Senior Vice President Ed Travis believes youth can be recruited from high school if they are shown that painting is a technical career and paid accordingly. You have to understand application tools, spray machines, chemical coatings, surface preparation, and the effects of temperature and humidity. They'll have to reach down in their pockets and pay for it. Liddeke is involved with a program due to begin next year. It starts junior-year high school students with an introduction to different construction trades.
Seniors get some hands-on experience.
A student at graduation has a choice of an apprenticeship or going on to a four-year college. In a couple of years, Liddeke would like to take students from high school directly into his own in-house training program.