News Photo by Julie Goldberg Jeff Vande Zande, an English professor at Delta College and director of the film “The Skilled Trades: Crisis & Opportunity,” speaks Thursday at Alpena Community College’s skilled trades forum.

ALPENA — A panel of 14 individuals talked at Alpena Community College Thursday about the skilled trades crisis.

The college held a forum on the shortage of skilled trades workers. There are an estimated 3 million vacant skilled trade jobs in the country, according to Cerasis, a transportation management company.

A short film called “The Skilled Trades: Crisis & Opportunity,” directed by Jeff Vande Zande, an English professor at Delta College, began the forum. Representatives from the college, Alpena Public Schools, and the local workforce spoke about the shortage within the field.

Members of the panel said a couple of reasons for the shortage are misperceptions about the skilled trades career field and that workers are getting older and no one is ready to replace them when they retire.

Vande Zande told those in attendance that the inspiration behind the film was that auto shops are slowly going away and being replaced by car dealerships.

The panel spoke about what needs to be done to recruit people into the skilled trades field.

Joyce McCoy, director of the Career and Technical Education program at Alpena High School, said people need to pay attention to who is guiding students into the classroom, including parents and teachers.

ACC President Don MacMaster said the skilled trades crisis is a problem nationwide. He said it’s a messaging issue, because high school students don’t know that skilled trades are an option for them after they graduate.

“We just need to keep working,” MacMaster said. “It’s getting our young people to see that the mobility of this work and how it can lead to a good life, and, sometimes, they’re not exposed to that in K-12 or their parents don’t expose them to it.”

Ryan Fairchild, president of Omega Electric and Sign, said there are different ways to go into the trades, including getting an education and training in the field.

“There’s a lot of ways to go, and I believe helping our kids with that and showing them that and showing them that they can make really good money within a four-year period, that’s really important,” Fairchild said.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.