It’s not just abundant jobs and high wages that draw folks into the skilled trades. Many say it feeds their passion for working with their hands. Here’s the third and final installment of our series, “Trading Up.” WMRA’s Christine Kueter reports.
[sounds of an auto body shop]
Twenty-year-old Jeremy Hill once considered going to a four-year college.
JEREMY HILL: I was, like, always very fidgety, and needing to do something with my hands, so college was, it was in the future, for a little bit, and then, once I found CATEC, and really started gathering stuff in the automotive world, I was like, “Well, this is something that I could really do for the rest of my life.”
Hill is one of about 30 auto technician apprentices working at Carter Myers Automotive in Charlottesville. He attended CATEC (Charlottesville Area Technical Education Center) his junior year before graduating from high school in 2025, and has been working on cars at CMA ever since, including, today, a tan Nissan Rogue that needs a wheel alignment.
HILL: Yeah, those are sensors. And it’ll guide each angle, so, the toe, and, then when we go to adjust it, it’ll adjust along with it to set the correct angle.
He’s also learned other skills—
HILL: Alignments, oil changes, all of our fluid exchanges, brake services, mainly maintenance stuff, but I have done more intensive work with exhausts. . . . I kind of just always liked them, just, more the sports car scene, and racing, but also just kind of how they work is fascinating.
And that’s in keeping with what CATEC Principal Stacy Heltz hears from students, too.
STACY HELTZ: When we do surveys of students, we ask them, like, what is their motivator for a job? And, actually, wage is not the number one. It tends to be passion for the work. And, so, getting students to find their passion, and helping connect them, you know, to what that is, I think is the key to long-term happiness. And I also think that we have shifted this mindset a little bit from, you know, it's an “or,” but we’ve really been talking to students about an “and.” Like, you can do a skilled trade and go to college. If college doesn’t work out, you have this thing to lean back on. It also can be a hobby. It can be something that helps you pay your way through school. You can go be a mechanic, and then do, like, the engineering aspect of it, which is really cool. And you can pair, you know, both aspects together.
[sounds of cutting wires, stripping, snipping]
Through his 20s and 30s, Greg Weaver made more than $80,000 a year working in tech and administrative jobs. Then he got interested in green energy.
GREG WEAVER: One of my main goals in entering the apprenticeship program and taking up a trade was to learn more about renewables and clean energy. The itch that was scratched was wanting to make a difference in that realm with my hands. The need for electricians that are here to be working on those sorts of things, that’s what I’m hoping, you know, I can stay here and do that, long-term, but we’ll see how the future goes. But I do feel like I’m working toward something that will actually make a difference in the community and, ultimately, the world.
Today, Weaver’s halfway through an apprenticeship at UVa. He likes the new view of his alma mater and learning from mentors, including Cody Borelli, a lead electrician at the university for the last 16 years. The two were recently running wires in the basement ceiling of Halsey Hall. Here’s Borrelli.
CODY BORRELLI: It’s cool seeing the different people come through, and go out, especially from where they haven’t messed with it before, and then they can wire lights and receptacles and switches. It’s like, “oh, heck yeah.” It’s pretty fun seeing all that. Yeah, he’s doing fantastic. Couldn’t ask for a better helper.
Weaver, who’s 39, says the apprenticeship checks a lot of boxes.
WEAVER: For me, I think a lot of it is just being interested in learning. I’m interested in so many things, it’s to a fault, right? I have a lot of hobbies, I’m a curious person, and, so while this is a very different role from before, it was still like, “well, I’m going to be learning things I have zero clue about.” And that’s exciting. I think people should tap into that part. I think we all have the capacity for that.
Piedmont Virginia Community College will host its NextGen Skilled Trades Day at its Charlottesville campus this Saturday, October 17, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Students, families, and educators can take part in hands-on demonstrations, explore training programs, and talk to local employers with job openings in the skilled trades. The event is free and open to the public.
