Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to the FourMan Podcast, where four shop teachers step out of the classroom and into the booth to talk all things building, trades, and the people behind the tools. Each week, we welcome a surprise guest from the world of construction — from seasoned pros to rising stars — to share real stories, career insights, and the kind of shop talk you won’t hear anywhere else.
Whether you're a student just picking up your first hammer or a veteran foreman with sawdust in your veins, this podcast brings you humor, heart, and a heavy dose of hands-on wisdom. Just straight-up conversations built on blue-collar pride.
Join us as we build futures, one episode at a time.
Noah (00:40)
James, it is awesome to have you on the podcast.
We are four shop teachers, three today.
with a goal of trying to get young people excited about the trades. I don't know anybody that better to get people excited about the trades. You've had an awesome career in it. I've had the privilege of knowing you for five to six years. but can you tell the people that don't know you kind of a little bit about your background? What got you to where you are today, which is a small business owner,
Scott Hughes (01:08)
you
Noah (01:09)
A gentleman that runs a nonprofit all kinds of things
James (01:11)
Yeah, I give you the nickel tour. Yeah, I appreciate y'all having me on and definitely it's been good getting to know you over the past few years and working with your students and stuff through the tech center and everything. So yeah, I got into the trades pretty young, working with my grandfather and stuff. And then when I got into around high school age, started wanting to make some money and already knew a few skills. so,
Scott Hughes (01:26)
So,
James (01:35)
in swinging a hammer, doing landscaping, masonry, mean anything that somebody would pay me a dollar to do I would go do.
just kind of developed that work ethic of getting, finding people that needed an extra laborer. Um, you know, cause at 15 and 16 years old, I didn't really have a, a strong skillset,
couldn't really take on jobs myself or whatever. Um, and so just jumped in and tried to learn and tried to figure it out. And, um, you know, I was one of those students that I did well in school, but school was not my thing. And so I knew, you know, I knew early on that, you know, going to college and getting an office job and that sort of thing was not going
be my forte. That was of course the late 90s. I graduated high school in 2000 and during that time it was still the expectation was that you go to college. The trades were kind of still looked down on some. I definitely had those people that were telling me, you're just gonna dig ditches for rest of your life if you don't go to college or whatever like that.
But yet, I didn't go to college and I have no student loan debt and I was making better money than anybody in my friend circle. And like you mentioned in the intro there, I've been able to build on that over the years. And now I run a successful nonprofit. We just celebrated our 10 year anniversary. I had a big event for that last week. And ⁓ through that nonprofit,
We're swinging hammers and helping people. We're going out and building wheelchair ramps for people that can't afford them. We're fixing their bathrooms to make them handicap accessible. We're repairing leaky roofs, doing disaster response after hurricanes, tornadoes, stuff like that. then through my business, mostly kind of focus on the exterior remodeling. So your roofs, windows, doors, things like that. And have been able to grow a solid company that was able to
employ a few people and then like said, be able to give back to those that are coming up through the trades and you know, like said, working with your students and some of the students that a couple of other local high schools to be able to help get them involved and just say, Hey, there's, there's more to it than there's more to it than just swinging a hammer and you know, the college thing versus the trades thing versus putting them all together. Like there's, there's so many different options that you have and ways you can, you know, approach life coming out of high school that,
You have options and you have great ways of making a good solid living.
Noah (04:04)
So when you said like your grandfather kind of basically got your start into it, was he involved in the trades or was he just somebody that had handyman skills type of thing?
James (04:14)
Yeah, a little bit of both. So he actually worked at Dahlgren for most of his career. He was in the Coast Guard, and then when he got out of the Coast Guard, he worked at Dahlgren and was actually a weapons specialist, and he was working on building the next great thing.
Scott Hughes (04:20)
you
James (04:32)
lot of the work that he did was actually classified stuff with some of the new technology weapons coming out. yeah,
he did a whole career there at the base. But on the side, he built his own house, was always doing stuff for neighbors and people in the community and things like that. Just always had that skill set, something that he grew up with and just was trying
to pass on. So then when he retired, that's what he started doing. ⁓ He retired out of NSWC and then started doing ⁓ the handyman stuff on a regular basis as his job with another guy that retired right around the same time as he did.
Noah (05:11)
Yeah, for those of you all who don't know, Dahlgren, ⁓ that's a big base. So you moved into the 516 project
you're working on on all kinds of projects You're known in in my world because we see what y'all do and seeing cool things like that But how did you first get that start into like basically a desire to want to help people because I think that's really cool
James (05:32)
Yeah. So actually I got my start in that type of stuff through on the disaster response side of things really. ⁓ And so ended up after what was it? The hurricane Katrina, whichever one was in like 2011 timeframe. I've been on a bunch of them now. I get them all mixed up anyway.
went on a disaster response down to Louisiana and we were just, you know, we were helping people rebuild their houses. That area got hit so hard after the hurricane and we went in there and just started, you know, basically going door to door, finding people that needed help and, you know, putting roofs on, know, redoing drywall, all kinds of different stuff. And so that's where I really started to get the, you know, the kind of taste for it.
through the church that I was going to at the time. This would have, know, probably a little bit before that, probably, you know, late 2009, 10 timeframe. We were doing a little bit of stuff around the community. You know, we'd have, you know, kind of a work day here and there, or we'd go out and, you know, there'd be some older folks in the church or, you know, from the community that needed some help. So we'd go, you know, do a little project at their house or whatever.
But then in in 2015, was going to a different church. moved at that time. I was living down in Hanover County and then I moved back to Fredericksburg. I grew up here in Fredericksburg and started going to a church and we were we're actually sitting in a Sunday school class. It was in August of 2015 and you somebody said well hey we got the holidays coming up. It'd be really cool if we could do some sort of a service project as a as a group go out and help
somebody, whatever, you know, does anybody have any ideas? And so I was the guy that raised my hand and said, well, hey, I've been doing this type of stuff. If anybody's ever been to a small Baptist church, when you raise your hand, that means you're in charge. It was kind of that forced volunteerism, I guess. But it just, it was kind of one of those things that one thing after another just kept falling together.
Noah (07:22)
Hahaha
James (07:32)
We ended up doing the first work day that November, so a couple months later. Had about 30 volunteers show up. I think we worked on like nine or 10 houses that day. Some of were yard cleanups. We put a roof on a house, did just some minor repairs. There was all kinds of different stuff that was going on.
And yeah, I got home that evening from the work day and I just I told my wife I was like, hey, there's there's more to this than just a one day thing. Like this needs to be something that's going on, you know, repetitively.
And so from there I started looking into, I mean, I had never run a nonprofit at that point, obviously. So I started looking into, okay, well, what needs to happen? What do you need to do? And again, just everything kept falling in place where by March of 2016, had the nonprofit set up, had everything kind of going and it's been like said, been off to the races since then.
Scott Hughes (08:25)
So I got a question. So you do a full-time remodeling. That's your business. And then you also have a nonprofit. Is that correct? Okay. That's.
James (08:35)
Correct.
So I
was doing the nonprofit full time for about seven years. left the place I was working. So I was working in a family business at the time that I started it. And I left that in 2018 and was doing the nonprofit stuff full time. And then in 2024, I went back into the...
the normal job world and then started my own company
Noah (09:11)
young people if we're trying to get young people engaged. just had a student graduate from Germana not graduate. He was in Germana. I was teaching a class and he got out and I felt like he needed a little bit more. He said he you know he was like I need a little bit more confidence before I go on to. A job site ⁓ but I think he's kind of ready but you know I think sometimes you know you need a little bit of.
actual on-the-site skills and stuff like that, kind of how to manage that. Do you feel like nonprofits could be the key to a lot of that for young people? This person's early 20s. How do you feel as far as something like that? Do you feel like there's an advantage to maybe connecting trade schools to nonprofits?
James (09:50)
Yeah, I definitely think that there can be a great connection there. I mean, obviously we've done stuff with your students. We've done a lot of stuff with the Spotsy Vocational Center. They have an internship program, so we've had numerous students come and they basically work with us for a full week and some end up working a little bit longer. And it's been good too on both sides because we've even had students, we had one kid come out, he worked with us for about a day and a half and decided,
you know what, swinging a hammer isn't my thing. I need to go study more and figure out what I'm gonna do with my life. And so it can work both ways. In that instance, was something where he figured out, hey, this is cool and all, but I don't wanna be out here swinging a hammer. I wanna go back and find something I can sit at an office desk and do. But yeah, had kids come out and...
The stuff that y'all are able to do in the classroom, of course, is amazing. But when you get out into their field and are able to really put your hands on it and see it in real life and see what actually comes from it, I think that makes a huge impact.
Noah (10:57)
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Hughes (10:59)
with. You mentioned, which I think I know a lot of my kids, my students would probably relate to that fact that you're in high school, don't really want to be here, not a lot's clicking with me. Like I don't care about this stuff.
If you could go back and tell your younger self something, like surely there's something beneficial you can learn or be doing in high school, what would be some advice to a kid that feels that way?
James (11:27)
Yeah, I mean, I'm all for, you you got to stay in and get your high school diploma for sure. You know, I mean, I know you can get the GED and all that stuff, but just stick it out, get your diploma. You you definitely need that. And...
From the course load side of things, I I know now in high school there's so many more options, of course, even than when I was going through. But make sure you're taking classes that get you the basic life skills. I know, when I went through, I even took, there was a consumer math course that we talked about doing taxes and how to budget and all that sort of stuff. The stuff like that, especially if you think, hey, one, I wanna go into the trades, and two,
I think I might want to start my own business. You've got to have that stuff. I think that's probably one of the...
One of the biggest reasons that you see trade businesses fail is because you've got people that are really good at their trade. They might be a great plumber, might be the best plumber on the planet, but they don't know how to run a budget. And so, two years into their business, they've got some brand new F450 that they can't pay for because they don't have enough projects coming in and they've spent all their money. Whereas if they had just done a little bit of budgeting, they would have had a fine business and been able to support themselves and their family.
able to learn that stuff, learn the basics of life. What does it look like to pay your taxes? What does it look like to do a budget? What does it look like to make sure you've got groceries and all that stuff? Get those basics, get all those skills because no matter what you do, whether you're swinging a hammer, going to college, sitting in office, out in the field, you've got to have that stuff.
Scott Hughes (13:03)
Amen to that.
Ken Shek (13:08)
Yeah, that's good stuff. My question is, like,
Would you recommend starting a nonprofit and getting... How did you get there, I guess? Just, you seen a need and you figured you would just fill that gap and that was what you did?
James (13:30)
Yeah, yeah, I I literally just saw that there was a need and said, okay, how do I fill that need?
I've always been that kind of person. I think that's one of the reasons that I'm terrible at working for other people. It's because I end up, whatever my job description is, I end up doing way more and trying to take over other people's jobs. like, yeah, you're not doing that the way it needs to be done. Let me do that. yeah, I saw a need and I said, okay, I've got the skill set, I've got the connections. I can pull people together to make this happen.
Yeah, it's just really just jumping in there. You know, I wouldn't say that you necessarily, I mean, you don't necessarily need to start a non-profit or even start a business or whatever. You can do this type of stuff just out of the goodness of your heart if you want to go out and help people or being able to do it on the side of things as far as making a living. So it just really depends on what you want to get out of it for your life.
Noah (14:34)
Yeah, so not to switch gears too much, you own your company. It's Fred Exteriors, is that correct? Okay, so Fred Exteriors. So one thing is, is I keep on hearing, was at actually something, the Virginia Builders Association gave us a grant, which was super cool. And the head of the National Builders Association got up there and was just talking about remodeling is it. Like it's the name of the game right now, because what's happening is there's
Not a lot of people that can afford a new house, so they have to remodel their current house, right? It's the same thing, like when the economy takes a hit, people have to hang onto their cars for longer, everything like that. So right now, he was saying basically the biggest boom that we're going to see is in this remodeling industry. A lot of what we end up talking about is sometimes new construction. if you were, like did you basically see a need in the area and say, hey,
There's a lot of potential. That's why I want to get involved. What brought about the start of Fred Exteriors?
James (15:25)
you
Yeah, so it originally started with the idea of more doing the marketing and lead generation side of things. I was working for another company as the sales manager and doing remodels and exterior remodels mostly. And there was a struggle between finding
finding good solid leads and finding the leads that were just, you know, we were chasing our tails with my sales reps. And so my original plan was that I was gonna start this as a, literally as a marketing company to be able to generate those solid leads, kind of vet the leads, and then bring them into that business.
Ken Shek (16:00)
tire kickers.
James (16:16)
Then things happened, I ended up exiting that business. And so I kind of just jumped right in to say, okay, well, now I need to turn this into a full-on company. so I went and took the test, got my contractor's license, got the insurance, all that stuff, and said, okay, kind like I was talking about before, said, okay, here's a need, here's the skills that I have, how do I fill it and make it happen? And so that's really where this
company came from. was almost, I guess, you know, a little bit by accident really.
Noah (16:50)
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. So basically you focus on you said window siding trim bit exterior remodeling and I guess
James (16:56)
Yeah, the exterior stuff,
windows, doors, roofing, repairs, replacement, all that sort of stuff,
Noah (17:03)
Yeah, I'm out of curiosity just with the background of disaster relief. Is there a reason why you picked going that route as opposed to like Ken does restoration?
James (17:16)
As far as doing the exteriors.
Noah (17:18)
Yeah, yeah, as opposed to
like with your background of 516. It just disaster relief, but
Scott Hughes (17:20)
in the.
James (17:23)
Yeah, it was stuff that I knew and I already had crews and stuff that I could work with to accomplish the work. So it just made sense. I'm sure as I progress and the company grows, it might add in some other things, but for getting started, it was the...
I guess it was the path of least resistance because I knew those product lines, I know roofing, know windows and their doors, the exterior repairs. That's kind of where my skill set is the best. And so it just made sense to track that way.
Noah (17:54)
Gotcha.
Scott Hughes (17:56)
What's your goal for your business? Like where do you want to be in five years?
James (18:01)
Hopefully sit on a beach or mountain somewhere. No, I think this was designed to, you know, I'm trying to design it and set it up in a way that it can, you know, it can just, it can.
Ken Shek (18:04)
You
Noah (18:04)
Hahaha
James (18:15)
not necessarily become self-sufficient, but at least get to a point where I've got a team built up to where, you know, I can kind of be in that oversight sort of position and kind of a vision casting position. And then, you know, be able to focus on some other things.
Scott Hughes (18:30)
Very cool.
Noah (18:33)
think two.
Scott Hughes (18:33)
Might have to
work on your not wanting to like have your fingers in everything characteristic.
James (18:38)
Yeah.
Well, and one of the great things with that is that I've...
I've always been good at finding great people to surround myself with. And that's what it's all about. When you can build up a team and train them and get people that will, as a business owner, you're never gonna find anybody that has the same passion that you have for your company. It's your baby. But you're gonna find people that believe in what you're doing and will come alongside and push it forward.
So that's really where I want to get.
Noah (19:14)
So what are skills that you're looking for for people? if we're talking to young people, just say, hey, look, James is a guy that owns an exterior remodeling company. What are things that you would look for that we could tell students, this is important to people in the community that own businesses?
Scott Hughes (19:14)
Very cool.
James (19:30)
Yeah, think sadly now it is. It's so easy to rise above. Every other person out there, ⁓ know, go on time, you know, do what you say you're going to do. It's these simple things that I think have just gotten so lost in the workplace. But I mean.
Scott Hughes (19:36)
of the simple sub-unit.
Noah (19:37)
Yeah,
yeah.
James (19:47)
I ended up when I was starting out, I ended up being a crew leader and manager and stuff after working for a couple companies for a matter of weeks because I showed up on time, I had a clean driving record, and I wasn't a jerk to people. And then after a couple weeks, they're like, okay, you're the crew leader now because the crew leader stopped showing up or he showed up drunk or he did whatever. And so if you have just a little bit of motivation, you can really step above everybody.
anybody else. But yeah, show it up on time, doing what you say you're gonna do, having a willingness to learn, ⁓ don't come in and be a know it all. Realize that you, mean, all of us even sitting here, I y'all teach these classes and you still have stuff that you don't know and you need to learn. So it's having that learning mentality of I'm always learning, always wanting to see how I can do better and just being there for the people around you. If you show up, you be there for the people around
you, you're going to be valuable to your employer.
Noah (20:48)
Yeah, 100%. Sometimes I get nervous. I'm like, honestly, should we be teaching much of construction with this? Should we just be teaching like you said, not being a know-it-all, soft skills, all those things? And you're like, I don't know. It's tough.
Ken Shek (20:57)
soft skills.
James (20:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, if you can teach 50-50, you're probably great. Here's how you swing a hammer and cut a board, and here's how to show up on time and set an alarm clock.
Noah (21:11)
Yeah, yeah.
Ken Shek (21:12)
and just be a good person.
James (21:17)
And realize, know, one of the, and this is a conversation I've had with my kids and I've had with some of the students that have come through, like, realize that the decisions you make affect your life and those around you. if you want to go out and party and have a great time, okay, but remember,
The consequences can come from that. So if you go out and party and have a great time and you get arrested, you're going to lose your job. And then you're going to struggle finding another one because they're going to pull your record and say, this guy's got X, Y, and Z on his record. So we don't want him around our company. So it's really paying attention to what's going on all the time in your life and just keeping it all together. You can go out and have fun, but just be smart about it.
Noah (22:05)
Yeah, 100%.
Ken Shek (22:06)
started
base.
Noah (22:10)
What do you guys want to
Ken Shek (22:14)
⁓
Scott Hughes (22:14)
I don't know.
I don't know. That's pretty cool.
business and a charitable company.
Noah (22:22)
Do you think we
should be adding, like you said, talk about finances and stuff like that. How do you think that should be taught if you're, we're, most of all of us are running like a carpentry style building trades. What do you think we should be implementing into our classrooms as far as on the finance end or the business end, as far as teaching?
James (22:30)
Hit me!
Yeah, no, I would say with that, I mean.
you know, jumping into budgeting jobs and stuff and like, okay, you um, you know, I call my carpentry side of the, okay, we've, figured out what size deck we're going to build or, whatever it is that you're, you're framing or whatever. Um, and be able to break down, okay, you know, if we're building this 10 by 20 deck, you know, what do we need to account for for our materials? What do we need to account for for our labor? What do we need to account for for our overhead expenses? You know, we've got to have insurance and you know, gas for the trucks and all.
that
sort of stuff and start diving into that stuff early on because if guys can come out of your I say guys girls can come out of y'all's programs you know already having that you know at least that base I I know it's not gonna have everything in there but at least having some of that base knowledge of okay you know it's more than just buy a board put a board in you know there's all these other things that go into it to make that full budget to make sure you've got you know your overhead covered make sure you've got your profit margin covered
And that's a big thing too. Profit's not the devil. We've got to have profit in order to have a successful business and in order to grow the business and employ people and all these sort of things. So that's got to be factored in there.
Ken Shek (23:59)
feel like in the construction industry that is just, that's like taboo. Like I had a general contracting license and did remodeling for years and it's like people try to beat you down on price because like our labor rates haven't changed in the last 25, 30 years, but materials has traded drastically. And when you try to have that conversation, I think a lot of it is you just got to be educated.
Scott Hughes (24:16)
No.
Ken Shek (24:29)
and educate your customers to get the right type of thinking. Because with like HGTV, everyone sees all this stuff and they want all this beautiful stuff, but they don't realize what it actually takes to create that. It makes it challenging.
James (24:40)
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've banned HGTV in my house. My wife's like, ⁓ well, Chip and Joanna did blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, Chip and Joanna had a budget of $10 million and 40 people that were never on that camera doing all that work.
Ken Shek (24:50)
Yeah. ⁓
you
Noah (25:01)
Yeah, unless they want to sponsor our podcast, so then honestly, we love them. ⁓ No, I had, there was a shot.
Ken Shek (25:06)
Yeah.
James (25:06)
Yeah, absolutely. 100%. But stuff like that,
mean, and even stuff like that, mean, it is overall, I think it is good for the industry. Like all those shows where you see people flipping houses and those different things, because it does start to get, it starts to get the wheels turning in people's minds that don't have the construction background.
And yes, they skip over a lot of the pieces. I know there was an episode a while back where they took out a wall, put in this huge laminate beam and everything. And so my wife gets the idea, oh hey, we could take out this wall and do just like that. I was like, right honey, but that would require a 30 foot laminate beam. That beam alone would be like $7,000. No, we're not. But it does, it gets the conversation going, gets people thinking about.
it. And then hopefully, like I said, even the younger folks that are coming up to see some of that stuff and they get excited about it realize, you know, just like we're talking about here, there's more than just swinging the hammer. You could be a daggone TV star by knowing these skills and being able to go in and remodel a house.
Scott Hughes (26:15)
Noah wants to be a YouTube teacher.
Noah (26:19)
No, I don't.
The what's it called? do think the one advantage is too is if you're older, obviously you probably don't want to be fixing up your house. But if you're young, if you're like 20 and you have these skills, that's where you can really implement it and change your life even if you're just doing it yourself. Like if you take our classes for that, then you could definitely benefit. And yeah, get some ideas from HTV TV or whatever.
James (26:48)
Yeah, yeah, I you can buy a fixer-upper for a good price, put a little bit of sweat equity into it, and then a couple years down the road, turn around and you've got automatic equity no matter what the market does because you've taken that house and made it into a better situation.
Noah (27:04)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Scott Hughes (27:08)
Yeah, we appreciate you coming on and appreciate all the work you're doing in your neck of the woods.
Noah (27:13)
Yeah, you guys come into my classroom, you talk to my students, all kinds of stuff. And I'll say this, everyone says they're gonna come into the classroom, no one ever does. I mean, it's rare. It really is.
Ken Shek (27:14)
Yeah. ⁓
Scott Hughes (27:16)
That's awesome.
And James,
I will tell you that when that happens, I got our buddies Travis and Joe, they come in and they do stuff. And even if I can just call them when I'm like, dude, I'm in over my head, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. maybe. But it's like, my point is, it means more to someone like Noah than you probably ever will realize. So.
Noah (27:38)
He does it every day.
Yeah, I actually,
what's it called? I typed in, because every time we do a podcast, I type in the name or like 516 or something like that, just so I see if I have any pictures. And I have like bunch, I have some pictures, which I'll probably post when we do this on YouTube or whatever, or online of you with the students and like your truck and stuff like that. ⁓ You came with a truck and trailer and the students were like, all talking about that. It's cool to hype students up on like cool stuff that you can have. And so.
Scott Hughes (28:06)
Sophie.
James (28:14)
That
was when I just bought that new dually too. that was yeah, that was that I had that brand new F350 when I rolled in there.
Noah (28:21)
Yeah, yeah, that was sweet. So, all right, so, last final question. We get hit by a bus, all of us. You come into our classrooms, you have to cover for the day. What are you teaching the young people, if you have to sub?
James (28:35)
Yeah, you're not going to catch me in the classroom. I'm gonna find somebody I know, but hey, no one needs a sub. I joke all the time, like I love my kids, but other people's kids drive me nuts. No, I think. Right? No, man. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, I'm sending everybody to the principal's office and be like that.
Noah (28:41)
Hehehehehe
Yeah
Scott Hughes (28:51)
That's fair.
Noah (28:52)
That's the best response we've ever had.
Scott Hughes (28:54)
But you're going to the principal's office.
James (29:04)
What's that skit with A.A. Ron and all that? No, I mean, I think the thing that I would, really the thing that I would try to impart is definitely.
Scott Hughes (29:06)
⁓ yeah.
Noah (29:06)
yeah.
James (29:16)
you know, nothing even to do with the hammers and the nails and all that stuff. It's really just like we were talking about, being a solid person, you know, living by your word. When you tell somebody you're going to do it, you do it. When you tell somebody you're going to show up at nine o'clock, you show up at 850, you know, and just do right by yourself. And therefore you're doing right and serving the people that you're there to serve.
Noah (29:39)
Nice, I love it.