ou might think he learned all his trades and got his work ethic from his father, but you’d be wrong. He was 2 years old when his father left home and never returned.

“My mother worked two and three jobs while raising four kids,” he said. “I learned from her that working hard was necessary just to survive.”

High demand

Meet Joe Lee of Albrightsville, the quintessential self-made blue-collar man. He’s an independent contractor who doesn’t have to advertise to get new customers.

“I call myself JTL Construction, but I don’t need to have that printed on my truck,” he said.

Just from word-of-mouth from his customers, his phone rings all weekend long from homeowners who want additions, kitchens, floors, bathrooms, decks or just a handyman for a few repairs.

The many calls for Lee’s services signify a phenomenon that exists throughout Pennsylvania and throughout the country. There is a dire need for skilled carpenters, plumbers and electricians, with an estimated 1.4 million unfilled skilled trade jobs projected by 2030. The industry faces a significant labor shortage driven by older, retiring workers. Research reveals that 92% of construction firms are currently struggling to find skilled laborers.

Hope for help

How did someone like Joe Lee determine his path to what he does for a living?

“In school, I couldn’t sit still to do bookwork,” he said. “I’d fall asleep in class, but when the teacher called on me for an answer, I gave her the right one. I was always listening.”

Lee realized early on that the route to a college education was not in his plans.

“I’m a hands-on type of guy,” he said. “I enjoy sitting back to see what I did.”

Although there has been a significant decline in the number of tradesmen in Pennsylvania, the good news is that vocational school enrollment is surging. College attendance remains popular, but many young men and women are steering away from expensive loans to pay for the high cost of tuition and instead are learning trades that will place them immediately into the workforce.

That said, contractors like Lee find that reliable help is still hard to find.

“Through the years, I’ve hired workers to help me on my jobs,” he explained, “but they didn’t show up a day or two and eventually they stopped coming altogether. The work ethic is just not there. It’s disappointing, to say the least.”

Molding the man

When he was 17, Lee got a job for a roofing company. His task was to carry 60-pound bundles of asphalt shingles up a 40-foot ladder to the very tops of buildings.

“I was terrified of falling,” he said. “One day I did fall off a two-story roof, but I got right up and went back to work.”

While he hammered shingles by day, he worked at night as a line cook in a restaurant before he decided to move to Florida.

“I worked HVAC for a while, but the heat was brutal,” Lee said. “Then I got a job cleaning windows of high-rise buildings. I was hoisted up by cables 120 feet off the ground while sitting on a small seat. After that, I installed high-end tech remote-control equipment like audio systems inside houses.”

He then worked on an assembly line building custom fire trucks. It was in the Sunshine State where he met Tawney, the woman he would marry.

“We came back north where I worked for a flooring company in Allentown,” Lee said. “We bought a house in Albrightsville in Jonathan Point, where we live with our daughters, Giannah and Kitana. I literally rebuilt our house from the ground up. We’ve been here eight years, and it was after I did some work from Angie’s List that I decided to start my own contracting business.”

All hands on deck

Lee says that he’s the jack of all trades, but not the master of them all. Despite his expertise in many of the jobs he performs, he needs to hire subcontractors to help him complete projects.

“I built a house in Lake Harmony, and I hired electricians, plumbers and framers to help me out,” he said. “I can do some of these jobs, but I trust professionals to do things like internal plumbing and house wiring.”

Lee does bathroom and kitchen renovations from top to bottom, from painting to flooring.

Asked what his favorite project is, he answered with a smile: “I like building decks. It’s just me and the wood.”

The York Daily Record reports that despite the surge in vocational education, Pennsylvania will experience a shortage of 300,000 skilled tradespeople by 2030. That is a 300% increase over recent years. Industry employers are struggling to find experienced workers, with many reporting a three to six month wait to hire someone with an acceptable resume.

Another concern is contractors are forced to implement on-the-job training, which can affect the quality of the work that’s done.

It used to be that parents discouraged their children from manual labor careers due to the physical toll, and Lee knows all too well about the demands he puts upon his 34-year-old body every day that he goes to work.

“I installed a deck in 5-degree weather, and many of the materials I use on the jobs have a lot of weight to them. I’m hoping that my body will hold out until I’m 60 years old,” he said with a laugh.

‘Quite a team’

For now, he can admire the fruits of his labor.

“I have a lot of pride in what I do,” Lee said. “When I get home from a job, I work on renovating my house, and with my wife planning the improvements, we’re quite a team.

“We think that what we’ve done with our home has a magazine-picture quality to it from what it used to be.”

With the increasing need for independent contractors like Joe Lee, time will tell if there will be enough skilled tradesmen in the foreseeable future.