In this episode of Commercial Grade, Manja Horner, founder and CEO of Boost LD and author of Pass the Torch, shares how to train the next generation of tradespeople faster without losing the craft that built the industry. She calls her work “a rallying call to rescue the future of trades.”
From Brick Dust to Blueprint
The moment it clicked for Manja came walking past a heritage building wrapped in brick dust, watching crews grind paint straight off the masonry.
“They’re literally ruining that brick,” she remembers.
She saw it as a sign that critical restoration skills weren’t being taught or passed down. That pushed her to pair her dad’s restoration expertise with her own background in training and build a better way to transfer knowledge in the trades.
Skill Stacking, Not Random Reps
For Manja, too much training still looks like a piano student “pounding away for about five years and never really being a very good piano player.”
She’s championing “skill stacking” instead; what she calls focused, week‑by‑week drills that let employers get people “proficient and useful a lot faster,” compressing four or five years of learning into closer to three.
Don’t Let Tribal Knowledge Walk Off the Job
Manja’s story of Bronco, a master craftsperson whose specialized stucco formulas were never written down, shows what’s at stake.
“The day that he retired, he just left. No writing down his processes. No documenting his formulas,” she says.
With roughly a third of the workforce nearing retirement, she argues, companies need simple systems to capture that “tribal knowledge” now, before it disappears for good.
What Young Workers Are Really Looking For
“Young people want different things. They want growth, they want purpose. They want great pay… They want better culture,” Manja says.
Clear roadmaps, real coaching, and workplaces that fit those priorities aren’t just nice to have, they’re how the trades keep the next generation in the field long enough to one day pass the torch themselves.
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