The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 245: Mom, Do You Have a Stud Finder?

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

Bloody do-gooder and Returning The Favor alum, Katie Hughes of GirlsBuild.org talks curiosity, confidence, and how a broken toaster changed the course of her life.  

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Well, it's episode number 245, the way I heard it. This one is called Mom. Do you have a stud finder? It's rhetorical, Chuck. But it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be. It actually was said by the guest, Katie Hughes, not to be confused with Katie Holmes, which is so easy to do. Oh, I've done it.

I know you did it on TV. I did in front of many millions of people. Katie Hughes, who I did introduce as Katie. Holmes four or five years ago was in season one of returning the favor. Fans of that show will remember an amazing organization up in Portland, of all places, called Girls Build. Did you have a mini stroke right there in between? Well, you know what? I did because her book is called Girls Who Build. Who Build? Right, right. But her nonprofit, I believe it's just called Girls Build. That's correct.

Yeah. Anyway, we went up there with the show because what she's doing is, well, she's doing her version of microworks, basically. She has a summer camp that she runs for girls who at the time anyway were between 8 and 14. And what Katie would do is expose them to power tools and give them projects. And with an appropriate level of adult supervision, allow them to make things. Yep. Dog houses, playground equipment, and all sorts of stuff. We went up there to get a look at what that looked like.

We surprised her with a brand new trailer filled with tools that, as you'll hear, was burgled. And so many strange and interesting things happened to me personally as a result of this episode of returning the favor. And I'm happy to say that some good things happened to Katie, too. Yeah, she has been going strong with this organization. They've helped nearly 3,000 girls, I think, go through the program. And she's trying to figure out what to do with the girls who've sort of aged out, who are older than the age range that they're looking for, but they still want to do stuff. They still want to build stuff. It's very, dare I say, empowering, Mike. Yeah, I hate the word. But it is. I can't help it. This was the episode that grudgingly made me at that returning the favor could be more than a show, maybe a franchise, maybe a genre, maybe something. If you haven't seen the episode, feel free to watch it. You'll chuckle when you see Mike Rowe 40 pounds on the other side of good. But hey, I was what I was. And what you was was big. I really had swelled up like a tick, didn't I?

Yeah. Yeah. Terrible. Well, look, that's why we had Vinnie on last week because I'm going through a phase now where I want to thank everybody who had some sort of positive impact on me. Vinny helped me and Katie helped me too. And I do think we return the favor to her. We joke a little bit about her book, which I will shamelessly plug at the end of our conversation. But I also want to plug it now because it's awesome. It's called Girls Who Build. And seriously, folks, if you've got a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, or even a son or a nephew, anybody really who's interested in the business of how stuff gets made, this is really a terrific book to get in their hands now. It's also a good read for adults because it just reminds you that without

this kind of curiosity and without a measure of confidence in this generation, we're kind of screwed. And Katie's done a really great job, I think, in inspiring both those things. Yeah. That's all you got for me? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we ought to just get to her. All right. Get to the conversation. Somewhere early on in our delightful exchange, and you are really going to enjoy getting to know Katie Hughes. She says, apropos of nothing, mom, do you have a stud finder? I don't know. I just thought it was a question. that deserve to be repeated and live forever in our library of curious titles. Call it what you will.

It's episode 245, the one and only Katie Hughes. Coming up right after whatever this is. My guest today, Tom Albanyse, is an American giant, and I'll tell you why. Tom understands on a fundamental level that the business of mining is a, non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our economic independence, just like the business of making things. American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make all their excellent clothing right here in this country. It wasn't easy, but they did it. They sourced locally grown cotton, and they built factories in towns across the nation where they

could hire hardworking locals who cared about. making a quality product. And then they went about the business of gently reminding people that when you buy a piece of clothing from American Giant, you're not just buying a high quality sweatshirt or T-shirt or another pair of jeans. You're investing in a local supply chain. You're supporting communities from the Carolinas to California. And you're getting a piece of clothing that won't just survive the wash. You're getting a garment that'll get better with age. Check out their high-quality staples, hoodies, teas, denim, built to be worn year after year

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slash Mike. American Giant, American Made. American Giant, American Made. I'll tell you, I've seen a lot of lot of books before and this is right up there with another one. This book, it's got covers, there's pages on it, and as I look through the inside, I see font and everything. Yeah, words. Yeah. It's incredible. It's amazing. Oh yeah, this is a very good book. I'm reading it backwards right now, and it's still. That's totally fine. You can read it any way you like. It's a total

page turner. Like the Torah. Right to left. Who's the kid on the front? That's Valer. Mary, can I tell you a trick? If you want to be observant, her name is across the front of her hard hat. Oh, yeah. I mean, you don't have to lose your eyeballs, but you're welcome to. That's probably a good place to start this thing, because with Katie Hughes, our guest today, she has a new book, which I have to start by apologizing. I did see it when it came out.

You sent it to me around the holidays, and I wanted to plug it shamelessly, but I was just up to my neck, Katie, and plugging other things shamelessly. So it had to wait. This is fine. It's fine. We're plugging it now. How's the book doing? It's doing well.

I mean, it came out, you know, October 2020, so it wasn't quite what I had pictured or planned. But it's doing well. Yeah. The book is called Girls Who Build. It's obviously inspired by the nonprofit foundation that you run that brought us together initially way back in what, 2017 maybe? 2017, yeah. Man.

So, full disclosure, just to jog my memory. Because, you know. Katie Hughes. No, sorry. I know. I got your name wrong. I still get your name wrong from time to time. You're not Katie Holmes.

But you do look timeless. You look exactly as I remember you four or five years ago. But I do not. And I was going to say, full disclosure, I looked at our episode like 20 minutes ago. Yeah. And holy crap, first of all, Mike was fat. That was literally a month or two before I thought, yeah, dude, enough already. You're 40 pounds on the wrong side of good.

And the show, returning the favor, was so new. It was really interesting to watch the producers and me and all of us trying to figure out what we were doing. at the same time we were trying to return a favor for you. So I guess we should just start with, how was that experience for you? We didn't screw up your nonprofit, did we? Yeah, we are actually defunct now because of real. Damn it, sorry.

That process was amazing. Number one, we make jokes about me living in Portland. I don't have a TV. I had never seen dirty jobs. I did not know who you were. And my sister, when I was like coming over here, She was like, are you going to do a better job than what you did on returning the favor? You know?

And I was like, I did a great job. She's like, no, you were just a little flat. Like, you guys were fantastic. It was hilarious. I don't think you probably remember this part, but, well, number one, I had no idea. I had no idea just in case you think I was faking it. And then one of the things that happened was they had left some sort of microphone cord on the ground. And I found it.

And I texted, Brent maybe. Brent, yeah. And I was like, hey, I sent a photo. And I was like, oh my gosh, I found this little tiny. It was like this long, this like technical piece. Do you need it? And he was like, oh my gosh, yes. It's super important.

We'll come back this afternoon and get it. And so it goes, and actually we'll shoot a little bit of B roll while we're there. And so that was like the miraculous thing of them being able to actually be right up in my face when you pulled in. He had said he dropped everyone off at the airport, like big, big lies, which I love surprises so much, and I love well done lies. Like, I love lying for surprises. It's so good when it all works, and it was just, it was incredible.

So that was a pretty fantastic day. Yeah, it was interesting for me, too, because I don't like surprises and I don't like TV shows that try and manufacture and manipulate people's emotions. and it was a very weird time for me because it was season one of the show and the production company and I were still kind of at odds. Oh, interesting.

I was doing dirty jobs, no second takes, none of that stuff. And they were a very careful group of people who wanted to craft a beautiful thing. And you could see, I'm sure, how those two worlds collided. But I will say that the most interesting thing about your episode was it was one of the best reveals ever. Like your family was in the back. of that. That was insane. Trailer and the trailer was great and it had all these tools and you were crying and the kids were squealing and I thought,

you know what? This is probably going to be a pretty good project. So yeah, I kind of turned a corner after that day. That's good. That's good. Yeah. I actually rewatched it recently as we're like gearing up for summer camps. You know, I rewatched it because it's kind of a good inspiration. And the girls were so excited. Like I just watched like them the whole time. I mean, me too. but like they were squealing. They were so pumped. And it kind of brought me back to why we do what we do, you know, like to have however many 40 girls squealing because we got a tool trailer and drills and tiny tool belts and, you know, all these things.

That's why we do it. Create those squeals. Well, there are no small things. A tool belt, a drill, you know, a hard hat. The enthusiasm that you bring out of these kids was the thing. that struck me most because, as we've discussed many times, enthusiasm for the trades is the very thing that needs to be reinvigorated on a universal level. You're doing it specifically with young girls. You hadn't been doing it for too long when we met. So the first thing I want to

ask you about, just as one CEO to another running a nonprofit, which changed for you? And have you been able to keep in touch with some of the girls who went through your program four or five, six years ago. If so, how they're doing today? And how was that changed your sense of what you're doing? There was a lot of questions in a row. That was a lot of questions. And you know what? I think there's a better question to start with, Mike, which is how did you start girls build? No, no, no. You don't think so? Why not? I think if we cling to the predictable chronology of what you call a typical conversation, then we run the risk of not confusing our listeners. And that's not something I'm willing to risk, Chuck. You're okay by confusing your producer, though. You love that, right?

Katie, if you'd prefer, there are a lot of ways to try and get at this. And so, yeah, maybe Chuck is right. Maybe we should start at the beginning. What were the circumstances that led you to become a champion for getting girls into the trades. That's a complicated question and a great question. Oh, for God's sakes, you've got to pick one road or another. We're either going to talk about the inciting incident that put you on the path that brought you here today or we're going to talk about how it feels to be a CEO

five years into running a nonprofit where you have tangible proof. All of those things. I'm going to talk about all those things. We should focus group the order and get back and do this again next week. Well, I'll set up a poll online and see what people want to hear. God. I wanted to get into podcasting because I thought it'd be simpler than television, but it's not. Okay.

Girls Build specifically, I started because I had been a carpenter for a while, and I loved it. I had then gone on to work at another nonprofit where I taught women how to get into the traits. I did that. taught women how to get in trades. Very fulfilling. I don't know if you ever like adult education is so great. Like they want to be there. They're excited to be there.

They're going to do everything they can to do their best. But part of my job at that previous job that I was at was to start a girl's summer camp to introduce the trades to them. Where was that job? It was at Oregon Trades Women here in Portland. Okay. Yeah. And I did that for seven years, eight summers.

then I left that job just because I had kind of burned out and I went on to teach the trades to mostly high school boys, a few girls, but mostly juniors and seniors in high school at a trade school. So I was the construction teacher. And I did that for two years and it's a whole different animal teaching in that setting and with those restrictions and things like that. But during my second year, that old program of mine, it got cut by our old mom. profit. And so I had all these trades women coming to me saying, wow, you know, bummer about the program. And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, bummer. You know, and they'd be like, what are we going to do about the future? Like, I don't know. Like, how are we going to teach these girls, you know? And finally, I was at the coast and I ran into an electrician. She finally goes, Katie, you know when everyone is saying,

what are we going to do? What we're trying to say is, what are you going to do? And I was like, oh no I had not picked up on that like you basically hit me over the head with it multiple times and I had not picked up on that and that part was really cool starting my own nonprofit I mean it's daunting but it's so unique and fun you get to do whatever you want it took me a minute to realize that like I really could do whatever I wanted and so when the first things I did was I gathered a group of trades women in my living room I made a big pot of soup and I said what did we like about the old program what do we want to scrap and what we want to scrap and what What are our dreams? And we wrote it all down and we kind of just pushed it forward from there. So that's how the program started. I was working my other job. And then I left that job. And a few months later, we had our first camp and off and running.

But it's a big shift to your point, teaching grownups who have a lot of life experience and for whatever reason have deliberately chosen to hop on a new path versus kids. who are, what are they, like six to 12 or 14? Eight to 15 now, yeah. Eight to 15, right. Being exposed maybe for the very first time in their life, they don't know what they don't know. Exactly. That's the great part.

My awkward but sincere initial question was to say, you don't really get to know what kind of impact you're having during the sign. I mean, you can see it. You can see it in the kids' face. you can see the enthusiasm, but it takes a few years to see if they're going to get on that path. That's what I was asking. How many eight-year-olds now who are in their mid-teens are still on that road? Right.

The big difference between teaching adult women and teaching girls is kind of a fun difference, which is my main goal for a day at camp is for them to have the most fun possible. And they don't have to know that this is, leading somewhere else. They just have to know that they love it. That part is incredible. That part of catching them so young when they don't know anything. I get a question like, how is it to teach girls that they can do something that they're not supposed to do? And I was like, we don't tell them that. Like, I don't tell them that they are not supposed to do it. We just do it with them and let them have that fun and have that adventure. And that part, I mean, I get emails from parents.

Oh, it's Christmas and my daughter wants XYZ tool. do I get? Where do I go? And I love it that we are changing these basic things about birthdays and Christmases of what is coming under the tree or what is coming, you know, as their birthday present, all of those things. That's like right off the bat at eight years old. They're getting excited about that. I was just at my sister's house right now. My niece is now 12. She's like, you know, starting a teenager. And I got there at like 11 and she like came out of her room for the first time. Right. And she's come to camp this whole time. And she comes out and she's like, sleeping. She's like, mom, do you have a stud finder? I was like, I love this conversation.

I'm writing that down because it could very well turn into the title of this episode. Mom, do you have a stud finder? Do you have a stud finder? Oh my God. Fantastic. Yeah, we normally don't stumble across our titles until very, very late in the episode, but you came out pretty hot with that one. Oh, good. Good. You told me once that. with young kids, especially young girls in this space, there's nothing to retrain. There are no stigmas or stereotypes to confront. There are no myths or misperceptions to challenge, but with their parents, right? Like how many times when parents come to the end of that summer camp and they see little Valeria stand in there with a buzzsaw or a router or something, their heads must explode.

Yeah. They have absolutely. Absolutely do. So at the end of camp, we do this scavenger hunt. It's basically a way to showcase what the girls have been doing the whole week. So we put these little tags all over camp and then the girls can kind of go at their leisure to any order or anything they want. And their parents are tagging along. And so, you know, it's drive a screw into this board. And the parents are kind of like, whoa. And it's an impact driver. So it's going, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. And the parents are like, it's not a good noise. The girl's like, it's fine. And then they're going and they're, you know, using a hand. but then they're also using a chop saw or a jigsaw. One year we had them using a router, just showing off all these things, bending sheet metal, riveting sheet metal, kind of all the things that we have done during the week, soldering copper, you know, they have a torch and they're just like going for it. And the parents are just kind of like wandering around like zombies like, what number one? What does my kid been doing all week? And then number two, like, this is incredible. And they know that they signed her up for that. They know that. But they also are

kind of blown away, a little nervous. Those are kind of the two emotions I get from parents. But in the end, they're pumped. And the girls do go home. They do build things. One of my girls, her mom wrote me and said that she's a gymnast. And she wanted a beam, like a balance beam or whatever. And so she was like, can we buy a balance beam?

And her mom was like, no, we can't afford a balance beam. And her dad goes, we can't buy a balance beam. but I think we could go build it. I know somebody who couldn't make one. Yeah, exactly. And so they went to two of them. They went to the lumber store. They got whatever size it was, and they built a balance beam for her in her garage.

And she uses that balance beam. Those are the things that are changing the way that girls are interacting with the world. They're, you know, like my niece, they're not asking for help. They're just kind of moving forward and doing things. They're fixing a mom, write me and say, like, oh, the girls came home from camp, and they realized that they could fix their play structure that has been broken for a year. So they went out and fixed it. You know, instead of saying, could we get a new one or whatever?

I had a dad send me a video of his girls building their fence. Just like, he's like, this is great. They're doing it. And so when we first started in 2016, our age was 8 to 16. And we got a ton of 8 to 14-year-olds, no 15-year-olds, one-16-year-old. So then we pulled back and we did 8 to 14 because that's what was working. in recent years we bumped to 8 to 15. Now we have this group of girls who are now that 15-year-old range.

And they are saying, what now? I want to keep coming to camp. And now I'm aging out, but I want to keep coming. And so we're having to figure, okay, what are we going to do with these girls who are now 16? You know, we can just open that age range to a little bit older. We've offered for them to come in and teach. And they're like, I don't want to come teach. I want to come do the projects.

Right. That's a big shift. And that is a cohort of girls that we've started since they were eight and are now that age and are just so excited. They know everything there is to know about the tools. They know the projects, not the specific projects, but like, oh, yeah, we're going to go to sheet metal now. I know how to do that. Let's go do it. We had a spring break camp this week, and one of our girls has come many, many years.

And we were building these picnic tables. And one of the teachers leans over to me, and she goes, I don't even need to be here. she's just leading this whole group of girls. And I was like, fantastic. So they are changing the way that they interact with the world. They are building more. And they are considering the trades. Yesterday, we took them out to a job site and they built a fence on an actual real job site,

which was really cool. They had to have their hard hats on and everything. It was amazing. Then they got a tour and all this stuff. And one of the women who was on the job, one of the carpenters, said, how many of you are considering the trades when you grow up? and they were eight girls there, and about five were like considering it. Sure.

And I was like, okay, mission accomplished. You know, they don't have to do it, but it hadn't been for girls, but they wouldn't know that they should consider it. Right. And the cool thing, Chuck, about her program is that you can measure success in a couple different ways. And that's why I wanted to start here. You could look at it and say, yeah, we're trying to close the skills gap

and look at the number of people who went through our camp, who went on to explore legitimate careers in the, trades, or you could also say the number of girls who came through our camp who went on to build their own balance beam and explore a career in gymnastics, or who went on to do anything. The word empowering, I don't like to use it much because it's a little squishy. I think that's the first thing I said to you was the notion that anything is possible starts maybe with the idea. It can start with any number of ideas. But in the example you just gave, It starts with a fence.

They built a fence in the real world. So on the one hand, that's awesome. On a real job site. Right. But on the other hand, it's not about the fence. Right. It's about something else. And that's why we wanted to return a favor to you.

And that's why I wanted to talk to you again, because it just seems like today, right now, in real time, in this world, girls and boys of all ages need to be reminded. Anything's possible. And what a great way to illustrate that with tools and a project. Is it weird to love people but despise human resources? If so, well, color me weird. It's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments

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that just happens to be a great fit for your company in 24 hours or less. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. ZipRecruiter.com slash row. I actually have some of my high school students that I taught in those two years. Because they were juniors and seniors, I hid it hard with them as far as going into the trades. They were at a trade school. I had them interview for the trades before they graduated so that they knew where they were going when they left. And man, we're friends on social media and watching those kids how it has opened up their worlds. You know, they're now like 25, 26 years older or something, you know, and they've journeyed out.

they're making so much money. I get one who sends photo a little time of him. He's doing like custom builds all over the West Coast. He sends photos of, you know, look at this. I'm like, you can see the sunset behind me and all this stuff. And he's having the time of his life. It's an opportunity that when he came into that program that I was in, he was just kind of like, I don't know what I want to do.

And giving all kids the idea that you can go into the trains if you want to. And if you do, the pay is fantastic. By the time you're in your early 20s, you're going to be making more than your parents might have ever made. You know what I mean? I remember when I surpassed what my mom made, I was making it the time in the trades. And it doesn't have to be that complicated. And you can just, like, really love your life. It is essentially the message.

I want you to tell me, speaking of your life and your folks, I want you to tell me how a toaster changed your life or at least put you on the road to, to redemption. And as you collect your thoughts to do that, I'll tell you, I thought of this years ago, too. I was backstage with Tim Allen waiting for our entrance. I play in his little brother on Last Man Standing. And he was telling me the story of how insanely frustrated he became when his grandson, I think, wanted him to show him how to fix a blender. Their blender is broken. He basically opens it up and realizes there's nothing inside. The whole thing is just one giant chunk of extruder. rooted plastic with some gears and things that were all interlocked and therefore not able to be replaced.

And so planned obsolescence, right? And so he goes on this giant rant about the problem with blenders and the problem with fixing things today. You know, we wind up missing our cue and the director yells at us, which is, which is funny. But when you told me the story about your dad that first time and then later, I know you've been out there on the circuit. and I heard you tell the story again. If you wouldn't mind, please share it.

A, it'll give all of this more context and B, it'll satisfy Chuck in a way than only chronology can. Appreciate that. Okay, so my dad, he installed telephones for a living. Back when you had to install a telephone, I don't even know what that means, he had to go install telephones. When people moved into a new house,

he'd go out there and climb up the pole outside and talk to the people. Yep, basically one day when he was 37, he was climbing up the pole. So they have that safety belt that goes around the pole that you're supposed to go up and then like pull up as you go. And he never, none of them, I guess, ever wore him. And he would just put it on at the top.

So he'd just free climb and then put it on. And he missed a step apparently. Or I mean, I don't know. I'm guessing. And fell. And he didn't die immediately, but he died, I think three weeks later. Sorry, Mom, if you're listening. And I got that wrong.

And so he ended up kind of like, in the hospital and then just one thing after another and he had a blood clot hit his heart and he died at that time my mom was actually pregnant with me but barely my dad didn't even know she was pregnant she was just like a few weeks along and so he died in December I was born in August and he had been the breadwinner of the family he had not only been the breadwinner but they were in the middle of building our house and they also had like my mom said they had like three cars and one always be working and he'd always just be working on the other two so that when the one died another one they could use that and you know like just keep fixing them fixing them so he did a lot

more than just bringing the money he actually like kind of help things keep functioning at our house and so my mom was I was 33 or she was 33 when I was born that would be awkward if it was the other way around certainly you'd be a very special guest indeed yeah so she was 33 when I was born. She had us three. I have two older sisters, so the three of us. And my mom didn't want to go back to work. Their goal had always been that she would stay home and be there for us, however many kids they had. And she wanted to stay true to that. So she did. You know, she would take in laundry and do ironing and mending and things like that. She babysat. She did all kinds of things just to bring in a little extra money. And then other than that we lived on the Social Security that we got from my dad.

but that also meant that there wasn't a lot of extra to go around. And so when something would break, my mom, if she couldn't fix it, she would just hand it to my sisters and I say, might as well try. You know, and that was like in the 80s. And I feel like when you open things up, there was so much to learn. It wasn't just a big chunk of plastic that you had to throw the whole thing away.

It was bits and pieces and you could, I remember using like, foiled, trying to make a connection between this electrical thing and that electrical thing because we saw something, was missing and who knows if it was right, but we tried it anyway. And just all those things that mostly my middle sister and I did to just, you know, try to do our job helping around the house. And sometimes we fix it, probably rarely. And always we had a number one, kept us occupied for a long time. Good job, mom. And we learned a lot about how things work. And that has stayed with us to this day. It's actually funny. My co-worker, she makes fun of me because I have always wanted to

to do these fix-it workshops at camp where I want to bring just like a bunch of broken stuff in and let the girls just open them up and fix it. And so finally, we did it one year. It just parts everywhere. And then at the end of the day, she's like, are you happy? Now we have just a hundred broken things. Right. I see now that end of it, but it was cool while it lasted. So now my oldest sister, when she was, I don't know, maybe 35, she was a single mom and she was working minimum wage jobs and having a very hard time. One day we're on the phone and she was going to apply at a video store and I said, have you ever considered the trades? And she was like, tell me more. And both my sisters are dyslexic. They did not want to do a single thing after they were like proud they graduated.

Like we did it. We're done. We're never going back. She went into the trades at 35 became electrician. She's journeyed out. She's doing fantastic. She loves her job. She loves her work. And she's proud of it and her kids think she's amazing. It totally changed the trajectory of her life. She wish she had known about it when she was 20. She would have just gone straight into that instead of 15 years later. So watching her do that, I want to make sure that everyone knows that that's an opportunity, that everyone knows that. People always say like, oh, you know, not everyone is successful in school wants to go to college. I'm like, not everyone's successful in the trades and has to go to call it. You know, like, there's no one way to look at it. It's watching her, not only her, like,

her finances getting better, but watching her confidence and her ability to care for her family and then watching the way her children looked at her then versus now when they were younger, versus my niece one day was like, my mom's a badass. And I'm like, couldn't have said that if she was working at a video store. But it's pretty cool to be like, my mom's electrician. What's your mom do? You know? Yeah. No, it's awesome. I'm just wondering, it's how much, older are your sisters than you? One of them is four years older than me and one is 10 years older than me. So you're the youngest of three girls. I'm the oldest of three boys. I grew up heavily influenced by my dad and equally heavily influenced by my grandfather for whom Dirty Jobs was dedicated, as well as

my foundation. He sounds a lot like your dad. But you never knew your dad. Right. you only, I'm imagining, could have gotten to know him through the shared memories that your sister and your mom had. So in the same way, a little girl might show up at your camp and not really need to be trained or untrained because she's seeing things for the first time. You never had a fatherly influence. And so, you know, it would be awesome if I had an actual question, but it's just more of an observation. because everybody comes out of their own deal. And your deal was so unique, especially when you consider now you're really one of the leading advocates for the trades in general, and specifically for girls in the trades. And you came to this by tinkering with stuff that your mom couldn't afford to fix under the non-existent influence of a dad you never knew.

That's a really wonderful summary. Well, look, again, in the absence of a question, I have no choice but to string together words I've heard. Yeah, you got to make a point. Well, what I think is very interesting about that is by your mom saying, hey, this toaster isn't working, see what you can do. That is just a huge thing. First of all, you know what it reminds me of, Mike? It reminds me of Fred King tossing you the keys to his car. No kidding. When you were 17, right? And saying, hey, I need to nap. Get me to Lynchburg. Right? It's the same thing. This was a teacher we had in high school. It's a story I tell once in a while because it's the first time I remember a grown man other than my dad treating me like an adult. And like the power of that.

You don't know it at the moment. In fact, it's kind of scary at the moment. But that's what you're doing for these girls, at least through the eyes of their parents. You're putting tools in their hands and you're showing them that a thing can be built. My point is to say that maybe you did, but it doesn't sound. like you had that exact experience growing up. It feels like you were more there to sort it out. And it was your own curiosity and your own circumstances that led you to take the toaster apart. Yeah, I will say two things. One is we did have the availability of tools. So our garage did have all my dad's

tools. We did have that. And when you went into the garage, that was what was there. You know, when you're a kid in the 80s, no one's watching over you very closely. And so if you want to do something, you go into the garage and you get whatever you want and you build the tree house or my sister and I, we pried off one of the fence boards on our back fence so that we could sneak through. My mom never knew, which is terrifying because we would sneak into this old abandoned farm where there was an abandoned well that we'd play around. My mom never knew, but that was like our secret thing. So we had the availability of tools. And then my middle sister is very creative and curious. And so she was always trying new things. For example, she tried to blow dry me while I was still in the bathtub.

She just thought it would kind of quicken up the process, you know? It would have. It would have. It would have. My mom says that it's one of her proudest moments is walking into the bathroom and seeing that and screaming after she unplugged the blow dryer instead of before she, unapplied the blow dryer. But that was how Bridget always was. She would, I guess a lot of baths up. She shoved soap up the faucet and was like,

now we don't have to wash ourselves. Done. So she was also like that when we were playing. We wanted to have a dunk tank. So we took our garbage can, filled it with water from the hose, put a board across, and then sat on it.

And then I don't know how we got dunked into it. I have no idea, but we put it in our driveway and we had a dunk take. Those are just the things that we did. We just screwed around outside. And that's what I want for the girls of Girls Build. That's what I want for them is to kind of have that desire to maybe I'm bored and I want a tree house or I'm bored and I want a skateboard ramp.

I'm just going to go find stuff and I'm going to build it. And then I'll have something to do for the afternoon. It wasn't just a tree house. You put an elevator in the thing for your cat. Built an elevator for the cat because, you know, I guess what? The cat couldn't climb the tree and you wanted the cat in the treehouse. So, yeah, let's build up a little. Yeah, you know, maybe looking back, maybe the cat actively did not want to be in the treehouse with us.

Maybe. Maybe more what it was. So we just hauled her up in our little cat elevator and that poor cat. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's go back for a second to that secret well. You never mentioned that to me before.

And do you remember a book a few years ago? I think it was called The Dangerous Book for Boys. Yes, yes, totally. So it came out around the same time, I think, we began to hear about safe spaces. And the author was like, look, there's going to be a real unintended consequence to falling too far in love with the idea of safety. And for a young boy, like you also casually mentioned back in the 80s, you know, you could basically run amok.

Let me tell you, in the 70s, You can leave the estate. You can say, I'll be back. Give me a couple days. And there was a woods and my buddies. And off we would go following the stream and underneath the culvert, underneath I-95 and 695 and 43. And like all of these, I mean, parents just don't think that way today.

Yeah. So my question here is you had a secret well. It was not a safe space. It was not. No. It was a place, though, where you. you want to explore and play and maybe flirt with risk a little bit. So talk about that.

You've got eight-year-old girls with power tools. You've got to be careful. There's all kinds of safety protocols. Yeah, absolutely. When we have our girls out, we push safety really hard. We empower girls to also not call each other out on safety, but support each other in safety. Oh, man, you're about to use the saw and you don't have your glasses on. and you also receive that feedback.

So that's one of the first things we talk about. If someone says, oh, you don't have your safety glasses on, you don't say, like, don't tell me what to do. You say, oh, my gosh, thank you. Opening up that conversation, number one, it helps that interaction between girls on that level, but then it also helps them as they're building to also, like, support each other in building. Like, oh, this is really cool. Have you considered doing this thing, you know, with what you're building?

We push safety very hard, and yet we do dangerous things. And the things that we talk about when I do a chop saw lesson with the girls, I say, this is a chop saw. This is not a child's chop saw. It's an adult chop saw. It doesn't care who you are. It will cut whatever you put under that blade and hit the trigger. So if you put your hand there and you pulled on the blade, it will cut your hand. So let's not put your hand there.

Let's just only put the wood there. And I think letting them realize it makes them more confident, being trusted to do this thing. I'm just kind of processing this. We do put our trust in them. We have a lot of adults overseeing everything, but ultimately comes down to them listening, paying attention, being focused, and doing what we say and practicing what we tell them to do.

And then there's also a lesson in that as well. Sometimes you do have to focus and you have to, if there's a question, you have to ask that question. Because if you don't understand, you're going to get hurt. And so it's okay to ask questions. it's okay to be the only one raising your hand because maybe sometimes everyone has the same question because I forgot to say, here's the trigger, and you don't know how to turn the saw on. And so you ask, opening up that door for them is really empowering.

And hopefully we'll carry them into other realms of their life as well to ask those questions. Take those risks. Do your sisters have that same relationship or philosophy with risk? Again, I'm asking because I'm trying to imagine. imagine never knowing my dad, but knowing that he did die as the result of an accident. Really, an accident that could have been prevented had safety protocols, right? Absolutely. I could just as easily imagine the story of a woman named Katie who said, yeah, there was a well,

but we never went near it because we knew bad things could happen. And yeah, I had an idea to start a nonprofit, but you know what? It's just too dangerous. Yeah. Your circumstances could have just as easily led you to conclude that the very reasons you're doing a thing today or the very reasons not to have done it. Not to do it. That's true. I think there's a lot that was passed down from my dad to us through stories, through my sister's lived experiences.

some of that is that my dad definitely lived his life to the fullest. My mom, she wished she had lived longer, obviously, but he did it well while he lived. He did things like my aunt needed a refrigerator, and she was a young mom, and one day she tried to leave her garage, and the garage door wouldn't open, like it wouldn't push out. And so she walked around to the outside, and there was a brand new refrigerator sitting up again, her garage door that had been brought there in the middle of the night and had been retrieved from somewhere where there were many refrigerators. My dad didn't pay for that refrigerator, but he did acquire it. It fell off a truck.

It fell off a truck. And there are a lot of stories like that. Like even when their parents were building their house, my mom has a story about my dad getting this gravel that he'd found on a like a city lot. And so he's loading it into this truck and this guy pulls up and is like, oh, hey, that's not free. And my dad just keeps showing. He's like, oh, man, I'm so sorry. Like, how are you? And basically, like, chatted with the guy until he got what we need.

It was like, I'm so sorry. I'll make sure that I never come back here and then left with the amount of rocks that he needed. And so even though we knew that he died, we also knew that he took risks. He had a lot of fun. He wanted to make the most of every minute that he did live. I think that that story actually pushed us more than the story of his death. And in some ways, growing up with a parent who died young, you do want to make the most of it. You want to make the most of your life.

And it's so cliche, but you realize it can end at any moment. And it really can. And I think that my sisters and I and my mom all live in that way. I'm sure if my mom had known about the well, she would have told us not to go near it. But I think she would have enjoyed, though, knowing that we had so much fun back there. And then my dad would have, too. Yeah. Whether it's literal or metaphorical, the idea of a secret well.

I think, I can't imagine my childhood without it. We had a bridge that crossed a creek and up and under the bridge. It was so quiet and so alone. own. Yeah. And the woods that were behind my house and the trails that were back there. You could get lost. Yeah. I worry sometimes that part of what Ailes kids today is that that well has been plugged and that bridge has a fence around it now. And there is just a very, very different relationship that we have with risk. And it was one of the first things that struck me when I met you. The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap.

They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before, with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating. and competing every year.

Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement, explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself and see too how easy

it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skills, usa.org slash Mike. I'm talking skills, U.S. Skills, U.S.S.S.S. U.S.S.S.S.S. USA. Back to the show, you know, it was funny. When I left, I was like, yeah, you know what, I'll probably never see Katie again. I was glad to help, you know, MicroWorks is a huge fan of what you were doing and we still are.

But then something really weird happened that I'm not even sure fans of the old show would remember, but the thing we gave you, the trailer and all of the tools, was burgled, broken into. And those, like not long after, right? Not long after. Yeah. It was brand new. Walk me through that again, because most of what I learned was through the local press. And then that extraordinary thing that happened in the wake of it.

Yeah. So the trailer, we stored it. I just want you to know, we did put it somewhere safe. So it had all of our hopes and dreams in it, essentially. So we put it in an area in Portland called Swan Island. It's right below the University of Portland, which is where our summer camps were. It was behind a fence, an alarmed fence. You could not see it from the street, any which way you looked at it.

And it was kind of parked in a bank. The area belongs to a construction company that are big supporters of Girls Build. And so they saw all their stuff there, you know, different stuff. It was tucked away. I was not worried about it. You can't see it unless you are already in the fence and no. what you're looking for, right? And we should say, too, that prior to this trailer, you guys had a bus, right?

Like literally a school bus that was on its last legs. And that's what you would use to transport your material around for the most. Oh, my gosh. I think about that same summer. And we drove that bus. I didn't. But my coworker drove that bus, no air conditioning from Portland to Southern Oregon, which is just a very hot trip.

Yeah. With all of our tools in it, all of our fast. all of our, everything on the seats of the bus, and then also people just kind of mixed in. What was your name? I met her. Starts with an agent. Angenet. Right. Is she still with you? Oh, yeah. She's hired full-time staff now. She's fantastic. She does all of our, she calls herself the executive director of fun. The name she was given herself. That's my job at Microworks. Yeah, good. Yeah, it's a good job. Yes, she actually recently had a baby about a year ago. Please tell her hello and congrats.

I will. I just bring the bus up. So if you don't know, that's what Girls Build was using on returning the favor. We wanted to upgrade it. We did it with this trailer. We filled it with tools. And then a couple of months later, it's securely stored behind a fence on a construction site. And what happens?

There's a fence all around one side. And then the other side is a hill covered in Blackberries. But what I didn't know is that there's a path that goes along that that's kind of like a, probably an animal path that became a people path for people who might have not the best intentions. And so from that middle of the Blackberry Bramble, you could see the trailer and it says girls power tools on the outside, which I loved. But looking back, it was kind of an advertisement. There were a lot of best parts.

But how we discovered it is my coworker, after summer was over, we're about to do a workshop. And so she went in to go, like, get all of our new tools. And so she was there for a long time. And in the trailer, collecting everything that we needed. And she's on the phone with her. She's like, oh, I think I got everything. I don't see the chop saw or something, table saw maybe. And I said, well, that's weird.

Anything else missing? She looks around. She's been in there for like an hour. She looks around. She's like, well, now that I think about it, it looks like maybe some of the drills are. actually the cover looks like it's been broken into and then she goes oh the skylight's missing it's missing so these might be related these things might be related but she had said in her defenses

well I didn't know maybe while it was traveling the like four miles or whatever like things had shifted because everything was on the ground like in the middle of the train you got there yeah there's no reason for the tables ought to be missing so let's investigate a little bit. She had unlocked it from the outside, you know, with the keys. None of the doors were anything, you know, wrong. And so that was how we discovered that it had been broken into. So jumping ahead, did they ever find the people? No, they did it? They did not. They never do. Okay. So I read about this in the local press, and we had been there, it felt like just days before, but I guess it was a couple months. I don't know. It was.

recent. It's probably happened in September and it had been in July that we got it. Yeah. You know, I posted about it because at that point, I mean, RTF was just getting going, but I knew enough to know that the fans were engaged and I felt like, well, crap, I can't not talk about this. But I don't really know how to talk about it because I don't want to put the arm on anybody. But at the same time, I want to see if the audience, what will they do when they see that this thing they've just watched, suddenly had an unhappy beat to it. And I didn't see it firsthand, but you did. Yeah. And remind me again of how it went down. Okay. So when our episode came out, I thought we'd get a ton of donations. And we got some. And it was good, but it wasn't like overwhelming. And this was, we were a year

into Girls Built, right? So very young nonprofit still. I don't think I'd even hired myself yet. Basically, you just did one Facebook post. Every time we get a donation, my inbox would just say, like, you've received a donation. And my inbox, it was like 10 pages of just you've received a donation, like nothing else. And they all just came flooding. And I don't remember the exact number, but it was roughly like $60,000 that was raised in probably about 24 hours for us, which was incredible. Like just in so many ways, incredible. Well, if I didn't tell you then, I'll tell you now, the reason I brought it up is in no way to say,

nice job, Mike. It's to say that's why I did four more seasons of returning the favor. Because, honestly, I've done enough TV. And while I love the show, I think it was the right show at the right time, there were other things I could have been doing. And there were other things that were important to me. But that, I mean, it's one thing for Facebook to come up with 30 grand or 40 grand to help get you that trailer and for us to make whatever donation we made. But for thousands of people to kick in 20 or 40 bucks and for you to raise $60,000 to be made totally whole within a day or two, Chuck knows I'm wary of all earnestness.

And he knows words like empowerment make my teeth hurt. But that crap right there, that made me borderline weepy. And it restored my faith. Absolutely. In social media, in my fellow man, and in the mission of my own foundation, just the business of trying to help people one at a time. And then suddenly, this is a thing. They weren't really responding to your foundation or for your efforts.

They wanted to correct an injustice. You know? Yep. Yes. And they did. And they did. And it made me feel very differently about that show. And it was when you say $20 and $40 donations, it really was. It wasn't $1,000 donations coming in. It was $5, $10, $20, you know, it really was. And it was that many people contributing. Staggered. So what did that do for you? Did it impact you in a similar way? Did it change the trajectory of anything? Well, that whole time period, I think shortly thereafter I got a phone call asking if I wanted to write a book. So that whole time period was a little surreal, having you give us the trailer and then getting this basically free money to keep going, especially when you're early in your nonprofit, you have a hard time proving essentially your worth and a hard time getting. traditional grants and things like that to invest in you. And so we really did rely, even our first year, we had no grants, just people. And so money coming in like that, $60,000 just set us up. Like, I would have hired myself then just a few months later. So being able to get myself on payroll, eventually hiring another person so that I didn't have to do everything on my own. All of those

things, the momentum has kept going. So I think it happened on the 17th. This is weird. But I think that your post came out on the 17th of some month. I don't know what it was because a lot of people became monthly donors. And every day on the 17th, I just get this like in my inbox, this big block that's like someone so-and-so has made a monthly donation of $10. I'm like, oh, that's all the returning the favorite people. And I know it because it's all on the same day. They're still donating and they're still supporting our work this many years later. It just goes to show, Chuck, when you ask people to do a thing because you're trying to boil the ocean, change the world, close the skills gap, right?

Help me close the skills gap, won't you? And you can do it by supporting this foundation that does this, this, this. Okay, it's not that that doesn't work. You'll get people to respond. but when you ask them to help correct an injustice, help set this straight. It's different. I'm very mindful of that now, and you have to be careful because you don't want to manipulate. You need people to help, but you have to draw the line somewhere. It's like my very problem with the show in its initial form was that it felt deliberately manipulative in some places. I tried to take the piss out of that with the way we shoot it. No second takes, free form, and all that stuff.

It's similar here, but every now and then a thing happens and it takes it to whatever the next level might be. Well, it's sort of the difference between donating to the Red Cross just because it's a good cause and donating to the Red Cross after a hurricane or an earthquake or whatever. So I think it's sort of the similar thing where people see an injustice like that. all your new stuff is now gone. Let's fix it. So, and right, you know, taking care of it is a good thing. I just somehow engage Siri on my, uh, no, shut her up. I don't want serious opinion. It's so weird, man.

But look, it's also, Katie, the modesty of it. It's one thing to look at Ukraine and go, oh, what are we going to do? Right. What's my 20 bucks going to do? Yeah. But to replace the table saw in a burgle trailer? Right. I think maybe it comes down to encouragement.

We all need to be encouraged at some point. I felt like you need to be. Good observation, Mike. Good observation. Thanks, Chuck. What else do you like about what I'm here for? It's delicate, but the encouragement that you give those girls, that's really what's for sale here.

And that's what people saw. And that's what people were offended by the notion that that had been interrupted. Yes. Pretty cool. Let's sell some books. Here it is again. Girls who build on the cover.

Valeria. Valeria is a kid who has come since the very first year to camp. She's very tenacious and a very outgoing kid. So when I was doing my book proposal, I asked her mom if she'd be willing to come out and build something. She aced it. She did a great job. and landed herself on the cover.

What's the point of the book? Okay, let me tell you, since you asked. I did. And I'm not going to ask again, so this is where you put it through the hoop. Okay, so the book, you've read it about eight times now, so you know. Easily. So the book is multipurpose. So number one, one of the more exciting things that I did for it was interviewing girls all over the United States and Mexico who built.

I did a ton of research, found girls all over, and I really wanted to show off everything. So, number one, I was geographically diverse. So we were on the West Coast. We were in New England, Colorado, New Orleans, Mexico, Eastern Oregon, Washington, just kind of all over. I wanted to really show different backdrops and how, no matter where you are, these girls are building when they live in an apartment in New York. And they're building when they live in, you know, on a farm in Pendleton, Oregon. right and so showing that diversity there and then just showing what these girls gained from it what they want other girls to know about it or other people to know about it that part was the

very fun part of it because the girls were hilarious one of the girls Bailey she only has one eye like she has a fake eye and in her interview she says I only have one eye if I can build you can build heck you can build no eyes yes bailing yes wow just like very enthusiastic But getting to see these girls all over who genuinely just love building, whether it's little, you know, little things, big things, doesn't matter. And kind of getting that badass feel from all of them was really, really fun. And also, like, some of them, when I was interviewing them, like, I would get a little bit weepy because they were so confident in themselves and so strong in themselves and had so much

that they wanted other people to know. And that part was really moving. It was all very uplifting to know that all over. over this little part of the world, things were going right. There were people doing good things and doing right things and girls who are having a blast building. The other parts of the book are so much work is how I will describe it. So the other parts of the book are, so people say like, oh, this is a great book for girls.

Let me tell you, if you are interested in building at all, this book is for you. There's nothing about it that has to say what age you are, what you are. gender you are. This goes through everything. I haven't even have a whole page here about you, Chuck. Look. What does it say? I can't see. It says Chuck. It's describing to Chuck in a drill. I'm honored, really. And I feel empowered. That's the kind of encouragement I'm looking for. Before I even knew you. Tell Chuck what a Chuck is. Tell Chuck, I don't. It's on page 13 of my book, Chuck, when you buy it, you can go ahead and read about it. Very good. Yes. So it goes through all the basics of

tools, what they're called, what you want to call them, what things mean. Also, like, the thing that I wanted to convey in writing this book was it's not a big mystery. It's not scary. So I have a picture of a chop saw here. And underneath it, it says boring old chop saw because a chop saw is actually, like, the word chops is actually a metal cutting saw. But what we commonly call a chop saw is a compound mider saw. So in the book, it says boring old chop saw and then it says compound mider saw. But it says just called a chop saw because that's what everyone calls it and it's going to be okay. And those are the things that I wanted to convey is like, if you want to start out building, here's everything you need to know.

Here's what to expect when you go into a lumber store. Here are the words you want to say. I tell a story about like, you should just go in and order a piece of five-quarter lumber because it sounds really cool to walk in and be like, yeah, I'll have a five-quarter by eight. Sure. Why not? I'm going to try that. You try it.

You try it. And all five-quarter means is like it's actually the whole inch. So that's what the book is about. And then there's a whole index in the back about, not an index, like a glossary of all the different materials that are used in the book. Oh, the most important part, I lied. So it has all these how-to projects in it. It works from easiest to hardest. So if you're someone who's interested in building, you start on the first one.

It's Alice building a chicken ladder. and then you go from there and you start, it goes over safety gear, man, I did such a good job on this book. It's really comprehensive, you know? It's super comprehensive. Is it for girls? You just kind of said this, but I mean, is it mostly for parents who want to inspire

the curiosity and the confidence you keep talking about in their kids, or is it for the kids themselves? I see what you're saying. Right? It depends upon. So the interviews, I wrote directly what the girls wrote. Some of them are really ridiculous because these kids are six years old. One of them she's talking about how she makes the best tuna fish sandwich of anyone in the whole world. And you can go ahead and try to argue with her, but you know, you're wrong. Things like that that I really wanted actual kids when they're looking through the book to be like, hey, wait, this kid's funny. You know, I want to read more about her. But then the projects, depending upon how old a kid is. So if, If they're young, it's power tools, but it's not like I started out with handsaws and things like that for building. So if they know how to read and follow directions, so it has 13 projects in it. As they're going through, it talks about how much adult oversight is needed, how much it'll cost, what safety gear you need, where you should be working, like, are you on a workbench or whatever, what your skill level should be and how much time it'll take.

So that should kind of guide people on what they can do on their own, what they might need help with. And for adult oversight, none of them have zero adult oversight because you don't want that. It's obviously going to be useful for a ton of people. And if Chuck had the ability and the time, I'd have him do a nexus search to see how many times you said both curious and confident in this interview. But I see now it's on the cover as well. Correct. Look at the expression. I mean, if that is not the perfect embodiment of curiosity and confidence, this kid is going to-

It's borderline badass. Honestly, it is. I mean, it's great. And there are photos of her. She had these huge pipe ranches, right? And she's just like going to town. And I'm sure that photo's in her somewhere too, but it's pretty great. And on the back of the book, you might not remember her, but on the back of the book is Aaliyah, who you actually worked with at camp.

Yep. Yep. also awesome and your site is girls build dot org and you can get the book you can find out how to get the book there as well

right girls build dot org I'm guessing Amazon yeah you can get on lots of different places powells anywhere the books are sold even I had a lot of friends who were like I went into my little local bookstore

because I wanted to order your book and it was on the shelf I was like yes you know what that's great it occurs to me though statistically that if I was there six years ago and you had 14-year-olds in your care at that point. Now they're 20. Yeah. Which means they're kind of in the world. If you're in touch, please let them all know.

We're giving away a million bucks again next month in these work ethic scholarships. I'd love for them to apply. Obviously, they've kind of got the soft skill thing down. So the money is there. And if they're going to pursue a trade, that's why we do it. I'll get that word out. Maybe Chuck can send me a link. And then I can get that word out. Chuck, do you think you could do that? Consider it done. Is that possible?

I think I can do it enthusiastically. You know what? I mean, I could use a little bit. I mean, who couldn't? Well, I'm pretty well fixed for it, to be honest. I don't need any more. You know what? I'll manage you on my own.

Thanks, Mike. Oh, I forgot one cool thing, Mike. What? So we are actually in the beginning stages of exploring being a docu series. Oh, right. Yeah, right. So there's a production company that wants to, they filmed all last summer at camp, so they want to, I sent Chuck the actual blurb. You might as well throw it down your secret well.

Here it is. Actual industries in Golden Amazon productions are currently developing an episodic docu series that follows Katie Hughes, founder of Girls Build and her campers as they learn how to use a variety of tools to doles. to build and repair just about anything they might encounter in their lives. While the campers work on their construction skills, they are also building confidence and understanding about how to apply these talents in a way that can be supportive of the community around them. Is that the blurb you were referring to, Katie? Yeah, that's a long blur, but basically it's... That's her second book.

The idea is that we would follow girls through as they're like starting out learning and then growing more confident. in their tool use. And then the idea of what they want to do is they want to have them do community repairs. So they go out and do things in the community to fix, I always say fences because that's an easy thing,

going out and doing kind of good in the community and then viewers get to watch the girls grow as they're learning tools and just get to know them and things like that. Where do you think it's going to land? Does it have a home? I don't know. It doesn't have a home yet, no.

All right. Yeah. Well, I know people, if you need help, when you get to that point and you know, Mary, reach out your friend of the court and do whatever we can. Okay. To get some eyeballs in front of it.

Wonderful. That's fantastic. I forgive you for not having a television, you hippie. That's exactly right. Living in a freaking tree house with your cat on an elevator, not watching dirty jobs, whatever. I forgive all of that. Blame my mom.

Blame my mom. Please say hello to all the girls. Thank you for making the time to do this. It warms my cockles, Chuck, to think that there's a like-minded spirit up there. Totally like-minded. Pushing the boulder up the hill. You're awesome. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank you. Thank you for highlighting us and showing off all the things that we're doing and always being such a good support to us. Happy to. I appreciate that. Say hey to the family. Don't hang up. It needs to be uploaded first, and that would make Chuck weep.

Like one of the younger girls in your care, getting a splinter off some plywood. I don't know. They don't really cry. Really? They don't cry? They don't really cry. Well, I mean, we don't get that many injuries, but no.

Especially the kid with the one eye. She's tough of nails, yeah. Do the parents cry when they see their kids using power tools? I think in their heart sometimes. Sometimes I enjoy. Sometimes out of like, oh, no, what have I done? All right. We're officially done.

Goodbye. See you next week, everybody. Okay, thank you. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile, then share your satisfaction

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