{"id":877183,"date":"2025-10-13T00:12:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/13\/meet-the-millennial-father-of-six-who-went-from-homelessness-to-building-a-thriving-trades-business-and-a-blueprint-for-americas-reskilling-revolution\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T00:12:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:12:22","slug":"meet-the-millennial-father-of-six-who-went-from-homelessness-to-building-a-thriving-trades-business-and-a-blueprint-for-americas-reskilling-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/13\/meet-the-millennial-father-of-six-who-went-from-homelessness-to-building-a-thriving-trades-business-and-a-blueprint-for-americas-reskilling-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the millennial father of six who went from homelessness to building a thriving trades business\u2014and a blueprint for America\u2019s reskilling revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arkeem Sturgis is only 33 years old, but he speaks with the wisdom of someone who has lived many lives. Midway through a recent interview, as he was changing the diaper of his one-year-old daughter, he stopped this Fortune<\/em> reporter\u2019s question to offer a gentle correction:
\u201cBreathe,\u201d he said. \u201cSlow down. You\u2019re gonna get everything that you need to get done. You\u2019re not in a rush.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

That instinct\u2014to steady, to teach, to pull others up with him\u2014has become Sturgis\u2019 hallmark. A father of six and founder of a Jacksonville, Florida-based handyman and HVAC business, he\u2019s spent the past five years rebuilding from homelessness to his first $100,000 year. And he\u2019s done it, he says, through faith, mentorship, and the conviction that success in the trades can still offer the kind of freedom millennials and Gen Z Americans are chasing elsewhere. He\u2019s also had to overcome what he sees as unnecessary cultural barriers to success for someone like him. <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe as a country have done a poor job equipping our children for life,\u201d he said. \u201cWe used to have [wood]shop in schools.\u201d I<\/strong>n his view, he had to struggle to reach this point in his career because of a lack of hands-on training in public education.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect children at the age of 18 to graduate high school and make a permanent decision in our lives by going to college,\u201d he said. \u201cAn 18-year-old does not have the mental capacity to make a permanent decision for the rest of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Sturgis\u2019 struggle was not just an emotional one. In 2020, like many Americans during the pandemic, he was laid off from his job as a TMJ fabricator at Zimmer-Biomet and his economic situation spiraled. He became homeless, shuttling his wife and five children between hotels, Airbnbs, and friends\u2019 homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really, really, really rough year \u2026 keeping my family together and smiling through that entire process was a lot,\u201d Sturgis said.<\/p>\n

He had never considered the trades, but he was always good at his hands. He found the Home Builders Institute (HBI)<\/a>, which provided a special program for children of veterans (his father served in the Navy) and enrolled in its carpentry program and later in HVAC.\u00a0It started small but led to mentorship and now a business where Sturgis is his own boss and on track to make $100,000 in revenue this year.<\/p>\n

From homelessness to entrepreneurship<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n

Sturgis started small at HBI, assembling furniture and fixing leaky faucets, while working 10-hour night shifts at a warehouse. \u201cAt one point I was working 10 hours overnight, getting off at seven in the morning, clocking into my business at eight o\u2019clock, and working another eight to 10 hours,\u201d he said. \u201cThen going to sleep and doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within months, he was earning steady work through Home Depot\u2019s Path to Pro program<\/a>, <\/strong>a trades skills and job matching program, and using the skills he learned at HBI to expand beyond handyman repairs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The real turning point, however, came in 2024, when he returned to complete HBI\u2019s HVAC course and met his instructor, Steven \u201cPapa Steve\u201d Everitt.\u00a0\u201cHe literally bought me a truck,\u201d Sturgis recalled. \u201cThe truck was $800 \u2026 and he cared more about me succeeding than he cared about the money he paid for that truck.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mentorship, he said, was life-changing. \u201cHe helped me change everything from the way I looked\u2014I cut my hair, I started dressing better. He pulled something out of me that I didn\u2019t see in myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

That year, Sturgis won HBI\u2019s Chairman\u2019s Award and an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas. His business is now on track for its first $100,000 year, a milestone that once felt unimaginable.<\/p>\n

Sturgis tells Fortune<\/em> that he\u2019s frustrated by how the system fails to prepare people for the realities of the economy, and doesn\u2019t advertise the opportunities out there for workers like him. \u201cEverybody\u2019s not going to be a historian, everybody\u2019s not going to be a doctor, everybody\u2019s not going to be a lawyer,\u201d he said. Working in the trades shouldn\u2019t have a stigma, he said, because it\u2019s full of people with high IQs, they\u2019re just using a different part of their brain than a white-collar job. \u201cSome people,\u201d he added, \u201cwant to work with their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sturgis said he believes the U.S. could help fix the shortage with more vocational funding and targeted incentives. He also said he wants to see more grants and forgivable loans for small-business owners in the trades, funding that could help them scale, train apprentices, and fill the hundreds of thousands of open jobs left vacant each year.<\/p>\n

\u201dThat\u2019s how we fill the gap,\u201d he said. \u201cBy giving people the tools to build something of their own.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many young people, he argued, are trapped in the belief that a four-year degree is the only path to success: taking on mountains of debt for credentials that a stalled labor market spits out.<\/a> Others, he said, chase \u201cget-rich-quick\u201d schemes: the softer versions through sports betting or frothy startup fads, and the darker ones through the black market.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur generation is 100% focused on wealth building,\u201d Sturgis said. \u201cOur generation likes nice things.\u201d He argued that you can still have these things through a life in the trades.<\/p>\n

\n

The trades\u2014HVAC, plumbing, electrical work\u2014sit \u201cat the bottom of the totem pole\u201d in how Gen Z thinks about wealth, Sturgis said. Yet, the U.S. faces a deepening labor shortage in skilled work,<\/a> made worse by aggressive deportation efforts<\/a> and a surge in demand from the AI boom.<\/p>\n

\u201cRobots can\u2019t build houses,\u201d Sturgis said, aligning with comments from some of the top leaders in the Fortune 500. For instance, Nvidia<\/a> CEO Jensen Huang has also said<\/a> he believes we\u2019ll soon need hundreds of thousands of electricians to man the explosive data center boom, while Ford CEO Jim Farley recently revealed<\/a> that his son worked as a mechanic last summer and is openly questioning whether he needs to go to college.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sturgis said he believes that if schools could empower Gen Z to see the trades as a path to independence\u2014rather than a fallback for \u201cold men\u201d\u2014more would pursue it. When you explain to the younger generation that one can make close to six figures in just a few years of work in the trades, it \u201cpiques their interest,\u201d he explained. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they\u2019re like, \u2018Wait a minute. So you mean to tell me, I can get my hands dirty and I can make that much money?\u2019 Yes, you can,\u201d Sturgis said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of trial and error, a lot of long days, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you can manage to push past your feelings and the valleys, it gets easier. You look back down the mountain and realize how far you\u2019ve come.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Fortune Global Forum<\/strong> returns Oct. 26\u201327, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.<\/a><\/p>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Eva Roytburg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arkeem Sturgis is only 33 years old, but he speaks with the wisdom of someone who has lived many lives. Midway through a recent interview, as he was changing the diaper of his one-year-old daughter, he stopped this Fortune reporter\u2019s question to offer a gentle correction:\u201cBreathe,\u201d he said. \u201cSlow down. You\u2019re gonna get everything that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":877184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3045,24214],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-877183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-father","8":"category-millennial"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}