Skills Shortage: Careers in the Trades Offer Broad Opportunities
Date Posted: June 24, 2019
Posted In: Workforce,
From SW Newsmedia: Kurt Rademacher wants high school students to know that not everyone has to get a four-year college degree to find a good job with good pay.
Rademacher, a 2006 Chaska High School graduate, is the CEO and president of Pump & Meter Company, headquartered in Hopkins, with additional locations in Duluth and Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Every other semester, Rademacher visits area schools on career days to talk about his business and others in the trades, to let students know there’s plenty of employment and opportunities for those who don’t want to take the college track. And, he admits, his high school presentations are also out of self-interest. He’s always looking for good employees.
Ever wonder who installs those fuel pumps at your local Kwik Trip, Holiday or Speedway? Who makes sure the electronic components keep humming along; that the gas is being dispensed accurately at the correct grade and price per gallon? Who makes sure that the pumps are safely and securely connected to the underground gas tanks?
Pump & Meter Service is one of those companies. It provides, installs and maintains petroleum equipment for commercial, industrial and retail customers across the Twin Cities, northern Minnesota and western Wisconsin.
“Everything you see at Kwik Trip we supply,” Rademacher said. “The dispenser/gas pumps, the installation, the excavating of the concrete, the tank monitor, all the proponents.” They also install and service hydraulic hoists. Lenzen in Chaska is one of his customers. “We’ve put in all their lifts and lubrication equipment.”
Rademacher realizes, with a wry grin, that as he speaks, he is a contradiction. He went to Purdue University and earned a four-year-business management degree. But Pump & Meter was a family business founded by his grandfather in the 1930s, then run by his father Joe. The intention was for Kurt to eventually take over the business. In business school, Rademacher tailored his coursework to what he’d need to run the family business.