0:00:00 Sophie Eden: Looking back, is there anything that you wish that you had done differently regarding?

0:00:10 Greg Berry: That’s a long list. I’m not sure we have enough time. Join us as we dive into the wild world of government auctions and take you behind the scenes to uncover the cool and unique ways bidders from across America are utilizing the items they’ve won on Municibid, like an ambulance repurposed into a work truck, to a city bus converted into an RV, and so much more. Welcome to the municibid podcast.

0:00:44 Sophie Eden: Hi Greg. Welcome back to the Municibid Podcast.

0:00:48 Greg Berry: It’s great to be back.

0:00:50 Sophie Eden: So today we’re talking about trade schools. Can you give us some background on which trade school did you go to and why did you pick a trade school?

0:01:01 Greg Berry: Yeah, a lot of people seem to be surprised when they find out that in high school I decided to go to a trade school, or what they called a vocational technical high school, or botech, in short, and I’m not sure if that’s what they still call it these days, but it always had this real kind of stigma around it that wasn’t very positive. It was kind of where the bad kids went or the troublemakers and people that weren’t smart and that sort of thing.

0:01:33 Greg Berry: But in the middle of 10th grade, I had an opportunity to see a presentation about this tech school, which was at the time called Western Center for Technical Studies. And I believe they changed it now to western Montgomery County Technical School or something along those lines. So they did change the name many years ago, but when I went there, it was called Western center for Technical Studies. It was based in Limerick, Pennsylvania.

0:02:03 Greg Berry: So in the middle of 9th grade, I ended up moving from Pottsgrove School District to Westchester East School District, kind of right in the middle of my freshman year. And prior to moving to that school, I was really on top of my game academically, sports wise, just was in really good shape. But then moving over to Westchester, it was a much bigger school, a much more affluent school, and my grades started slipping. There was a lot more competition in sports, and I wasn’t really feeling that good about myself.

0:02:43 Greg Berry: Then I finally came back around and kind of got my confidence back up. My grades were good, and then we ended up moving back to Potsgrove in the middle of 10th grade, and the same kind of cycle started happening again. Even though I was coming back to the school that I’ve known, the school I went to since elementary school, my friends kind of moved on a little bit without me, and I just was put in this weird place again.

0:03:09 Greg Berry: And about that same time, there was a presentation on the Western Center for Technical Studies, and they had a course there called business technology. And that goes along with all the other types of courses. They offered their things in electrical or in HVAC or welding or food services, cosmetology. There was all kinds of different trades that were available. But the business technology one had really stood out to me because I’ve been in front of a computer, had a computer since probably 1988. My mom worked at a help desk for a pharmaceutical company, and so she would bring home computer books and all this stuff. So I had a lot of sort of interest in that from a very young age, especially with respect to how early it was in the 80s, even to have a home computer.

0:04:14 Greg Berry: And then, of course, the dawn of the Internet as it relates to sort of public use in the. So all this kind of came together. And this course was about, the business technology course was all about computers, software, coding, all of it, and networking. And so it really piqued my interest. Again, I was a pretty decent student, but school just really never got me that excited. But this did. So it was a full time program. It was a two year program, and it started in my junior year and then went into my senior year.

0:05:01 Greg Berry: The other big benefit was that for two days out of the week, I could go work in my field and get paid for it. And so it was a way to go to school for three days a week and then get paid to be at work two days a week.

0:05:17 Sophie Eden: That’s brilliant.

0:05:18 Greg Berry: Yeah, it was great. And so I started my first, in my junior year, my apprenticeship. It was really apprentice program is what it was called. I started my apprenticeship at my mom’s company, West Pharmaceutical Services, where she was the manager of the IT help desk. But I started first in what they called in the company, their computer engineering department. And it was interesting because it was basically learning how to set up and install software and do some very light coding on the computers that operated, some of the machinery that the company was using.

0:06:02 Greg Berry: But that really kind of didn’t interest me a whole lot. What interested me more was how do these computers talk to each other and that sort of thing? And that was kind of what I call the networking side. And that was the side that my mom was working on, the it help desk side. So I quickly sort of moved over to that department, and I enjoyed that much more. And I know I’m going on and on here, but I wanted to kind of finish that in the sense that I switched to a smaller company that did computer networking and printer repair and that kind of thing.

0:06:41 Greg Berry: In the middle of my junior and senior year, during the summer, I moved to the smaller company, and that’s really what got me interested in starting. Well, I was always interested in being an entrepreneur, starting my business, but this really kind of solidified it. So the day after I graduated high school, I started my first business, which was an it company, which was in 98, and that was great timing ahead of the whole y two k thing.

0:07:10 Greg Berry: And I still went to college. I went to a small technical college, kind of the same deal. They had a number of different options available, but I took the computer science route and have an associate’s degree in that, which, again, people were kind of surprised. I had some other opportunities to go to Penn State University, but I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I had all these certifications and that sort of thing, which I was able to get as a result of this apprentice program by going to the trade school.

0:07:48 Greg Berry: So there’s a lot of value in that, and that’s just in business, technology or it, or whatever you want to call it back then. So that’s just one of many opportunities that trade schools offer that a lot of people kind of overlook. And I’m not sure if that stigma is still there, but I’m guessing there’s a little bit of it that’s still there. Although with the demand that skilled professionals have in the trades right now, I just really encourage as many people as possible to consider that, especially younger people, to consider the trades as a route just because of the ongoing, and from what I can see, almost never ending demand for a lot of these professions.

0:08:46 Sophie Eden: And it’s something today it seems almost like an expectation that you go to a college and you rack up a ton of student loans with no promise that whatever your degree is that you’re going to have a job after graduating in order to be able to pay off that loan. Do you remember with the trade school, what was the cost looking like for that?

0:09:18 Greg Berry: Yeah, the high school, tech school, that was free. I mean, that’s just part that served three different high schools in the area. So there was students from three different school districts that kind of fed into the one tech school. So that was free. And not only free, it was a money making opportunity. I was just always a hustler, of course, the lemonade stands and mowing lawns and that sort of thing. When I was young, really young, and then that kind of moved on to different opportunities. So I was always out there with stirring something up, and then so this was an opportunity to really get kind of serious about my entrepreneur journey. So, yeah, I was able to go and work two days out of the week, and I was getting paid very nicely for that.

0:10:23 Greg Berry: I had an outside part time job, I guess. Yeah, pretty much in my junior and senior year. It was selling electronics and computers at Sears on commission. And so that taught me a lot about sales and just a number of things actually dealing with people, and that was really cool. And I did pretty well there, especially for a teenager. But anyway, yeah, so that didn’t cost anything in high school. And then I received a half scholarship to go. It’s called Lehigh College now, not Lehigh University. It’s two different things. It’s just Lehigh College is just a small business school.

0:11:09 Greg Berry: And so that was maybe 8000. But I had already started my it company before I started going to that. So the summer, basically, in between when I graduated high school, when this program, the college program started, I was already billing clients for work. Probably had a handful of clients at that time.

0:11:32 Sophie Eden: And when you started your IT company, did you find that you were applying a lot of the skills that you had learned in trade school, or were you kind of learning as you went with your it company?

0:11:48 Greg Berry: Well, a little of both. So when I started at the trade school, I started learning about all the different industry certifications that were available through Microsoft, Novell, Cisco, and so anyway, and there were several other technical certifications, but I was really interested in obtaining the Microsoft certified system engineer MCSE certification, which I ultimately got, and the certified Novell engineer.

0:12:22 Greg Berry: I never got the certified Novell engineer, but I got the certified novell administrator, I think is what it was called, which was kind of like one level down, but not a bad non investment because that Novell just kind of went away just as I was getting into. So, in any case, yeah, I was able to get these certifications. I also went to night school specifically for Microsoft through, like, a private school. So there was some investment in that, but it was not very much.

0:12:53 Greg Berry: In fact, I’m sure they probably just gave me some kind of student discount. I was definitely the youngest person in that class. So, yeah, so with those certifications that I had before I graduated high school, I mean, I could write my own paycheck with those certifications. No matter where I went, I could walk into any big company, and that’s what they were looking for more than they were really caring about degrees, college degrees.

0:13:19 Greg Berry: They just wanted the kind of the technical prowess. And so I’m not saying that not everyone should go to a trade school and no one should go to college. I want to make sure that that’s clear. I think there’s some benefit to both, obviously. But, yeah, a lot of times, friends of mine are still paying off college. It’s just like what I think I had. College paid off before I even started, before I even had my first day. I mean, it wasn’t much, thankfully.

0:13:52 Greg Berry: It was relatively inexpensive. I think it ultimately cost me, like $8,000 or something.

0:13:58 Sophie Eden: That’s brilliant.

0:14:00 Greg Berry: Yeah, it was great. Now, sometimes I wonder maybe I should have gotten a bachelor’s degree on computer science, but I honestly don’t think it would have helped me, especially at the time, because, again, the certifications and the technical understanding and the actual real world experience, and I want to make sure I don’t discount that, because the apprentice program really allowed me to get actual real world experience and not just sort of in classroom talk.

0:14:34 Greg Berry: And so there was obviously a lot of experience that came from that, that I was able to apply. So, for sure, it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And I’m kind of glad I didn’t go to a four year college again, because I just wasn’t that great of a student. And I was like your typical c or maybe b student, and I was just more interested in kind of how things worked, how the computers talked to each other, and then just also kind of just an entrepreneur frame of mind or mindset that I think I’ve had since I was a kid.

0:15:16 Sophie Eden: And these certificates that you got, they had, like, a practical test component to it, right. Where it’s not just like, can you memorize what the definitions of all these technical terms is, but can you actually apply it into a real world situation?

0:15:35 Greg Berry: Yeah, exactly. So there was a lot, of course, vernacular that’s involved in it, for sure. But, yeah, the real world aspect of it and practical application aspect of it was definitely a driving factor in these certifications. In fact, you had to go to these testing facilities to take these tests, because sometimes it require more than just sort of answering questions on a screen.

0:16:07 Sophie Eden: Looking back, is there anything that you wish that you had done differently regarding.

0:16:15 Greg Berry: That’s a long list. I’m not sure we have enough podcast for that.

0:16:24 Sophie Eden: Well, focusing on trade school kind of career application.

0:16:33 Greg Berry: It would be hard to say. I’m happy with how things have turned out. And so who knows if I would have done one thing or if I wasn’t there that day. They had the presentation about the tech school, or if I decided not to go to it. It was a big decision because it was a full time situation. So it wasn’t like I was at my high school for half the day, and then I would go to the tech school for half a day or something. It was like, okay, here I am again, moving, essentially. I mean, even though I was still a member of that school district of Pottsgrove school District, and I still graduated and I could still play sports and that sort of thing at Pottsgrove, I wasn’t going there on a daily basis. So in some aspects, okay, maybe I missed out on some cool high school experiences, but I had my own at the tech school, and they were just as fun and pretty cool and also had some other opportunities that, again, I don’t think I would have taken advantage of if I just stayed in the traditional educational route.

0:17:40 Greg Berry: So I was involved in what’s called the future business leaders of America, FBLA. I was the president of that for the school, which was really cool, but then I was also a national officer of what was then called Vica vocational Industrial Clubs of America. Now it’s just called Skills USA. But that was really an amazing opportunity. I got to travel. I was out of school a lot more, even more than the three days a.

0:18:12 Greg Berry: Um, I got to go to all these different conferences. I got to speak, I got to participate in all these different kind of ceremony kind of things, and it was just a really awesome experience and a cool way to meet other students from all over the country. So it was a great opportunity. And, of course, that taught me a lot about leadership and sort of business and kind of how to deal with people, public speaking, all of it.

0:18:40 Greg Berry: So I really feel like those two years, my junior and senior year, which, by the way, my grades were back to A’s or up to A’s, so I just was performing better because I just enjoyed what I was doing more. But it was also. I was enjoying it, and it was practical. And then actually, I was just thinking in the middle, between my junior and senior year, I went to this nerd camp. I’ll call it, I’m forgetting the name of it, but basically, it was a simulation camp for running a business.

0:19:18 Greg Berry: So you would go, and somehow you’re split up into different companies, groups of kids, students. And so I was elected to be the CEO of our company somehow. But anyway, yeah, it was a cool experience. So we spent the whole week, and we had daily meetings and presentations and that sort of thing, but we had to make these decisions that went into, we had to basically input answers into this computer simulation. And then we would get scored on how we answer these questions.

0:19:58 Greg Berry: Essentially, I think we came in second place out of ten or something.

0:20:03 Sophie Eden: That’s pretty cool.

0:20:04 Greg Berry: Yeah, but I wasn’t that happy about that. But anyway, yeah, it was a really good experience. It was super fun. But I don’t know, maybe someone that was in that company is listening today. Who knows? I hope they are. We had a skateboarding company, but I forget it’s called derailed. It was cool, but it was fun. So anyway, yeah, all those different opportunities would not be available if I just decided to go down the traditional path of staying at my high school, which at the time would have been the easier decision, for sure.

0:20:47 Greg Berry: But again, when I saw this presentation, it really piqued my interest and, yeah, I’m really happy that I made that decision.

0:20:56 Sophie Eden: Do you know what’s going on today to help promote trade schools? I’m hoping they’re still doing presentations like you had in your high school, in high schools today. But what’s going on to promote these trade schools? Because it sounds like they really provide valuable real world skills and that are applicable straight into business and the workforce.

0:21:26 Greg Berry: Yeah, I wish I knew. To be honest, I don’t know what it’s like these days and what the stigma is. If it has changed at all. I think it might have changed, though. I get the sense that it has because of the demand for these jobs especially. I have some friends that have plumbing companies and customers of municipality that have plumbing companies, and they are dying for plumbers and it’s very hard to find. They have plenty of business.

0:22:01 Greg Berry: They just don’t have the plumbers to be able to fulfill all the work. And the same thing goes with electricians and sort of all of the other skilled trades. It seems like there’s just demand and then there’s specific demand for solar, for example, and even down to long haul truck driving. A lot of truckers decided to change careers because of autonomous trucks. But the reality is there’s more stuff being bought. There’s more stuff that needs to be moved.

0:22:42 Greg Berry: One of the problems with the ports is that there’s not enough trucks to be able to take the stuff out of the ports. So there’s just tons of opportunity out there for people. And it doesn’t require this $100,000 degree for a $35,000 paycheck. It just doesn’t make sense.

0:23:04 Sophie Eden: Right.

0:23:05 Greg Berry: And I encourage employers who are hiring, and maybe not just specifically for these kind of trade positions, but more for any sort of position that if someone has this kind of skilled in certain areas or went to a tech school or vocational school, I would highly recommend not bypassing those resumes. I think there’s a lot of value in those people who’ve gone to these technical schools or vocational schools, not just technical skills, but perhaps worth ethic or work ethic. And it’s kind of like softer skills, right?

0:23:52 Sophie Eden: That won’t necessarily come across on a resume. Wonderful.

0:23:57 Greg Berry: Thank you for tuning in to the Municibid Podcast. If you’d like to learn more about the world of government surplus, be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to your podcast.