When I began this blog, I just wanted to write about skilled trades and help people better understand the opportunities available to them in these fields.
So color me shocked when someone reached out and asked for my thoughts on a new initiative involving Lowe’s Chairman and CEO Marvin Ellison and an ambitious goal: helping ensure America has the skilled trades workforce it will need for the future.
The Lowe’s Foundation, along with more than 75 partners including NVIDIA, General Motors, Carrier, Ivy Tech Community College and the Los Angeles Community College District, has launched the Building Futures Skilled Trades Coalition.
The goal is a big one: help train and develop one million people for skilled trades careers by 2035.
As a dean who oversees several skilled trades programs, I am excited to see what comes from this effort.
But I am also interested in something beyond the headline.
What would it actually take to train one million skilled trades workers?
One Million Workers Is a Training-Capacity Problem
There has been plenty of discussion about the shortage of skilled workers in America. Retirements are certainly part of the challenge, but so are infrastructure investments, changing technology, growing industries and the enormous number of workers needed to build and maintain the systems we depend on every day.
The Lowe’s Foundation announcement cites an estimate that as many as 2.1 million skilled trades jobs could go unfilled by 2030.
But identifying the shortage is the easy part.
Training enough people to address it is much harder.
Community and technical colleges can only train as many students as they have the instructors, equipment, laboratory space and operating resources to support.
I see this firsthand.
You cannot simply double the number of students in a welding program if you do not have enough welding booths. You cannot expand an HVAC program indefinitely without additional equipment and lab space. Electrical programs need qualified instructors, appropriate facilities and equipment. Automotive programs need vehicles, diagnostic equipment, lifts and increasingly expensive technology.
And perhaps most importantly, many of these programs need instructors who could often earn more money working in the industries we are asking them to leave and teach.
If America wants more skilled trades workers, we have to talk about training capacity just as seriously as we talk about recruitment.
Training Is Only Half the Equation
This is one area where I think the Building Futures Skilled Trades Coalition has the potential to be particularly interesting.
The coalition isn’t made up exclusively of colleges or employers. It brings together educators, manufacturers, utilities, workforce organizations and companies that depend on skilled workers.
That matters.
One of the mistakes we can make in workforce education is treating graduation as the finish line.
It isn’t.
The real question is whether students can move from interest → training → credential → employment → career advancement.
A college can produce graduates, but if employers aren’t involved in identifying the skills they need, creating work-based learning opportunities and hiring those graduates, the pipeline remains incomplete.
Likewise, employers cannot simply announce that they need thousands of workers and expect colleges to magically produce them.
Training capacity costs money.
The Trades Also Have a Perception Problem
The coalition has identified changing perceptions of skilled trades careers as one of its three major goals, and I think that is important.
For decades, many young people were essentially presented with two choices: go to college or somehow settle for something less.
That was always a false choice.
Many skilled trades careers require substantial technical knowledge, certifications, apprenticeships and continuing education. Modern HVAC technicians work with sophisticated controls and increasingly complex electrical systems. Automotive technicians are working with advanced electronics, networks, sensors and electric vehicles. Electricians, lineworkers, welders and other skilled professionals perform work that requires expertise that can take years to master.
The question shouldn’t be:
“Should I go to college or learn a trade?”
For many students, trade school is college.
The better question is:
“What education and training pathway gives me the best opportunity to build the life and career I want?”
What I Will Be Watching
The announcement is ambitious, but many of the details about how the coalition will reach one million people are still to come.
From my perspective as someone responsible for operating skilled trades programs, there are several things I will be watching closely.
Will investments increase the actual training capacity of community and technical colleges?
Will funding help colleges purchase the expensive equipment required to expand high-cost programs?
Will there be investment in recruiting and retaining qualified skilled trades instructors?
Will employers provide meaningful work-based learning opportunities, apprenticeships and direct pathways into employment?
And perhaps most importantly, how will success be measured?
Training one million people is impressive.
But enrolling someone in training is different from completing training. Completing training is different from earning an industry credential. And earning a credential is different from securing a good job and building a sustainable career.
If this coalition can connect all of those pieces, its impact could extend far beyond one million trainees.
This Is Bigger Than Lowe’s
I think that may ultimately be the most important part of this announcement.
No single college, company, foundation, union, workforce agency or government program is going to solve America’s skilled workforce challenge.
The scale is simply too large.
But imagine what becomes possible when employers tell colleges what skills they need, colleges expand programs around those needs, industry helps provide equipment and instructors, workforce organizations help remove barriers for students, and employers create clear pathways from the classroom into careers.
That is the kind of ecosystem workforce education needs.
The Building Futures Skilled Trades Coalition has set an enormous goal: helping train and develop one million people for skilled trades careers by 2035.
Whether it reaches that number remains to be seen.
But I am glad to see some of America’s largest companies asking a question that those of us working in skilled trades education have been asking for years:
If America needs dramatically more skilled workers, what are we willing to invest in the institutions and people responsible for training them?
That is the conversation I hope this coalition helps move forward.
See the Top 26 Trades to get into in 2026
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