“It’s surreal seeing you all here, but it’s the best kind of surreal.”
Last week, I had the joy of hosting our team for an offsite where I grew up in Alabama. We visited our famed local courthouse (rumored to be haunted by a ghost) and the friends who run the small businesses surrounding it. We held working sessions at Pickens County College & Career Center, including a discussion with 100+ students learning high impact skilled trades. We took welding lessons at Lavender, Inc., a leading regional mechanical contracting business, and generous welcome from my high school classmate and his family who lead it. And my dad toured everyone around the ranch he operates every day, complete with an introduction to raising cattle, managing horses, and repairing machinery.
This place shaped me as a kid, and now shapes UpSmith’s values and our mission to address skilled worker shortages by serving people like those in this community. We’re succeeding in our effort to expand workforce productivity with people like Juan Bravo, who left an hourly job at a food processing plant to become an HVAC technician, and now reflects: “I can pursue the career I wanted to do years ago…the sky’s the limit at this point.”
While it was surreal seeing my team in my hometown, as one team member put it: “This really shows me just how many threads connect us.”
Excited for the next chapter of our work.
– Wyatt
