CANONSBURG, Pa. — Zion Buford has seen up close more people working with their hands in the trades in the past few months than most adults ever come in contact with in their lifetime. From carpenters to electricians to plumbers to heating and air conditioner installers, if their job makes your day better, faster, warmer, cooler, safer, or run on time, she has seen them in action.
Buford, a 17-year-old senior at Moon Area High School, said her favorites are the welders “because one of the ladies at the trade school built her own fireplaces — she was a real artist with her craft — which was something I really appreciated.”
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“My eyes have also really been opened,” said Buford, “to all of the opportunities there are out there to walk out of high school or a trade school with little to no debt and be able to get a job where [I] could comfortably support myself.”
Buford — along with 11 other students in Western Pennsylvania, six from a rural high school and six from an urban high school — has had this exposure thanks to a foundation started by CNX Resources Corporation. CNX, one of the largest independent natural gas exploration and shale production companies, quietly began a mentoring academy at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year for disadvantaged young people to help them fully realize their potential and see the chance for upward mobility to which they never knew they had access.
Founded by the energy company’s CEO, Nick DeIuliis, who grew up in working-class Chartiers Valley, the program has the students meet once a month. They attend field visits with different trade associations as well as on-site visits and listen to guest speakers, usually CEO’s, to discuss career paths that don’t necessarily include college. There is also instruction in resume creation, job interviews, civics and business, and how to dress for success.
The overall objective is to take these students from a place of no post-high school direction to a path of prosperity by exposing them to opportunities in the trades — and then ensure that they secure a job or an apprenticeship by the time they graduate. The benefits are significant when there is a massive skill gap in our current workforce. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that there are 6.5 million unemployed people in the United States despite there being 11 million job openings.
In short, we don’t prepare our young people for the well-paying jobs that are not only available but also are desperately needed to keep our economy going. This program does that for the young people who need it most.
DeIuliis said he donated $1 million from his compensation package last year to fund the program’s startup and first-year costs, with none of the students paying anything — including enrollment in trade schools.
“Big picture, we’re saying there’s all this virtue-signaling and glad-handing when it comes to corporations with what they call ESG, corporate America’s measuring stick for social responsibility and diversity inclusion, and we wanted it to be doing something more than words on paper — in other words, something tangible, impactful and local,” said DeIuliis as several students in the program walked past the CEO, greeting him on a first-name basis.
“We saw this big demographic of individuals coming out of high school that don’t want to go to college or can’t afford to go to college,” DeIullis explained. “They are bright, show up for school, have abilities and potential, and yet everyone in society — whether it is the education system, businesses, media, and culture — have already determined that if you don’t go to college, you are a failure.”
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He says that impression is wrong. The types of jobs the students are exposed to are actually careers — professions that pay total compensation packages, which, when you count in the benefits, add up to six-figure salaries. There are also opportunities in a paid apprenticeship that allow you to earn money as you learn on the job. Department of Labor statistics show that 92% of apprentices who complete their program go on to start with an average annual salary of $72,000.
DeIuliis said his plan is for every young person who walks into the academy to walk out with a career in the trades. He said he has made sure this isn’t a one-off program.
“Instead, it is funded into perpetuity,” he said, “so that we continue to give back to the community through these young people.”
Buford said she was stunned to meet young people not much older than her who are working in the different trades and making six-figure salaries.
“And they were buying their own homes,” she said, “and bonus: They didn’t have to find a home that was hours from their families. The jobs were all located near to what they call home.”
She added that it is regrettable the way our culture looks at people who work with their hands.
“They are often the people who get the least respect, yet if they get one thing wrong, everything can go wrong, like bridges, for instance. When we went to the carpenters union, they were talking about how they had to be underwater to fix the bridges. That is dangerous work, and if they get it wrong, someone will get hurt, and I don’t think enough people appreciate they really know how important it is for them to get things right.”
Last Friday, the lobby of CNX headquarters was a beehive of activity as all the students carried out a variety of preparatory tasks assigned to them that day as part of the mentoring academy.
Buford and several of the other students were walking back and forth trying on different suits and shoes and checking out briefcases provided to them by Dress for Success to prepare for their first interviews. Others were receiving help preparing their resumes and LinkedIn profiles, where they were able to add the CEOs of several companies they had met in the past year as future references.
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Each one of them, without fail, kept in touch with their individual mentors, who have backgrounds just like them — an integral part of what DeIuliis says is the key to the program’s success.
Standing in the center of the swirl of the young people are Audric Dodds and Jamal Woodson — both black, which bucks the stereotype of what the American public thinks most energy workers look like. Woodson is an urban radio station executive and entrepreneur who signed up with CSX to mentor young people who are looking for men who look just like them to show them that they, too, can be successful given the opportunity.
He admits that the standard image is that of a white, uneducated worker living in the hollers of the West Virginia/Eastern Ohio/Pennsylvania corner of the country — a guy who has little regard for the environment and shoots guns in the air just for kicks.
Woodson laughs, “Don’t you just love dispelling labels?”
Woodson said it wasn’t all sunshine and roses when he met Christian Stevens, his first student.
“When I first met up with him, he slouched the whole time — every word out of him was a one-word answer or a mumble, and I thought to myself, ‘This kid is so disrespectful,’” explained Woodson, who identifies some of the students through a basketball program he runs in the city of Pittsburgh.
Still, Woodson gave him a chance. Then came the first time he introduced him to DeIuliis.
“I was super excited,” Woodson said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, this is the CEO of the company,’ and he goes, ‘Sup?’ and just keeps walking past him.”
Woodson, 42, said he was embarrassed, “but after spending some time with Christian and finding out what was going on with him — his best friend had been shot and killed, he had no father in his life — I soon realized all he was looking for was some attention.”
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Woodson taught him that when you earn attention by quietly doing the right things, rather than doing annoying things that attract negative attention, the world opens doors for you.
“Now, he comes to the academy with lots of really good questions and ideas,” Woodson said, “and is now looking out for other kids just like him in high school who would benefit from the program.”
Woodson expects that once Stevens graduates from high school and has identified what trade he wants to learn, he will be successful, “because he sees what the positive results are from other young people who have gone in this direction.”
Dodds, who is the director of community relations and strategic partnerships for CNX, said the goal of the program is to identify these young people that the whole system has written off and show them the opportunities.
“We want to spark that interest in them across all different industries — from electrical to carpentry to natural gas,” said Dodds. “We took them up to PPG [Paints Arena] and showed them what it takes to run it, and we will do whatever it takes from picking them up from their housing to taking them to the job to paying for their classes to help them get the skills they need to be successful.”
“These are the forgotten kids from the forgotten schools in the forgotten towns in this country,” he added. “It is on us as an industry to show them that doesn’t have to be their destiny.”
