someone with experience rather than by reading from a textbook, he added.
That is how apprenticeship programs work, he said – on-the-job learning supplemented with in-school training.
Originally the show was going to be held at the Ennotville Historic Library, where the Lions Club is headquartered, but it quickly became apparent that facility would not be big enough.
With assistance from the Centre Wellington and Wellington County economic development committees, the venue has changed the Fergus sportsplex.
Invitations have been sent to 14 school boards – 44 high schools – which will attend on the Friday, although the event is free and open to the public.
Gray said there are 144 trades in Ontario, and he hopes to have representation from each of them at the show.
Locally, business owners are very interested in promoting what they do and which trades they are looking for, he said.
“We’ve asked [exhibitors] to build a ‘wow’ factor in their booths,” Gray said.
“Something to attract attention and not just hand out pamphlets.”
He said a blacksmith will be attending and will shoe a horse during the trade show.
There will be excavators, arborists and a host of other trades demonstrating some out-of-the-box thinking.
“It’s not just carpenters, electricians and plumbers,” he said.
Gray was an electrician for 48 years; 24 years working for a contractor where he travelled to job sites, and 24 at a company in Fergus – and he earned a good living and lived a good lifestyle, he said.
And with the trades, “you start making money the day you start working as an apprentice,” he said.
“There’s no student debt and a lot of tradespeople make six-figure salaries.”
The show runs May 5 from 10am to 8pm and May 6 from 10am to 4pm.
Centre Wellington District High School’s culinary arts program will be running a café in the hall during open hours and will provide a special breakfast for exhibitors before the show opens on the Saturday.
Conestoga and Niagara Colleges will also be there to talk about trade and apprentice programs, and personnel from the Armed Forces will also take part.
“I didn’t know they employ people in 109 different trades,” Gray said.
“It’s another way to take a career in the trades.”
Gray said he hopes to see relationships build between local tradespeople, their employers, educational institutions, and local government at the show.
But mostly he hopes people will think about the trades as a viable, lucrative career option.
“Service clubs do a lot behind the scenes. It’s not always visible what we do,” he said.
“But we think there’s a lot of interest in this and we hope it will become an annual event.”
Anyone with questions can email tradetracks.swcl@gmail.com.
