When the Twin Towers were hit on 9/11, Andrew Brown was an IT geek who found himself racing through checkpoints in his friend's truck, heading toward ground zero. It was there that he understood the vital importance of tradesmen. Two weeks later, he quit his job and now owns ToolFetch.com, an e-commerce website with over 150,000 products across 7 different categories.

In this month’s episode I’m chatting with Andrew Brown from @toolfetch we discuss his journey from being in IT back in 2001 and how one event changed his entire trajectory. He’s now a huge skilled trades advocate and promotes skilled trades across social media to help drive conversations about the skilled trade shortage.

In this episode of the podcast, host David Johnson delves into the critical topic of advocating for skilled trades and nurturing the next generation of workers. Joined by Andrew Brown, an entrepreneur deeply embedded in the trades community, they explore Andrew's journey sparked by the events of 9/11, which led him to champion the trades. Together, they uncover the pressing need to address labor shortages as seasoned workers retire, challenge negative perceptions deterring young talent, and stress the significance of fostering a supportive culture and work-life balance to attract skilled workers.

Not everyone recognizes the great things workers in the trade industry bring to our everyday lives. Skill trades and those who work as tradespeople help our infrastructure and make the buildings and roads we use every day. However, there are only so many people working in skill trades in the USA, with a recent static finding there are over 4,427 (96% of whom are men). As a result, it can be hard to get the word on how helpful these blue-collar workers are.

Today we have someone on the show that has only been creating content around the skilled trades for about 4 months, but burst onto the scene. Andrew Brown of Tool Fetch joins us on the show today to talk a little shop about the importance of the skilled trades.