Anyone who’s tackled a home improvement project knows one trip to the hardware store is never enough.
That is just as true when teaching middle and early high schoolers about skilled trades — with Brian Battaglia, director of the Skilled Trades Education Program, making multiple trips for everything from drywall boards and 2x4s to hand tools and junction boxes.
“They know me at Lowe’s pretty well now,” Battaglia said with a laugh, having purchased thousands of dollars of equipment to set up the 3,000-square-foot facility in Peninsula.
The result is an unlikely classroom. Nestled among the campsites, archery ranges and cabins at Camp Manatoc sits a skilled trades center with five welding bays, electrical, plumbing and carpentry workstations, and virtual reality simulators that help students learn the trades.
Decades ago, teens could graduate from high school one day and get a job in a rubber factory or steel mill the next — many receiving on-the-job training in electrical work, welding and other roles. Now, skilled trades face an impending crisis as they work to find new workers and to meet growing demands in construction and related industries, according to Associated Builders and Contractors, a national trade association.
The Skilled Trades Education Program cannot singlehandedly change that tide, Battaglia said, but it can help.
“We’re not under any delusion that every kid that goes through this program is going to go into the trades,” he said. “but I think the most positive byproduct is we’ve afforded them an option, we’ve given them a vision, a potential direction they may never have considered before.”
Scouts like Matt Wright of Mantua, is an example.
Wright, 17, a member of Troop No. 575, is spending muggy afternoons this summer planing wood, caulking tiles and taking the virtual reality goggles for a test run of a welding basics before fusing metals in a bay.
“I help build stuff on my family’s farm — I like working with my hands,” Wright said, adding he hoped to bring his newfound skills back to the farm to work on a larger chicken coop.
Program hopes to offer career option during worker shortage
The program is run by the Great Trail Council of Scouting America, the organization overseeing scouting districts in portions of Summit, Medina, Mahoning, Portage, Trumbull and Wayne counties, but it is not limited to scouts.
Scouts may be the first to test-drive the Skilled Trades Education Program, but its target audience is sixth- through ninth-graders in 85 Northeast Ohio school districts.
The timing is no accident.
In May, the construction industry had nearly 300,000 job openings, a 10-month high likely reflecting demand for skilled workers needed for data center buildouts, according to the group.
Many current workers are also nearing retirement, according to a McKinsey study, while the number of applicants available to fill those soon-vacant roles is decreasing. Industry demand is projected to surge as construction projects funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are expected to peak around 2027-28, bringing about 345,000 jobs nationwide.
“I hope that every kid that comes out of this program leaves it with a greater appreciation of what it takes to get the lights to come on when you flip a switch,” Battaglia said, “or the water to come out of a spigot.”
Ohio invests in career technical programs
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has pushed for, and invested in, an expansion of career technical options throughout the state — and seen a 10 percent increase in participation since 2021 — but that does not mean every school district has the ability to offer in-house opportunities to its high schoolers, let alone middle school students.
“By the time a kid is in sixth grade, by and large they’re beyond the point of thinking that their lifelong career objectives are to be Superman — they’re starting to look at the world around them from a more pragmatic, rational standpoint,” Battaglia said. “They start to ask questions and they start to think, ‘Hey, how do I fit into this environment that is the world around us?’”
For some, the answer to that question is carpentry or HVAC work. But in many school districts, those students cannot try their hand at a trade until enrolling in a career technical course their junior year of high school.
In Summit County, the majority of districts have low participation in career technical courses, according to state data. For the 2024-25 school year, an average of about 16.5 percent of middle schoolers participated in these courses — though the number is spurred in part by high participation in Akron Public Schools (72.5 percent), Tallmadge City Schools (67 percent), Barberton City Schools (50.5 percent) and Cuyahoga Falls City Schools (50 percent).
The majority of districts in the county reported no middle school participation. Many of those same districts had similarly low high school participation in CTE programs.
‘We do this, I think this catches national attention’
The Peninsula facility’s initial startup costs, including construction, were about $1.6 million, with a fundraising goal of $3 million to support programming long term.
In the fall, Battaglia plans to offer adult courses to help offset costs for the student programs. The adult offerings will not be robust enough to give an attendee industry credentials, but they may help a new homeowner learn how to install a hot water tank or patch a hole in their wall.
The program received $750,000 in state funding, $200,000 from FirstEnergy Corp. and $150,000 from Ford Motor Co. It has a three-year partnership with BlueForge Alliance to help expose students to skilled trades in an effort to fill needed jobs in submarine manufacturing. Smaller donations, including tools from local supporters, also poured into the center.
The eventual goal, Battaglia said, is for as many as 7,000 students to pass through the program each year. He hopes local community foundations will help offset schools’ costs.
“I believe that what we’re building here is going to be a model that Scouting America is going to want to replicate nationally very soon,” he said. “We demonstrate the proof of concept, proof that this works — we do this, I think this catches national attention and other major metropolitan areas start to pick up on it.”
