Tune in to Fix the Maintenance Crisis
This is a draft for a future online publication- would love your input and guidance on how to improve this article and more importantly how can we fix the Maintenance Crisis. Got any cool pics to share too?
Tune into the Maintenance Crisis Song and get your kids ready for the mega job boom underway to fix a better tomorrow. ?https://youtu.be/WJJ_zFvAS1M
With the flood of new jobs coming just to NC, ? we have to build and recruit more tech workers just to satisfy future needs, not to mention all of the existing companies who are dealing with the departing boomer generation, and retaining existing workers and who want to expand.?
Every day, the media bombards us with stories of a new crisis that seems to threaten the existence of life on planet earth: melting ice caps,the terrorists nuclear ambitions, war in Ukraine, rising oil prices, the growing shortage of maintenance techs….?
Come again?
If you’re unaware of the crisis in the maintenance industry, it’s not for lack of effort on the part of Joel Leonard, who says that deferring the maintenance of both private and public infrastructure has already claimed thousands of lives and cost billions of dollars.?
To draw public attention to the crisis, Leonard turned to a medium long used by those seeking to jumpstart a movement: song. His lyrics to the “Maintenance Crisis Song,” set to the music of friend Harley Denio, warn of impending breakdown and social upheaval:
Updated Lyrics of the Maintenance Crisis Song- copyright 2022
No one wants to work in the boiler room,
no one wants to work with the tools.
The nation’s busy taking the easy way out,
There’s no one left to fix our schools.
Maintenance technicians are about to retire.
Company executives got no one to hire.
How safe does it make you feel?
America Needs no more TV idols,
The Talent Shows are rigged anyways
Our Building Maintenance Infrastructure could blow or fade or leak any day
There’s no easy road to getting rich, while our national treasures are going down in the ditch
How safe does it make you feel?
How safe does it make you feel?
Working in Maintenance is an honorable field, gone are days when only don’t just need Bubbas and Skeeters but also lots more Amys ,Rinas,Nichelles, Xius and Jills.
Today we use computers and very sophisticated tools
But there’s not enough entering our technical schools
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How safe does it make you feel?
How safe does it make you feel?
Supply fans, cooling towers and critical equipment? are breaking down all over the place
High pressure, low pressure springing a leak, well I can tell you it’s a big disgrace.Industry knows what we have got to do, find and train a workforce who can fix it for you?
How safe does it make you feel?
How safe does it make you feel? Just how safe does it make you feel??
Since the “Maintenance Crisis Song” was first written in 2002, it’s been “covered” by over 10 other groups, including a hip-hop rendition by the “Toolkit Kids,” a group of Cone Elementary students who were part of Heavenly Voices Performing Arts, an after-school music and dance program active in several Guilford County Schools in Greensboro, N.C.
“The message is that maintenance is an awesome, awesome job,” says Mary Stevens, a substitute teacher in the Guilford County School system who organized Heavenly Arts.?
Stevens says that being part of the project had a positive effect on the 18 children involved, aside from introducing them to the possibilities of a career in technical support.?
“It helped the children with their self-esteem, and it improved their schoolwork and behavior,” says Stevens. “The children saw they could really do something totally different” when they went into the studio to record the song. “It changed their attitudes.”
Want to hear some of the Maintenance Crisis Songs???
Leonard says that an obstacle to luring more young people into the field is a negative public perception of technical jobs. Everyone makes jokes about plumbers' cracks but not realizing the incredible amount of knowledge and financial opportunities of those who build companies and support our infrastructure. ? Numerous apprentices programs have been launched by plumbing and electrical companies. But rarely is that featured in the media at the same volume as entertainment and athletics.?
How do we fix the crisis? We have to get our parents, our teachers, our leaders, our educators, our athletic directors the importance of building techletes, people that can adapt to all of the enormous changes underway and address the critical challenges?
?The Maintenance Crisis Song ?numerous websites,? and played at technical conferences around the world, including the? congressional forum Council of Competitiveness, Euromaintenance Conferences, and even played at the Rock and Roll HOF. NPR stations and dozens of the other outlets. Audacy station 97.1 WQMG 102 JAMZ Renee Vaughn, radio host,? has become a strong supporter of the Maintenance Crisis and plays it frequently during the Workforce development podcast. WRDU played the country version and even the followup song Find Me a maintenance woman. So often that several students sang along when Joel Leonard spoke at a charter school in the Raleigh area. “Find Me a Maintenance” song was created to help solve the crisis by encouraging companies to hire women.?
“The skilled tech? jobs have been culturally stigmatized to the point where people don’t want to get their hands dirty,” says Leonard. “They don’t want to do manual labor, and they look down their noses at people who do. We’re trying to overcome that, because our whole economy rests on the backs of people who do this kind of work.”??
With the return of US Manufacturing and the dissolution of apprenticeships, the over promotion of athletics and entertainment, most do not know that these issues exist and? too few of our youth have no desire to become service technicians, even though these jobs offer livable compensations. With overtime many make 6 figures yet our youth, parents, career counselors actually sneer at their youth to pursue the education needed to succeed, even though the opportunities to prosper long term? is much higher than in the stadiums or stages.?
?On a positive note apprenticeships are now on the rise but we still do not have enough efforts and correct attitudes to totally eliminate the dangerous issues caused by the Maintenance Crisis.?
“This couldn't be more relevant than it is today. I have been trying to communicate this to our leadership for the last couple of years. The landscape to find candidates is drastically changing and we need to be more attractive, flexible and innovative to find new workers.”? says Dirk Webb, Maintenance Manager of Coca Cola, USA?
Thomas Furnival, VP of the Marshall Institute shares “How safe does it make you feel?”…a really powerful line from The Maintenance Crisis song that is just as true today as it was when Joel Leonard penned it 20 years ago.
The Maintenance Crisis song captures the terrifying consequences and not so groovy mindset towards industrial careers. Outdated perspectives and misguided high-school career counselors continue to push students away from the trade professions towards 4-year degrees.
As a result, there are millions of professional, and high-paying jobs in U.S industry which are lying vacant. This means that critical maintenance tasks are understaffed and under performed. Would you want to fly in a plane that’s behind on its maintenance schedule?
We have a duty to do a much better job of developing high-school students for fulfilling careers with local employers through well-equipped local education and training institutions.
We owe it to the next generation, and we owe it to ourselves. We’ll all sleep a lot better knowing that skilled, capable, and passionate maintenance professionals are keeping our infrastructure and economy safe and productive.
Kudos to Joel Leonard for passionately and rhythmically banging this drum for 20+years! Keep that beat going Joel.”
Please tune into these thought provoking songs and help us grow the skills needed so more rise out of poverty and are safe!?
Additional Sources: Daniel Beyer, ReliablePlant.com Plant Services,com, Maintworld.com, Stocktoninfrared.com, Terrence Ohanlon Reliabilityweb.com?Don Fitchett, BIN95, Pete Little
VP World Class Maintenance Maintenance and Reliability Advisor/ Educator, Book Author
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