Only 5% of skilled trades workers are women. AZ startup Move Over Bob is trying to change that

Women make up less than 5% of the skilled trades workforce in the United States. Kate Glantz is hoping to change that.

Glantz is the founder of Move Over Bob, a local startup media brand and magazine that’s aimed at getting more women to join the trades — from plumbers to electricians to welders.

And, to do it, she gave it a try herself. She joined The Show to talk about the experience.

Full conversation

KATE GLANTZ: I had done well professionally, and I had a house and, you know, by societal standards, hey, you know, you made it, girl.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

KATE GLANTZ: And yet, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you I would need a wrench to fix a leaky faucet. I was fully out of the loop of Life Skills 101. And that as someone who is so, you know, investigative and just always trying new things, it really bothered me. So I just dove in and I registered for a one-semester pre-apprenticeship at Mesa Community College where I learned how to frame a house, picked up power tools and hand tools for the first time. And I loved it. And so part of it was just like, can I? ... But the second part of it was I had been seeing so much tangentially in the news and in sort of my special interests around women’s economic independence about the skilled trades being in demand, high-paying and us really being on the brink of a true workforce crisis. ... And that was super interesting.

LAUREN GILGER: So you thought about this from the beginning as an entrepreneur. But I love that you went and actually did it. What did it feel like to hold the power saw, you know? Like what — is it — does it feel great?

KATE GLANTZ: OMG, so powerful. You just let that — let it rip, and, you know, and then try using a band saw where you’re cutting metal, you feel like you’ve invented fire basically. Like it is ...

LAUREN GILGER: [LAUGHS]

KATE GLANTZ: ... it’s just real. It’s real and it’s tangible. And, you know, if you cut something, it’s in two pieces now. Like there’s — so much of my career had been in marketing and storytelling, and I love that and I bring that into everything I do as well. But I could never really tell what the outcome was. And it was so satisfying to have an outcome and to say, that is a roof truss that I built that will go to a house that someone will sleep under. You do not want to leave me unsupervised on a job site. I will be very clear about that. But it was incredibly empowering.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. This is an actual workforce problem, as you’re getting at, right? Like we need more workers in the “the trades,” right, in these kinds of jobs — electricians, plumbers, etc. We don’t have enough of them and very few women, right?

KATE GLANTZ: Absolutely. So less than 5% of tradespeople are women. Electricians, you mentioned, that’s about 2%. Plumbers, we’re looking at 1%. It is not a job a lot of young people or, full stop people, have much insight into or not — they’re not careers unless your dad did it. But if your dad wasn’t in that, or you know, your family wasn’t exposed to blue-collar work, then you probably have some ideas about it and some — probably some stigmas or misconceptions. And mainstream entertainment and media and school and cultural narratives don’t do much to change those perceptions.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Yeah. So you’re trying to change those perceptions right now with this project, Move Over Bob — which is a great name. But tell us how this came to be. Like you’re sort of taking these throughlines through your career, your marketing experience, your passion for women and their efficacy. I mean, what are you trying to do here with Move Over Bob?

KATE GLANTZ: Well, first, for all the Bobs out there, we love Bob. ..This movement is not possible without the 90-plus percent of men in these industries. But we are really trying to build a media brand that touches the next generation of girls, but also the women currently in the industry, the men, too, to really show what it looks like, feels like, is to be in this work.

And so that looks like a print magazine that we publish that goes to thousands of schools and classrooms and even union training centers or trade schools. This is in any nook and cranny where someone is either getting started or thinking about what comes next. It also comes to life through all of the interviews and even photo shoots that we’re doing with tradeswomen who —

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, they look pretty cool.

KATE GLANTZ: They are the coolest.

LAUREN GILGER: But you’ve also talked to, I understand, many middle schoolers, high schoolers. You’ve done assemblies at schools. I mean, what’s that like? What do you — what do you say? What do they ask you?

KATE GLANTZ: It is so much fun to see these girls a little timid, not really sure what to expect. They can’t really put their finger on what’s about to happen. And I like to bring tradeswomen early in their careers. She does not have media training. She is not an executive. She is wearing her Tims or, you know, her steel toes and her hi-vis and what — whatever she wants. And I moderate a panel, and I’m really vigilant about who’s looking snoozy in the audience, you know, how do we keep this like fresh and fast. And then the demo part is always the most fun.

So seeing the electricians or whoever, in this case, bend conduit, which is sort of bending pipe with your foot. Then we invite someone in the audience to come up and do it. And I will never forget a 14-year-old volunteered, tiny thing, and she did it pretty easily. And I held up the mic to her and said, “How did this go for you?” And she’s like, “Ugh, it was way easier than I expected.”

LAUREN GILGER: [LAUGHS]

KATE GLANTZ: And like just that attitude, I was like, “Yeah, girl.” And then all of the other hundreds of girls in the audience, in their mind now ... how they might ever think about conduit, if they do, is like, “Oh yeah, that didn’t seem that hard.”

... And so that is — it’s all these kind of micro-moments and opportunities to break their brains a little to be like, “This is a lot different than you think it is.”

I’ll never forget these two 19-year-old electricians, they're sisters, and they were speaking, they said, “Hey, like I am the rich friend.” Kind of reminds me of the Cher quote like, “I am the rich husband or the rich man."

And, you know, it’s true. And that’s the other part is like these women have salaries, they have special interests they can fund. One just — we interviewed, and she said, “I bought my first solo trip to Europe because I had never left the country, and I had the money and I bought it.” Another — many buy homes. I make it a point in any interview to say, “What do you buy with your money?”

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. I want to ask you about something a little bit broader, I guess, because I think you and I as millennials probably grew up in this idea that you had to go to college, like college is the ultimate goal for everyone. We want everyone to get a liberal arts education and sort of be an educated human being in that way. I mean, do you think there’s something that they’re missing out on when they don’t do that?

KATE GLANTZ: I think higher education has a lot of different forms, and just because you’re not necessarily in a statistics class or an English literature class, it doesn’t mean you’re still not in school. I mean, for most trades, most require an apprenticeship with X number of hours on a job site, but also in a classroom. And so you might be learning different concepts, but they still are requiring discipline and critical thinking and all of the kind of things that college does to help someone grow up a bit. I think it’s sometimes less about what’s in the textbook and more about the structure and the dedication.

And so I mean, we’re asking 18-year-olds who are first-year apprentices, they have to wake up at 3 a.m. sometimes to be on a job site by 4:30. So I would say it’s harder to not go to college and not have, you know — I had a dorm, I had an RA making sure I wasn’t getting into too much trouble, I had a cafeteria in my dorm. Like I had everything. And not to say college was easy, there are all sorts of other challenges, but I think it takes a lot of internal strength and focus if you don’t pursue a four-year degree. But I wouldn’t say you’re not pursuing higher education by becoming a master of your craft in your trade.

LAUREN GILGER: Are there big barriers that women face in the trades? Discrimination, I mean, sexual harassment comes to mind. Are these things you try to prepare young women for?

KATE GLANTZ: Yes, and the answer is, unfortunately, that is pervasive in every environment. And there are some pretty horrific examples of late where women are being assaulted and killed on job sites.

And ... I think men, frankly, need to do a lot more to make spaces and job sites and culture inclusive and safe and respectful for everyone, and you don’t have to lose the humor. As an organization, I would say like the thing we can offer is to say, “You might be the only woman on a job site, but you’re not alone in this journey.”

LAUREN GILGER: It comes to mind for me that like the only way to start to shift that would be to have more women there, right?

KATE GLANTZ: That’s right. That’s right. And that is — and it’s, you know, I sort of say like we’re the top of the funnel. We’re getting them excited, we’re getting them in. I hope we’re helping with retention with the women who are in it, but it’s — I think a mission of a lifetime.

LAUREN GILGER: All right. We’ll leave it there. Kate Glantz, CEO of Move Over Bob, joining us. Kate, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for telling us your story here. Appreciate it.

KATE GLANTZ: Thank you for having me.