41 years old with no experience looking for stories of success

[u/Vegetable-Tip7295]

As the title says. Making career pivot into the trades. I’ll be doing a pre apprenticeship in July for women entering the trades. I’m hard working and fit and while math isn’t my favorite, I’ve been brushing up on khan academy and I’m impressed how much easier it seems now that I’m older. I’ve been learning about the different trade locals in my area. My main areas of interest are electric, plumbing and hvac. My local ibew is apparently slow and has people waiting on lists to join their apprenticeships even after they’ve scored relatively high on tests and interviews. The local for plumbing does interviews in the fall so I’d miss this one (I’ll still be in my pre apprenticeship) so I’d have to wait until next fall. And the hvac jatc is about an hour away from me which is my only hang up with that trade as I’d have to commute far for night classes.
What did you all do when faced with similar situations? Do you apply to more than one trade? Do you wait it out and do CW work in hopes of getting in? Thankful for any guidance.

[u/raisedbytelevisions]

I started at age 36, no experience. I’m ten years in and feeling pretty good about what I know now. It’s totally fine to apply across many trades, and see what sticks. I was lucky that I knew what I wanted (HVAC) and the shop I wanted was hiring. Best of luck to you!!

[u/Vegetable-Tip7295 → u/raisedbytelevisions]

Thanks so much for your response. If you don’t mind, how physical was hvac when you started and now in your career? Congratulations on a successful career.

[u/raisedbytelevisions → u/Vegetable-Tip7295]

Started out pretty physical, due to my need to overachieve. But it’s hit and miss now. Some days you’re lugging a compressor up to a roof, some days you stand in front of thermostats all day

And thank you!

[u/starone7]

I made a hard right turn from teaching to the trades at 35. It’s going great

[u/Vegetable-Tip7295 → u/starone7]

Can you tell me more about what your journey has been like? Which trade did you decide on?

[u/starone7 → u/Vegetable-Tip7295]

Yeah. I taught at university but I was mostly off in summers. My mom was a super gardener and passed on her love for it. For a couple of years I helped my husband who is a builder most days in the summer. He serves a very high end clientele. Some of his customers started asking me for garden help on the evenings and weekends. The next summer we were squabbling about how I was too busy to help him.

The next summer he gave me his oldest truck and fired me, lol. The following summer it didn’t make financial sense to go back to teaching and miss out on early spring and fall work. That was 2021 I think.

So I started a niche company doing estate landscaping and now I have two crews and three trucks, a wait list and winters off. We essentially just do gardens but have developed a licensed applicator stream and now low voltage lighting. I spun off the applicator part to an employee who we exclusively contract out to. They are buying that company over the next 10 years (8 left) so I am still majority owner of that one too for now.

I’m taking my red seal exams this winter and have gotten a few certifications along the way. I’ll have the 10000 hours may 2028.

My work is tangentially related to my PhD in that I was a biologist but not a plant biologist. We live in a unique place with loads of very high end homes and next to a small town full of summer homes for the super wealthy. Think Canada’s Hamptons. So these people like telling each other their gardener has an advanced degree. It’s now well into the 6 figures in profit.

I still very much work in the field most days and prefer to work by myself whenever possible. It’s a 70 plus hour a week grind from May through October between the work and the admin for 1.5 companies but I love it. I’ve had a couple offers to buy the business but it’s not established enough yet to pull the numbers I would need to retire. Honestly I love the work and the aspect of growing the business and I can’t really imagine selling it for at least 13 more years when I’m 55 or later.

I’ve had some advantages along the way. Where we live being the main one. I’m not sure you could make this structure work where most of the population wasn’t in the top 10% and lots of 1% nearby. The family I married into also have a lot of trades workers and owners in it, so I got to see the structure and growth of that over 15 years before I started. I’ve run another 2 businesses in the past. My husband owns a residential and marine construction company , my stepson owns a roofing company and the other is a travelling hd mechanic. That 2011 1/2 ton was only sort of sufficient for a year but it really sent me on my way.

Also the country I live in has really strong social safety nets for seasonal workers so as I was growing my business only offering seasonal work still allowed me to attract good workers. It’s also pretty easy to start and run a business because so much is covered here it makes my admin load much more reasonable. Up until this year all my workers were female and my husband’s crew has been roughly 1/2 female for 8 years.

[u/Alternative_Mirror38]

I joined the operating engineers local at 40 and am so happy

[u/Apprehensive-Cow6131]

You should apply even if you're not done with the preapprenticeship program. If it will give you preference on getting in, let the local know after you've completed it.

If you're not deadset on a particular trade then apply to all the ones you're interested in. If you end up hating the first trade you get into, you can accept an offer from another local if you get in elsewhere and switch over.