On the latest episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon, we explore the innovative and impactful journeys of two remarkable guests: Shanna Greathouse, founder and CEO of Pigybak, and Joe Manofsky, chairman, president, and co-founder of One Step Ahead Ohio. These two change-makers are reshaping how we think about skilled trades, community development, and career pathways in ways that are inspiring and deeply transformational.
Shanna Greathouse: Transforming Communities Through Technology
Shanna Greathouse’s entrepreneurial journey is rooted in her love for community and her passion for creating equitable solutions. As the founder of Pigybak, she’s revolutionizing the way homeowners and tradespeople connect. Leveraging AI-driven technology, Pigybak provides a marketplace where contractors can streamline their scheduling while homeowners access affordable, collaborative home services. The company’s unique “group deal” model encourages neighborhood collaboration, reducing costs and fostering a stronger sense of community.
Drawing from her background in consulting and analytics, Shanna turned her observations of inefficiencies in the trades and home services industry into an innovative platform. Her deep commitment to supporting local tradespeople—many of whom are small business owners from underrepresented groups—adds a layer of purpose to Pigybak’s mission. For Shanna, the initiative isn’t just about home services; it’s about empowering tradespeople, rebuilding neighborhoods, and creating sustainable opportunities for growth.
Joe Manofsky: Advocating for Workforce Development in Ohio
Joe Manofsky’s path to philanthropy and advocacy began in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, where community values shaped his drive to give back. As the co-founder of One Step Ahead Ohio, Joe leads a nonprofit that focuses on eliminating executive salaries, ensuring transparency, and directly supporting local families and nonprofits in Northeast Ohio. His initiatives extend to workforce development through the Skilled Labor Foundation, which aims to address the skilled trades shortage.
Joe’s vision includes early career exploration programs for middle school students, exposing them to the vast opportunities in skilled trades. By creating events that connect students, parents, and trades professionals, Joe and his team hope to shift the narrative around the trades, demonstrating that these careers are viable, lucrative, and vital to our economy. Through transparency, collaboration, and advocacy, Joe is transforming the perception of skilled trades, ensuring they are recognized for their significance and potential.
Shifting the Trades Narrative To Build Better Communities
Together, Shanna and Joe are tackling a shared challenge: changing the perception of skilled trades. Whether it’s through gamifying trades to highlight their athleticism and skill or hosting community events that connect stakeholders, their work emphasizes the importance of collaboration and storytelling. As Andi Simon noted during the episode, this movement is about rebranding the trades, creating pride in these careers, and highlighting their critical role in community development.
Why These Programs Matter
In a time when workforce shortages are impacting industries from construction to healthcare, the work of innovators like Shanna and Joe is more important than ever. Their stories inspire action—whether it’s supporting local tradespeople, exploring workforce development grants, or simply rethinking the career paths we advocate for in our communities.
Takeaways for Listeners
- For Homeowners: Pigybak offers a way to support local tradespeople while collaborating with neighbors for affordable, community-driven solutions.
- For Advocates: One Step Ahead Ohio demonstrates how transparency, collaboration, and grassroots initiatives can drive change in workforce development.
- For Everyone: By raising awareness about the skilled trades, we can help young people see the potential for meaningful, successful careers outside of traditional college pathways.
As I like to remind us, “Take your observations and turn them into innovations.” Shanna and Joe are perfect examples of this philosophy in action. They are using their ideas and insights to create solutions that empower individuals and strengthen communities, and it is working!
Catch the full episode to learn more about their inspiring work and discover how you can contribute to transforming the trades in your community.
Other Podcasts you will enjoy include:
407: Shaping the Future: Dr. Emily Springer on Responsible AI in Business
396:Mark Schaefer: The Customer is Changing. How Can We Build a Community Through Marketing?
406: The Greatest Journey of a Woman Entrepreneur in Mental Health: Dr. Barbara Brown’s Story
Additional resources for you
- My two award-winning books: Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business and On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights
- Our latest book, Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success, coauthored with Edie Fraser and Robyn Freedman Spizman
- All of our white papers, particularly those on Blue Ocean Strategy
- Our website: Simon Associates Management Consultants
Reach out and contact us if you want to see how a little anthropology can help your business grow. Let’s Talk!
From Observation to Innovation,
CEO | Corporate Anthropologist | Author
Simonassociates.net
Info@simonassociates.net
@simonandi
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Read the text for our podcast here:
Andi Simon:
00:00:02
Welcome to On the Brink with Andy Simon. Hi, I’m Andy Simon, and as you know, I’m an anthropologist, and I developed this podcast so I could help people all across the globe begin to see feeling, thinking new ways so they can change. Now, I must tell you that our podcast recently, and this is about our 708 or ninth podcast I’m doing today, are all about what people are innovating, changing and bringing to market that can really improve the lots of others in ways that are quite exceptional. I often say take your observations and turn them into innovations. They ask, what is an anthropologists do? Said, we hang out and we watch, and we see, and we begin to really embrace the opportunities that are in front of us. And some work and some don’t. But this is really important today for you, our audience, whether you’re watching or you’re listening. I have two remarkable people here, and I think their stories are going to be inspirational for you and your stories. So let me tell you about their bios, and then I’ll let them tell you about their own journeys, so that you can better understand why I think they’re so exciting.
Andi Simon:
00:01:14
First, it’s a great house. To my left, perhaps you’re right. Is a founder and CEO of piggyback. Interesting name for a company. A tech driven marketplace dedicated to empowering tradespeople by connecting them with homeowners for community centered projects. And she will tell you about her vision, about the problem that needs to be solved, her purpose and meaning, and what’s so exciting about what she’s doing. She has an MBA and a background in consulting and analytics, and she leads piggyback and leveraging AI to streamline contractor scheduling and promote group deals, making home services more accessible and collaborative. And as a homeowner, it is really difficult at times to get that project done, find someone who will come in and take care of it. And so this is really quiet an innovative approach to help solve the homeowner’s dilemma, but also the contractors need for business. Her mission is to foster strong community ties by supporting local trades professionals and driving sustainable development in neighborhoods across the country. This is quite interesting, isn’t it? And then Joe, who’s two of my bottoms here, could be next to you, has a wonderful, wonderful resume.
Andi Simon:
00:02:30
He talks about his upbringing in the Youngstown Warren area, instilled a strong work ethic and a drive for success that defines who he is today. He graduated from Kent State in 2011. He’s made several career changes as he’s transitioned to a fractional consultant role in early 2024. Now he has an expertise in philanthropy, social media marketing campaigns, and full independent ownership of a multi-line property and casualty company. And he’s most proud of his proven track record of building strong client relationships and driving growth for organizations. He is really a fund raiser, a digital marketer. He brings together a holistic approach to see how he can help people grow, and he’s deeply committed to making positive impact on his community. He’s chairman, president and co-founder of the 501 C3 nonprofit organization one step Ahead that you can see on his screen. He’s gained valuable experience in local community development and large-scale event facility facilitation, serving the needs of local populations. interesting conversations for today. gentlemen and ladies, thank you for being here. I can’t tell you what fun it is, and I’m glad we met.
Andi Simon:
00:03:46
As serendipitous as our meeting is, what I love you to do is talk about your own journeys. Because when we spoke about it, it’s much richer than a bio can ever be. And I’m going to start with Shana, if you don’t mind, Joe, talk to us about your own evolution, how this came about, and then, Joe, you can do the same. And then what we really want to talk about is how you’re learning so much, and how others could do a similar problem. Please, Shana?
Shanna Greathouse:
00:04:12
Yeah, absolutely. Happy to be here. Thank you so much. And Joe, great to see you. yeah. So I I’m from Cleveland, Ohio. My family’s from West Virginia, so I’m very, originally. so I’m very passionate about Cleveland because it’s given me a ton of opportunities and also rooted a lot of my love for giving back and community. my undergrads actually kind of funny. It’s in physical therapy, but I was a victim of the victim of the financial crisis and decided instead of opting to go for a DPT and get more loans, I went for my MBA.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:04:50
So both of those are from BW. And that kind of threw me into the world of business. pretty early on. I was in oil and gas for a couple of years. I got into Philips health tech for a bit. and then even was that American Greetings, which was a lot of fun. but each of those times actually, were sadly laid off each time, which lead led me into consulting. And then I did consulting for five years or so, in various leadership roles, worked with private equities and M&A. Lots of stuff around recommending layoffs, which is ironic since I’d been through three myself. so you.
Andi Simon:
00:05:33
Understood it?
Shanna Greathouse:
00:05:34
I did very much from the other side. and I just really felt that I wanted to do more and, infuse my why and to, to borrow from Simon Sinek on, into my everyday life. So given that I love community so much, I wanted to do something that really built that up. so for me, that was starting with the home coming from West Virginia, where there’s a lot of, you know, poverty and homes that are barely qualified as homes around all the time.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:06:08
I really understood the value in having a neighborhood that you can be proud of. And that’s beautiful and therefore safer and more community oriented. People are outside more. There’s just a lot more opportunity that comes with it. And, I had been in supply chain consulting, so I just kind of put on my supply chain hat for a bit and, saw the opportunity to really build a two-sided marketplace. So kind of like a DoorDash or an Uber kind of model. but for home services, that helps tradespeople as well. my husband had kind of ventured into trades for a little bit, and I saw the struggles of owning your own business and working those long hours and, you know, the hard work on your body as well. And I, you know, we have to treat them well. There’s a massive trade shortage. So, that’s where Pigybak was born. And really, we’re about, empowering homeowners to come together and build the community and get access to group deals. So we basically digitally canvass neighborhoods for contractors.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:07:14
We let their schedules do the work for them, broadcast to the neighborhoods the neighbors are able to piggyback on, and then everybody wins. You get a group deal, something you can feel really good about at the end of the day. And conversely, neighbors can even build their own piggyback rides and, recruit people for lawn services or pool cleaning or whatever you could think of and then push that to contractors for group bids so that it’s a little more affordable and fun.
Andi Simon:
00:07:42
Yeah. Oh, it’s for a moment. So, Joe, how did you get involved? And what is one step? you know, for Ohio?
Joe Manofsky:
00:07:51
Yeah. we’re a nonprofit 501 C3. I’m going to try to answer your question as poignantly as possible. What do you mean by how did I get involved with Shana or the organization?
Andi Simon:
00:08:03
Well, let’s see, you have a very diverse background. and today’s conversation is really about your commitment to your desire for purpose, about one step ahead in Ohio or for Ohio. So tell me about your own journey here and how you became so involved, involved in Shannon, and where you see the development of one step ahead for Ohio.
Joe Manofsky:
00:08:27
Yeah. So one step ahead, Ohio, it came to fruition back in 2020. We never envisioned it would get to this point. I don’t think so quickly, but it’s growing, and I’ll explain why shortly. But as I mentioned there in the bio, growing up in the Youngstown Warren area, you know, it instilled a lot of values in me of, you know, family, friends, community is very, very important. But the bigger picture is that, you know, when you start to be able to have a position to give back, make sure you give back to those, you know, you that have supported you your whole journey. Right? That’s what I always saw and took away from that. Now my career path is lend me over a bunch of different places. I was the kid in high school that probably shouldn’t have went to college, but they told me that was the option to go. I took out my enormous amount of student debt to do it, and crazy enough, now in 2024, I haven’t used my college degree or needed to use it for anything in the past 7 to 8 years, right?
Andi Simon:
00:09:34
So that’s quite an endorsement for the hard work it took and the money that it takes.
Joe Manofsky:
00:09:39
Yeah, it’s, one of those things that back when I graduated high school and 2005, you know, the trades were looked down upon. And the people that I see now and over the past few years that have gone into the trades, you know, they’re passing up a lot of people that have college degrees from a career standpoint. They have less debt. They’re now business owners. They did their apprenticeship. They moved into these roles. So I know I’m not directly in the world as I mentioned, I do some consulting for companies to help them with, social media campaign, marketing and, and building and just understanding more how all of that works from the data side. Also, I’ve been in the insurance industry, mainly personal lines for the past eight years now. I’ve owned my own agency going on for my focus has always really just been with anything that I do is, you know, focusing on helping people. Everything else will fall in line. Whether your goals are money, whether your goal is time, whether your goal is to make more impact, make more friends, whatever that may be.
Joe Manofsky:
00:10:45
Just make sure you’re always focusing on others first. And I have always had that mentality in the business world. But when everything started happening in 2020, I started to see a little bit of a need and so did some other people in my network. And we started one Step Ahead Ohio, with a couple things. The three main things that I reflect back on now are we saw it; we saw a need for three things. The first one is we wanted a nonprofit where people could donate to, but we could completely eliminate the executive salaries. So I, all the other board members, people in our ambassador role, nobody is paid. It’s all the donation of time. We do have one paid position, and that’s our internship program, which we partner with local colleges, to get interns. Right. So eliminating executive salaries was huge, and we have done that since day one. And we’re never going to pay executive salaries. Number two that we saw really was transparency. You know, there’s a lot of great nonprofits and there’s big one’s small ones when you start really diving into them.
Joe Manofsky:
00:11:53
It’s really hard to tell where the money’s coming from, where it’s going and so forth. So our big thing is social media blasts constantly, website updates, email blast, and an annual report that just highlights everything we do. The money coming in, the money going out. It’s very transparent to our donors. And then the last thing which I, you know, should preference is probably the biggest reason we do this is the need we saw just from a general standpoint, is that money that is raised by the people from fundraisers, donations or these organizations and businesses across Northeast Ohio that donate, we can fully, transparently show them that their money exclusively serves families in need and other nonprofits in need across Northeast Ohio. How does the skilled labor tie into all that? Well, we have one of our initiatives is the Skilled Labor Foundation. The main goal there is a long-term goal. By 2028, 29, we’re going to have an endowment built that will be able to give grants to career and technical high schools to help with, like classroom facility upgrades, new equipment for their programs based around skilled trade and manufacturing.
Joe Manofsky:
00:13:06
But in the right now, we’re hosting community advocacy events where we can bring in people from all different sides of the skilled labor industry to come together, network and really get this idea moving of how we can get earlier career exploration opportunities for younger people, mainly focused on the middle school level to help with the workforce development.
Andi Simon:
00:13:29
Now, interesting. And all of this is coming out of your own ideas. So it’s not based upon anything more than you guys can see what the problem is, and you’re going about solving it in a way that makes a lot of sense. Now, are there particular middle schools? I mean, is this a collaboration? Are you are you hiring or training people there? Shannon? You’re shaking your head. what is actually happening in the schools themselves? Give us some picture. So as somebody who’s listening or watching would like to do something similar, do you just make it up or is there a whole process?
Joe Manofsky:
00:14:06
Yeah. So I should have preference that when we originally started the Skilled Labor Foundation, we’ve always had the endowment idea in goal because we know if we can write 50, 75, $100,000 donations to these schools, that will directly make an impact and workforce development, there’s no doubt about it, if they have the updated equipment and tools and everything that the world’s going to have in five, ten years from now.
Joe Manofsky:
00:14:30
We originally thought going into this that if we just provided scholarships to high school kids that are going into the skilled trade industry, that would solve the problem. You’re one went by, nobody applied. Year two went by. Nobody applied. We have this money there. People say they love it. Nobody applies. Right? We realize going into the fourth year that we needed to pivot. So we really started diving in and connecting ourselves with people in the industry. Like, what are you seeing, what is going on? What do you need? And the overwhelming consensus of everybody’s point is that by the time they’re introduced to understanding what a career path could look like, they’ve already had too many people in their ear telling them to go elsewhere. so the overall whelming sentiment was that you need to get in front of these kids younger. And we came up with the idea of, well, they do career exploration events at high schools to go into all different jobs. They do them at colleges. Why can’t we do them in middle schools, where it’s more of an event where the kids can come get hands on experience, see these different tools and get excited that way.
Joe Manofsky:
00:15:39
But the messaging behind the scenes is to the parents is, look, college doesn’t have to be the only option. These are all successful people in the skilled trades. Let’s connect them together to get the conversation going. There are no particular schools at the moment because this idea just came to fruition basically in the past year and a half. But we’re holding these community advocacy events that tie in people from the career and technical schools, the local community colleges with these business owners, manufacturing owners, to get the conversation started of how we do it, what that will look like, that is what we’re working through right now. But the end goal is to have at least semi-annual events in schools that are just career exploration for manufacturing and skilled trade jobs that can get these kids excited. Younger.
Andi Simon:
00:16:29
How exciting. I have some thoughts, but I want to hear from Seana your thoughts on what Joe’s been sharing with us.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:16:37
Yeah. So I’m one of the I guess ambassadors for that program with Jo with one step ahead.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:16:45
just because piggyback selected one step ahead early on is one of our nonprofit partners to donate money to from our revenue. Actually, 5% of our revenue goes to nonprofits that support specifically trades and community development. yeah. Like he said, we’re pretty early on. on piggyback side, we’re doing similar events, more on the community building side. So less on the education side, but on the building trades empowerment. so that’s a key go to market that we’re currently structuring as well. I love the idea of doing advocacy and making it visible. And the great thing too is Joe is a wizard with social media. you get great repeatable content there to just amplify the message even more. So we’re actually for us for piggyback. That’s what we want to use it for, is great reels and moments that are impressions that can really stay with people. And on the education front, I think it’s very powerful as well.
Andi Simon:
00:17:43
It’s so interesting because the things that we value may or may not be the right things for the right time.
Andi Simon:
00:17:50
And it is. It’s interesting. We had a higher ed client for a number of years in Pennsylvania, and they were in a two-year, community college, and their enrollment had gone from 12,000 down to 8000, which is not a good trajectory. And their board was sure it was simply they weren’t recruiting advocates properly. The only problem was that the population was declining and there weren’t that many more students to recruit. And the other problem was that industry was getting into the schools early, just as you’re describing. They were training and hiring before they even graduated. And then then they could go to college afterwards if there was a reason for learning something in the college setting. but they were trying to invert the whole model so that it wasn’t college first. And then you find a job, let’s get you employed. And the salaries were excellent, and the training was all started early in their high school years so that they were prepared, ready to go when they graduated. And I share that with you because the community college was behind.
Andi Simon:
00:18:59
It was a not it was the industry that saw the gap and they were going in there to do their own training. And so, you know, part of the question for that community college was, why did you allow them to be the advocates for the very jobs that could be yours? I mean, these are students who, are being trained at the expense and the investment of the folks who are going to work with them. And their collaboration was working quite well. So you’re on the cusp of something. I think that’s transformative. And I love the social media because you’re going to legitimize the careers. And so it becomes really wonderful to think about it. You know, Shannon, you spoke about your husband. you know, Joe, I have a hunch, you know, lots and lots of people. Can you begin to measure the changing? I’ll call it brand or identity that people who work in the trades can begin to embrace so they don’t feel like they are the failure or the not having gone to the right place.
Andi Simon:
00:20:00
People, as opposed to being extremely talented, successful and competent, in the careers that they have. Because this is a value change. Any thoughts about what you’re doing and how you can see it happening? Shannon, you want to your shaking your head. So I’m going to go to you first.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:20:16
There is one. I don’t want to, ruin their idea by getting too specific, but I was just part of an incubator in Cleveland called SeaChange. It’s an amazing incubator that is for B Corp’s and nonprofits to go through to make sure that we’re heading in the right direction for community change and social enterprises. but there was a gentleman that I met there who is has this idea for a company where your gamifying, roofers and tradespeople where they’re competing against each other and its broadcast as a show and showing them as like a hero persona, that there’s athletics to it, that there’s, you know, you it’s very physical. It’s almost like a sport and transforming it into something cool. And the fact that that idea is even in that person’s brain and that they’re, they’re pursuing, that just shows how powerful that messaging is, that it is something to be very proud of.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:21:18
now that it’s so there’s just a huge need for trades and there’s a scarcity. So there’s pride in it. and, you know, with social media, with influencers, you’re seeing more and more creators and trades people making a secondary income from people just watching them build things.
Andi Simon:
00:21:35
Yes. Right.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:21:36
Yeah.
Andi Simon:
00:21:37
It’s this is so don’t lose that thought. That is a real powerful opportunity. How about yourself, Joe? What do you see happening people rebranding this in such a way as turning it from negative to positive and doing it through both personal stories and through the performance they have.
Joe Manofsky:
00:21:53
Yeah, I mean, now at this point, I’m pretty deep into the to the web webbing of this industry, especially here in Northeast Ohio. So sometimes I do sit back and reflect because I really feel like the narrative is changing overall. Everywhere people are realizing that you need an electrician, and it takes three weeks to get one, and it’s very expensive. Now what’s changing? Well, it’s no secret that these people are in need, and that’s just one of the many options that, you know, I don’t see getting replaced by me or anything like that.
Joe Manofsky:
00:22:30
Somebody coming into your home, fixing your plumbing, your, you know, welding in your basement, whatever the case may be. Right? I really just feel that the power of the masses getting the message out via word of mouth is important. That’s why with our community advocacy events; we find that very important to put like-minded people in the room and just keep the messaging going. How important this is, and a shift from 2005 to almost 2025, now, 20 years later. You know, I saw a statistic and don’t quote me, but I think it said CNN or CNBC reported that I want to say in the last year or post pandemic, since 2021, the overall college, enrollment has dropped by like 980,000 individuals, right? and those individuals are dropping out because they’re seeking apprenticeships and, education opportunities at like a community college that have these programs available to then get into an apprenticeship. So that, to me means the narrative is slightly shifting, I would guess. but my thing is just the two biggest things you can do if you believe in this or anything that you believe in, is anytime you’re in a room meeting, social setting, whatever it is, just advocate and raise awareness for what you believe in.
Joe Manofsky:
00:23:57
Our organization believes in workforce development and these roles are important. Doing things for skilled labor and manufacturing people to make them feel important. Yeah, it’s really important to understand, from what I’ve been gathering, especially from this panel event we hosted, is that the culture these companies are building need to be focused around more of like, hey, you’re not just a labor coming in. If you tell them they’re a laborer, they’re a laborer. If you tell them they’re a roofing technician specialist, they feel like a roofing technician specialist. It’s changing the narrative outside the industry, but it’s also changing the narrative of inside the industry that these entry level positions are your path to a career level position.
Andi Simon:
00:24:47
I think this is brilliant. So workforce development, you triggered something because I work with them 14 hospital system in Kentucky. And, they have a young man who has taken on workforce development for the healthcare industry. I don’t know who in your region is focused on workforce development or what the grants are to support you there, but this is serious in health care, you know.
Andi Simon:
00:25:15
What are they doing? They just got a grant to build a whole facility for med techs and physician assistants and radiation radiology techs, and I may be mistaken on which ones, but there’s no there’s no skilled people. And while having a roofer is extremely important, to have someone who can read sonar or do technology in the healthcare world is also important because if not, you can’t get care. If it takes you three weeks to get electrician. You don’t want to wait three weeks for a mammogram. And so this is a really interesting problem across this country, that you are grabbing a hold of. one of the things that might be interesting is to step back and look at the collaborations. You know, you we spoke about the university, some in my docs, the university who was losing college students because they were being trained by others, but the others were really in need of resources to collaboratively train them. And the new names that this guy who’s playing games, games are extremely powerful because young people are very game oriented.
Andi Simon:
00:26:22
You know, their avatars are their best friends. we could talk about video gaming a lot, and, and one of my universities found that the young people didn’t want to play sports in person. They prefer to play E games and gamble on them. And so there’s a whole other piece of that. But that’s really a whole idea of having, you know, championships among roofers on any game. And then you have the workforce development folks out there. This is you know, you’re as you’re describing this, I’m seeing it in a bigger picture with lots and lots of pieces pulling together to really transform a region, or even the whole country, if we can begin to get that transformation multiplying. So I don’t know if you have some thoughts on my thoughts, but I’m listening and I’m saying this is bigger than a bear.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:27:10
Yeah. So Cleveland’s very lucky. We have a as the Rust Belt does. We’ve got a very rich manufacturing history. So we have really amazing resources specifically for skilled labor development.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:27:23
more of a niche in manufacturing, I would say, than general trades. But we do have, for example, magnet on the east side of Cleveland. I was just there on Friday last week speaking to, about 30 students, maybe 60, from Marshall Technical School. So it’s a whole school dedicated to the engineering and Stem. That’s in the inner city of Cleveland, and their facility is amazing. They’ve got full manufacturing line replicas there and every kind of machinery that I can imagine, at least in manufacturing there. And the kids get to have lots of hands-on experience. The Great Lakes Innovation Center or science center? Science center. Sorry. they were talking about the fantastic programs that they do. Specifically, they do coding. Now. They teach kids the basics of blockchain early on as an example and technical in that way as well. But there’s just there’s just amazing, amazing initiatives here. Sherwin Williams has a really, amazing program for trades as well. probably very similar to your comment around industry getting in early.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:28:35
I’m not sure how early I want to say they’re not like middle schoolers or high schoolers. They might be past that but specifically developing the trades for painting. Yeah.
Andi Simon:
00:28:45
Joe thought.
Speaker 4
00:28:47
Yeah.
Joe Manofsky:
00:28:48
I mean, my thought just sitting here and listening and taking new ideas in which I love to do. You know, it’s really something that, you know, we have our focus is the middle school. We think that’s where it needs to go. The conversation needs to go there. These programs need to start getting built. They’re not going to get built unless people that care about it, and people that know about it from both sides of the industry are connected. We, you know, our slogan from day one that we came up with is becoming better together. And we truly believe that I can’t do this by myself. Nobody in our organization can do by do it by ourselves. It’s really about connecting the people. And we know not everybody you get in a room is going to connect with each other, and it just is what it is.
Joe Manofsky:
00:29:37
It’s not human nature, but truly the people that have synergy will find it. And if it’s something they find that has no benefit to our organization or our program, but it helps workforce development around manufacturing and skilled trades for, you know, people that are post-high school, that’s movement. So, you know, we have our little specific thing that we’re focused on just advocating and raising awareness. And it’s what our organization does. But truly it’s about getting the bigger picture collective to understand that the way it’s been traditionally looked at is probably the reason that we’re in this problem of a shortage. So how do you correct it? Here’s one way we think magnet has the other way. the GCP has their other way, and it goes on and on. Well, if all these people have these different ideas, the conversation is still around the same thing. Yeah. So I just think raising awareness and advocating, I can’t explain it in our can can’t express it enough is one of the biggest tools. It’s as big as tool as having a program at Tri-c.
Joe Manofsky:
00:30:47
It’s as big as a tool of having a long-term career path within your manufacturing company to give people goals and promotions. It’s as big as an idea of what Shana mentioned, of coming up with new creative ways of making an app, to make it a little bit more fun and all these things is what it’s going to take, and everybody plays their part and hopefully everybody cross paths and it just keeps compounding.
Andi Simon:
00:31:13
I think this is so exciting. I’m going to throw one name out there for you to make a note of. I was in Milwaukee two weeks ago, maybe three, two weeks, and I met Katie Mal Knight, who has a company called Engage Workforce Solutions. And what she was doing was out of necessity. The manufacturers didn’t have people who could do forklifts or even know how to optimize the Forklift and so she began to realize that she could take a whole lot of folks who need to be trained for that if they can’t manufacture, because they have nobody to manufacture, how to train them so that they were ready.
Andi Simon:
00:31:51
So what started out as a little, for one has now escalated, and now she’s looking at expansion. I may mistake even into Detroit, but there’s a bunch of stuff going on, and I don’t know how to best articulate this other than it is extremely transformational when you put the dots on the board, if you took all your little post, it’s of all the stuff going on and stick it up on the board, there’s a bigger, bigger story there. And you need to get the press to be impressed by it because it is it’s not a onesie here or a little program there. It’s a major initiative to transform the workforce fast because we need them fast. And we can talk about the electrician you can’t get. But if manufacturing can’t get a forklift driver and they only use half of the forklift. That doesn’t work for anybody either, right?
Joe Manofsky:
00:32:42
Yeah. That’s a that’s a great point. And it just sparks something else in my mind here is that a lot of times when in any industry and Shannon may feel it from the, the creating an app industry, I definitely see it in the insurance industry and consulting and nonprofit for sure is a lot of people get too stuck to the idea that they’re in competition with other people doing the same thing.
Joe Manofsky:
00:33:07
So the manufacturing company that needs the forklift guy doesn’t want the manufacturing company down the street to get the forklift guy. But if they both would collaborate and understand they have the same need, they might find a solution to get three forklift guys. And yeah, that’s really powerful. What you said there because it’s, you know, it’s and I go back to it, it’s collaboration. It’s putting people together and it’s understanding that this is a bigger picture we’re chasing. If you chase it together, it’s going to impact your business better than if you chase it by yourself.
Andi Simon:
00:33:41
One of. Go ahead. Shannon. just.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:33:44
The competition was a huge part of, when I was in consulting, like, partnerships. reaching across the aisle to the people you thought you were in direct competition for, you’d actually find little niches that you didn’t know existed and were able to really have some, some meaningful movement forward for the industry overall. I was just thinking of the demand for manufacturing is just growing astronomically in the US.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:34:09
and we’re not going to be able to keep pace with that. Ohio put in, is putting in the Intel plant, for example, as we’re moving away from relying on China for as much as we have, we’re seeing the port pressure right now where there’s the strikes. So we’re only going to see more and more demand for manufacturing. So we have to get ahead of that curve.
Andi Simon:
00:34:29
Yeah, I think that’s a big opportunity for you guys to think through how to turn those into problems that have solutions. One of the things that I asked Katie was, you know, you’re training younger people, what can the elders do? She said, we’re bringing them in to be the trainers. And so as you’re thinking about the elders, maybe even retired, I know too many retired people have nothing to do, and they should be out there doing the training for the younger, wherever they can, because they could bring a wisdom and maturity and a transformation for the meaning of what’s going on as long as they can do the trades.
Andi Simon:
00:35:12
And not since the next. I’m looking at our time and I’m. I’m almost sorry we can’t keep thinking about this. a couple of things that I wrote down was, don’t forget how artificial reality is being used by Walmart to train their people and how are can. And virtual reality can be part of the training pieces. 3D printing, can be augmented. Reality can be amazing. They’re starting to build buildings with 3D printing in a day. And, if the skills aren’t there, the technology can’t thrive without the people who can thrive with it. And so there’s a whole lot of interesting opportunities coming. Perhaps you’ll come back in, I don’t know, 6 or 9 months and tell us what happened. Can you put some data together by between now and then so that we can celebrate progress, look at problems intelligently, and begin to add value? A podcast is useful if we can help people see was happening, begin to understand how they can do it. And so give me a few weeks because we have a big queue in the podcast stream here.
Andi Simon:
00:36:20
But I’d like to get this out promoted, give it to you to use on your Facebook and your social media and send it to people on your emails. Use it as an advertorial because you’re really doing something that’s really cool stuff. Last thoughts I started with Shawn. I’ll start with Joe. Last 1 or 2 things you want the listeners to perhaps know or do?
Joe Manofsky:
00:36:40
Yeah, I guess really. And I’m going to circle back to what I’ve been saying is if you find this topic important, check us out. our Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, one step ahead, Ohio. like I said, we’re very transparent. You can see what’s going on every week, month, whenever things happen in our organization. But the change comes when people come together and from your side. My ask is advocate and raise awareness that college is not the only option.
Andi Simon:
00:37:18
Good. I think this is so exciting, although my college clients won’t be cited by it, but maybe they can rethink themselves and become part of the advocacy.
Joe Manofsky:
00:37:26
And I should have said this really quick is where we understand we still need doctors, we still need lawyers, we still need all these people. but there are those few kids in every scenario that don’t really know what to do, and they feel pressure to go one route. It’s just opening doors and eyes that, hey, this could be another route. You can go.
Andi Simon:
00:37:46
And I think one that can give you a very, successful career. And we’re working with a bunch of women who are building businesses that have profit and purpose, has significance as well as success. In some ways, you’re thinking the same way for these young folks because they need to have significance as well as success, and that is a real transformation channel. Last thoughts?
Shanna Greathouse:
00:38:11
Yeah. You can also check us out at piggyback. Com or my LinkedIn. I post obnoxiously a lot on there, so feel free to follow that along. It’s just a great house. and just advocating and being an advocate for trades people.
Shanna Greathouse:
00:38:29
also using it as a way I’m a big, big fan as a consumer of voting with your dollar every day. So when you’re supporting the trades, you’re supporting small businesses often you’re often supporting small businesses that are women owned, minority owned, veteran owned. So that’s something that Pigybak really cares about as well. and just be mindful of that whenever you’re booking your next home service.
Andi Simon:
00:38:52
Yes. And you know that roofer who’s a woman does a very fine job, and it is, you know, it’s gender unbiased. Anything that if you need a roofer, it’s okay. Whatever it is. This has been such fun. Let me wrap up for all of you who come across the globe today, we’ve had two marvelous people who are trying to transform so many things how we think about the trades, how we train the trades, how we understand the importance of skilled people. I was going to say skilled labor, but there are people and giving them the opportunity to create, businesses and scale them and understand why this matters so much, both for them and for the society in which we’re living.
Andi Simon:
00:39:35
And to your point, both of you, that that we live in communities we want to belong, and we want them to thrive. And it doesn’t much matter where we are. We’ve got to rebuild them so that both the Intel and the local community can really, really do well. If you’re interested in our books, they’re all available at Amazon. Amazon loves you. On the brink, is about how anthropology can help your business grow. Rethink is smashing the myths of women in business, as Shana can show you and Women Mean business is our latest book. It’s exactly a year old and it is done extremely well helping women see, feel and think of new ways, which is my job. Thank you for joining us today. Remember, take your observations and turn them into innovations as Joe and Shana have done. That’s how we grow. And today was giving you lots of ideas, sometimes big ones. So let us know how it’s helped you and we’ll keep helping. Goodbye everybody. Have a wonderful day.
Andi Simon:
00:40:30
Bye now.
Speaker 5
00:40:31
Thank you, Andy, I thank you.
