Reach Cyber graduates 1st students from its carpentry program

Simeon Chappell spent a lot of time in his childhood being handy around the house.

“If my dad was fixing something, I’d try and help, or I’d take measurements for him to cut wood,” said Chappell, 19, of Ligonier Township.

As the years progressed, Chappell’s interest in woodwork led him to the carpentry program started three years ago by his school, Harrisburg-based Reach Cyber Charter. In late May, Chappell was part of the first group of students to have completed the program en route to graduation.

“My dad always taught me how to do different things like carpentry and electrical work,” Chappell said. “I thought it would be a fun class to take.”

Reach partnered with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and New Jersey-based Maplewoodshop to create a carpentry career-track program, as a way to engage younger children with skilled trade career options and potentially provide a pipeline for the carpenters’ union.

Students use a compact Black and Decker work bench provided by Maplewoodshop as they learn, and finish the program with three Carpenters International Training Fund certifications and the skill-set to begin seeking a carpentry apprenticeship.

Chappell took to it immediately, and is now waiting to find out where he will do his apprentice work.

“I’m excited to learn as much as I can and make some cool things,” he said. “I enjoy when you have this pile of wood, come up with a plan and then do the work and see it all come together.”

Conrad Gargani, 18, of Bethel Park, also started in the Reach carpentry program in its first year, when he was a high school sophomore.

“My family is all engineers and I always enjoyed building things growing up,” Gargani said. “I was looking for an extracurricular class, and ended up really liking carpentry.”

While Gargani is planning to pursue the family trade, attending the University of Pittsburgh’s engineering program in the fall, he acquired plenty of crossover skills through the carpentry program, and used what he learned for his Eagle Scout project — building a dozen wooden collection boxes for his local Lions Club.

“I built a work bench, I built a step-stool for my nephews to use, I built an Adirondack chair,” he said. “Wood is a neat material to work with in terms how it responds to tools.”

Chappell put his skills to work helping his father, a pastor in McKees Rocks, working on projects on the church property.

“It has a house behind it that needed a lot of work. We’ve been working on it for four years now,” he said.

The house is hardly the only thing around that needs a lot of work, infrastructure-wise.

Research conducted by McKinsey & Company projects that between the loss of skilled workers to retirement in the coming years and the 2027-28 peak of spending and construction work laid out in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, demand for skilled trade jobs could lead to 345,000 additional hires across the industry over the next four years.