Mariah Presley: Today on this educational life,
Tracy Hykes: can I be honest with you? It's overwhelming. I couldn't see a big company doing this for inner city kids. Now we get a chance to really get these kids prepared for not big college, but skill trade, and then they can make a conscious decision of which way they want to go.
Mariah Presley: One school district changing the narrative. From a fractured community with tons of unrealized potential to trailblazer for student success, and they'll save $2.6 million in energy savings in the process. I'm your host, Mariah Pressley, education and industry programs leader for Trane, and this is a show about the challenges and opportunities and education today told by the people who have dedicated their lives to improving it. In this episode, we're in St. Louis, Missouri. Finally known by many names, the loo gateway to the west. It is a city that happens to be close to my own heart, having grown up just about an hour from its boundaries. So I'm very excited for today's guests, Tracy and Jennifer. St. Louis is a city that's seen its fair share of challenges, but today's conversation will show us that with just a little bit of hope and the right collaboration, a challenge is simply an opportunity to change things for the better. Let's get into it.
Tracy Hykes: My name is Tracy Hikes. I am a St. Louis City public school product. I went to Sumner High School and right now I am blessed to be a retired sheet metal worker.
Mariah Presley: Retired from sheet metal work. Sure. But retired from service, definitely not today. Tracy is a school board member of St. Louis Public Schools, where he's passionately advocating for nearly 20,000 students.
Tracy Hykes: I would like to give our kids the opportunity to know what the skill trades are all about and what the skill trades can do for them as they try to figure out how life is gonna be for them.
Mariah Presley: And Jennifer is a senior account manager and trains energy services and comprehensive solutions business. She works with institutions like St. Louis Public Schools all the time. She also collaborates closely with people like Tracy to make learning environments more energy efficient, comfortable, and sustainable. And the great thing about Jennifer, she knows what it's like to be on the other side of a public energy project.
Jennifer Geen: Before I was with Trane, I actually was a customer, so a really unique path to the company. I worked in a local government in St. Louis County, Missouri as an assistant city manager, and the city that I was with actually did a comprehensive energy project with Trane. And that started me on my pathway and learning about energy performance contracts, and just a different way for funding projects.
Mariah Presley: Every school district across the country has a shared mission to equip our kids with the skills they need to be successful, confident contributors in the worlds they're entering when they leave school. But even though they have the same mission, every district has a different journey and unique set of challenges. Tracy Hykes: From my perspective, St. Louis, it has the potential to be great.
Mariah Presley: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hykes: But it's fractured. I was blessed. It was five kids. We had both mother and father in the home. They both worked. I'll be, first to tell you, my parents didn't have real good jobs. But what they had, they made work. I see that a lot of kids don't have that. So if you don't have that, it's hard to tell a kid to go to school, get education when you go home, and mother and father is not coming from work, but they already at home. So our community, we have to find a way. To nurture the kids to see when you become an adult, this is what you have to do. And sometimes you have to educate the kids so the kids can educate the parents. So we gotta make school like work for them. I know I'm somewhat unique, but a lot of kids won't be able to go through this, weren't able to see what I see.
Mariah Presley: What I'm hearing from Tracy is that it's all about meeting students where they're at and to make that happen. For a school district like St. Louis, the needs are twofold. One, students need better access to information and experiences that expose them to all that's possible, and two districts need to simplify and innovate the resourcing for this kind of learning. The two biggest barriers in this wheelhouse. Acquiring the right teacher and accessing the most relevant learning tools. And as Tracy emphasizes, it's not just about jobs, but providing life, sustaining career opportunities for kids
Tracy Hykes: with skilled trades. Not only do you have a job, but then you have insurance, you have a 401k, you have all these things. And I always tell people, if you do right by your money, you will have a good life. Just because you make good money don't mean you're supposed to spend it all. But with these jobs, that card, once you get it, you can take that card around this country, you can go to any state, including Canada and work. You can stay within that profession. And work wherever you need to work to support your family. Give a good life as long as you do right by the companies you're working for and your money. You can have a very good life.
Mariah Presley: So earlier you talked about you leaving school, becoming a sheet metal worker, and so you've kind of overcome some of the obstacles we mentioned and kind of realized this life sustaining career journey for you. So will you take us back to that moment, like what was it in your reality that allowed you to overcome some of what we talked about? Like what got you from being in St. Louis public schools to realizing and having access to this opportunity?
Tracy Hykes: Well, I'll be totally honest with you. Once I got outta high school, I did go to college.
Mariah Presley: Yeah.
Tracy Hykes: And I realized that I'm gonna have to stop wasting my parents' money. So I came outta college and started working for a manufacturing company. And, uh, a friend of mine, he said, Tracy Local 36 is hiring. I'm like, what local? 36? And I'm being honest, I didn't know what it was.
Mariah Presley: Just in case you didn't know, local 36 is the Sheet Metal Workers Union in St. Louis that provides apprenticeships and training and everything from sheet metal fabrication to HVAC.
Tracy Hykes: So while I was working for the manufacturing company, they called me, and you know what? I turned it down. I said Nope. Because I was young and naive, I didn't understand the process of a job and a career.
Mariah Presley: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hykes: Because then I was 21 years old making $5 an hour. I'm like, I'm alright. I had one son, but I was fine. So I just kept doing that, but they laid me off.
Mariah Presley: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hykes: So I'm like, oh man, what I'm gonna do now? So then I remember Local 36 did call me. So I called them and I asked them, is that job still available? They said, yes, it is. So after that he said, okay, be a elective 36 at 10 o'clock the next day. So I went up there, did all the paperwork. They sent me to my first company, which it was terrible. It was the dirtiest place in the world, but hey, it's construction. I'll be honest. At first, I'm like, man, I was overwhelmed. I'm like, I hope I can handle this. But the guys that were really nice to me and stuff, and I progressed really well, and then one of my journeyman friends say, Tracy, you gonna be fine? I think once he told me that, that calmed me down and I went on through my apprenticeship and I could see that this is a very good opportunity for me. I know I'd be able to support a family with this job. So two years into my apprenticeship, I asked my wife to marry me. 'cause I felt confident that I would be able to take care of a family. So I guess if you was asking, that was my aha moment.
Mariah Presley: And something you just did for me in that moment. Tracy, I'm getting like way too excited over here because we talk a lot about like challenges, obstacles, things that stand in our way. But I think really what you just said enlightened me to like, this is such an opportunity because you talk about like the confidence to know that you can, right? Having that mentor, that person that's supporting you, having someone in high school that like introduces you to this. At first, right? So it's not brand new. You leave high school and it's all of a sudden something that's coming out of nowhere or left field, like you had at least some kind of confidence and efficacy that you've seen it before and it's possible. And so it's just such an opportunity, I think, and you demonstrated that in so many ways just in that one short story. Because I mean, man, what if we could just give every student that one experience, right? In high school? It gets them confident to take the leap afterward. That's one of the things we appreciate about you, Tracy, is like you really do have this full picture as a product of what's possible having gone to St. Louis public schools, and so I really love that you give us like insider a lens to what it's like for the family, what it's like for the student to maybe not have access or exposure to some of these things. Jennifer, if our goal is to bring as many options or access to options for students to succeed, maybe in the skilled trades and then something else later, but really meet them where they're at. You've done a ton of work on the project and working with Tracy and the district. Can you tell us just a little bit about some of the work behind that project and how we're working together to kind of overcome some of the obstacles we mentioned and realize this life sustaining career journey?
Jennifer Geen: Yeah, and as we were throwing around that word possible, I was getting really excited over here because those that I work with know that one of our tenants is challenge possible. And so we're so excited to hopefully launch a pilot program for data analytics to get these students connected with the National Coalition of Certification Centers, NC three, to get industry recognized certifications before they even leave high school. For the core infrastructure upgrades. When this opportunity came to us, St. Louis Public Schools was in really a unique opportunity with some generational funding. So they had just passed a very sizable bond issue. They had received a tremendous amount of Esser funding, and so two years ago when we started talking with the district about this opportunity, we knew that we had the resources and the bandwidth to help a. School district, like St. Louis Public Schools, who has over 60 buildings. And so what we are doing currently is a $25 million infrastructure project that focuses on primarily six buildings and includes lighting, upgrades, building envelope upgrades, which includes tightening up their building, making sure there's no air leakage. Your traditional HVC replacements that trains known for, so rooftop units and chillers and pumps and controls, state of the art, right? State-of-the-art products are gonna be going into these buildings focused on a design for energy performance for the long term. And that's a real key here because the district doesn't have unlimited funds and they needed to make that $25 million stretch as far as possible. And so throughout this project with designing with energy efficiency in mind, throughout that whole process, through the products and the selections that we made, we are going to save the district approximately $2.6 million in energy savings alone. And so through that, they were able to accomplish a lot more through these schools. I think the favorite thing that I like to talk about in regards to this is just really a renewal of the learning environment. For the staff, for the students, because we know that the learning environment really does impact student performance and certainly teacher performance as well.
Mariah Presley: That's awesome. So I noticed also one of St. Louis public schools that you guys have your core beliefs online, and I was kind of perusing through those earlier and something stood out to me was this idea of overcoming obstacles for every student. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Tracy Hykes: What's most important to me is a lot of these kids do not know what they're gonna do after high school. If train can get in and start these classes and these kids can see how things work, because I think most of these kids are very inquisitive and with train technologies, train can open up so many doors for these kids because you gotta realize with HVHC, you got the installer. You have the technician, you have the person that, in some cases, that has to maintain this equipment daily. See some of that is computer based and we know a lot of kids like to play on their computers. It's going to be really, really exciting for our kids to see this. I mean, just think if you are at school and you're taking these classes and you at your school, in your lab watching how the HVAC system in your building is working, train don't understand, they can blow these doors wide open. St. Louis public Schools, we never had this. Now we get a chance to really get these kids prepared for not college, but for skilled trades. We can get 'em prepared for both, and then they can make a conscious decision of which way they want to go.
Mariah Presley: The vision that Tracy is describing is train's way of creating access to relevant tools for learning. We call it a Virtual Living Learning Lab or vl three for short, and the concept is simple by leveraging building upgrades to integrate workbased learning and certifications. We help schools achieve an educational return on their infrastructure project. And what's more, there's a whole team dedicated to making sure teachers feel confident offering these real world learning experiences to their students. The possibilities from this sort of collaboration are endless.
Tracy Hykes: With these kind of jobs, you can go far. You can be a CEO eventually. Absolutely.
Jennifer Geen: Yes.
Tracy Hykes: If you stay focused and this is what you wanna do with your life, you can be a CEO. Easy. It's astronomical. And I don't wanna go further without saying this train is a global company train. Could have just came in here, fixed all our buildings and left. They could have did that, but they decided to reinvest in our schools. That's huge. They didn't have to do that. Basically, training is being a part of the community. They're staying, you know, a lot of people don't stay. That's huge this day and age, you know.
Mariah Presley: Thank you Tracy. And I'll second that with saying it also takes. A district that's open to this kind of collaboration and innovation. I think a St. Louis public school serves just under 20,000 students. 25% of those students are in transition, meaning they're homeless at the moment and working with the school district through some of their awesome programs to help them get back on their path and get back in a safe environment. And so it's a district that is also going above and beyond to serve a unique community full of potential. And students who. Deserve all that's possible in that future. And so it takes both Trane and, and the district, a district like St. Louis Public Schools to innovate that way. So I think to get some of you guys' perspective on kind of the future, I do think of a gentleman named Dr. C Brooks that I met from Dallas College in Texas, and he's standing on stage giving kind of this final keynote at a conference. And one of the things he said stood out, stuck with me and will stick with me like through the end of my days. But it's similar to you what you're saying, Tracy, when we talk about life sustaining careers. But he said, we're not just getting students jobs, we're putting them on paths to prosperity. To me, that means kind of life changing, completely flipping what's possible for a student and someone who has every opportunity and advantage to not just succeed at life, but to feel sustained, to feel confident that they can have a family, and that they can be contributing members of that community in which they live. So that's what it means to me. I wanna ask what it means to you if we're thinking ahead, as far as impact in two to three years. What kind of impact do you hope that this project will have on students' lives?
Tracy Hykes: Well, two to three years, I believe. That's a tight window. Yeah. With two to three years, it gives them a start of what they can possibly do or possibly see themselves doing down the road. 'cause in three years, I'm hoping that these kids are really seeing what they can do with their lives and see themselves having a good future.
Mariah Presley: And a future they can see themselves in. Right. This is for you, just like it's for anybody else, right? For sure.
Tracy Hykes: Right. That's what we have to give these kids, because I tell people all the time. If you take a person's hope away, they're lost.
Mariah Presley: Mm-hmm.
Tracy Hykes: You have to find some way to give these kids hope, especially the ones that are in transition, that 25% you was talking about, that from day to day, they don't know where they're gonna sleep. So from day to day, if you don't know where you gonna sleep once you graduate outta high school. You pretty much know that you on your own. So we have to give them something that they can clinging to or they can feel that I got a chance.
Mariah Presley: Yeah,
Tracy Hykes: and that's what trainers really allowed us to do. Give these kids just some hope.
Jennifer Geen: I love that Tracy and I, and I agree with everything that you said, and I think for me as the facilitator here, I just wanna help minimize those barriers, make sure we're having the conversations with the right people. When I say minimize barriers for the district to implement these programs, but also for the students to be able to select this as an opportunity. I really love just that idea of sparking interest. My son says the other day to me, he's six years old. Mom, did you know that the Earth's a rock and it's floating through the universe? You know, it's like, it's amazing what these kids are interested in at such a young age, and then you can layer on top of that the impact of climate right on the planet, and you can distill down even further what you know. Carbon means in the atmosphere. And so just making these kids aware of opportunities that exist. And of course the certifications programs are high, high on my list to get launched, and I really love that we have the data analytics certifications, but also decarbonization and AI now, like we're really moving at such a pace of investment in these programs. It makes me really happy to be on this team.
Mariah Presley: So final question, Tracy, you're on the school board now. I know we're building these programs together and aligning them with that project. Jennifer mentioned earlier, still definitely in the building phase, but how does it feel to bring this opportunity kind of full circle back to an entire district now in your role?
Tracy Hykes: Can I be honest with you?
Mariah Presley: Yeah.
Tracy Hykes: You do not honestly understand how good I feel that I'm happy that I'm involved in it, but I'm more happy I. That train is willing to do this because, I mean, when I was growing up, I couldn't see a big company doing this for inner city kids. Our community is fractured and I think this is a way we can bring our community back together. 'cause we can teach a lot of people how to be self-sufficient and how to renegotiate their life in a better direction. It's overwhelming. That's why I'm doing everything in my power to get this thing going for the St. Louis public schools. 'cause I know that this opportunity will not always come. And when we have the opportunity, as they say, you must seize on this opportunity. 'cause it might not come again. And we have to take full advantage of a global company willing to take the time to give our kids a step up. This leg up can really project these kids to anywhere they wanna go. I really appreciate this opportunity allowing us to go forward and send those public schools. It's gonna be a game changer. It's gonna be a lot of these other school districts, I'm telling you now, it's gonna be a lot of these other school districts looking at us, they gonna be looking at us watching. And I really appreciate that training, doing this for the St. Louis public schools. 'cause we need it bad and not only the city needs it. Because this just don't help the school. This helps the city grow.
Jennifer Geen: Well, and you want them to feel invested in their city too, right? You want them to stay right if possible. Mm-hmm. Right. And reinvest in the community just like you, which again, which makes that a whole full circle moment.
Tracy Hykes: What they're doing is just not helping St. Louis public schools. It's helping the community.
Mariah Presley: That's awesome. And a lot of employers looking at your students too. 'cause you're right, it is a competitive edge. It's the most relevant technology aligned with an industry recognized credential, and I can't think of a better way to give your students a leg up. So thank you for being kind of the carrier of the torch for these programs. Tracy and, and thank you Jennifer, for being the bridge.
Tracy Hykes: I just want Jennifer to know that I'm on her team.
Jennifer Geen: I'm grateful. I'm very grateful and I will shout out to there. There's a whole team of people that support me, not only in the St Louis office but nationally on this project. This is a sizable project for TRA and I just, I want to thank everybody that's been involved with it.
Mariah Presley: I can't wait to see what happens when this project is finished. This is what education is about. Providing students the opportunity to see what else is out there to lead to meaningful, fulfilled lives and after school. Well, that's up to them, whatever they choose. But the important thing is that they have options.
Thank you so much to Tracy and Jennifer for sharing their story with me today, and thank you for listening. That's a wrap for season one. Throughout this season of this educational life, we've met inspiring leaders from across the country who are tackling education's hardest questions By simply being resourceful and innovative.
We've talked budgets and funding explored how rural communities are reshaping futures and discussed ways schools can prepare students for careers we haven't even imagined yet. I'm Mariah Pressley. And it's been a privilege exploring these stories with you. Let's continue to challenge what's possible for education, for industry, but most importantly for our students who are leading us into the future.
If you've got an idea for a topic or know an educational leader who exemplifies the resourceful innovation we have featured all season long, let us know. Email us at this educational life@trane.com. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time,
Disclaimer: this podcast is for general informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the panelists and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of trained technologies. Trained technologies makes no warranty or guarantee concerning accuracy or completeness of the content presented in this podcast.
