Member Spotlight
Patrick Blair: Determination
Patrick Blair is a first-year masonry apprentice who recently began working at J.P. Cullen & Sons on the Milwaukee City Hall project. If you ask, he'll tell you how much he loves it, how well it's going, and how much he looks forward to work each morning.
He didn't always love his job that well. “I was working at Patrick Cudahy in basically a dead-end job,” Blair says. “I had a buddy who was going through the Urban League's pre-apprenticeship program to become a plumber. He told me try it out.” Blair did, and he felt that masonry was something he'd like to do. “So I took the Accuplacer entrance test and then started the 12-week pre-apprenticeship training.”
The only way Blair could take the class was to continue working his late shift at Patrick Cudahy. “I was working Sunday through Wednesday from 5 p.m. until 3:30 a.m.,” he recalls. “I would come home after work and catch an hour of sleep, then drive out to New Berlin for the class at 7 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Then I'd have to go back to work.”
“I really wanted it,” he says, speaking of the determination that got him through those sleepless weeks. “A few people told me I couldn't do it, but I proved them wrong. Once I got the call saying J.P. Cullen wanted to take me on as an apprentice, it felt like I'd really accomplished something. My fiancee and I celebrated.”
Blair will tell anyone who will listen to consider a career in the trades. “Anytime I have a chance, I tell other people about it,” he says. “One of my younger sisters just graduated from high school and she's going through the same program I did. She wants to become a painter.”
Power of One Newsletters
