Advancing the Trades

This Isn't Just a Company. It's a Movement

Advancing the Trades is one contractor's way of giving back to an industry that built everything — including him.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Our Approach

Three principles guide everything I build, on the job site and on this site.

Service

Guidance

Ascension

Meeting contractors where they are, in the field and in the business, not from a stage looking down.

Turning 30+ years of hands-on experience into a clear path forward, not generic advice.

Helping contractors grow, scale, and build something that moves forward instead of standing still.

Advancing the Trades is my way of giving back. My mission is to help small-to-medium contractors find success faster, and bridge the gap between working in the truck and owning a legacy. This isn't about working harder. It's about building smarter.

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OUR CORE PURPOSE

The Why

I didn't set out to build a company. I set out to keep a promise.

"I've lived both sides of it, the struggle and the turnaround."

Tim Sjobeck, Author & Founder

Thirty plus years in this industry taught me something most business books miss: the trades don't just build structures, they build people. I've watched young techs walk onto a job site with nothing but a work ethic and walk off it years later as business owners, mentors, and providers for their own families. I've also watched good people get buried by the parts of the business nobody hands you a manual for.

This work is personal to me. Every contractor I sit across from reminds me of where I started. Every young person who hears "the trades" and pictures a fallback instead of a future is exactly the mindset I'm here to change.

That belief is also why I wrote Failing to Fail ... the book . I wish someone had handed me twenty years ago, so the next generation of tradesmen and women don't have to learn everything the hard way.

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The Backstory

It Didn't Start in a Boardroom

Advancing the Trades wasn't dreamed up in a corporate office. It was born from decades of calloused hands, frozen job sites, and a relentless pursuit of doing business better. I'm Tim Sjobeck, and my journey started like many of yours — riding in the back of my dad's plumbing truck, surrounded by pipes, fittings, and glue.

See How It Works

Four Pillars. One Mission.

Contractor Partnerships. Technology. Youth Advocacy. Industry Voice. Every part of what we do falls under one of these four — stronger businesses, a real path for the next generation, and a voice the trades have been missing.

Why It Matters

AI might someday be smart enough to fix its own furnace...

Doubt It'll Ever Replace Yours.

By 2030, an estimated 2.1 million skilled trades jobs in America could go unfilled.

Nearly 600,000 trade jobs get posted every year — only around 150,000 new workers enter through apprenticeships to fill them. That math doesn't work, and it's getting worse, not better.

For decades, kids were told there's one path that matters: college. Meanwhile the people who wire our homes, heat our buildings, and keep the water running are retiring faster than anyone is replacing them — and nobody sat this next generation down to show them there's a better way in.

Here's the part nobody wants to say out loud: AI can write an email. It can't install your water heater. It can't run a wire through a wall or fix your AC at 2am in July. The trades are not a fallback career while the world automates everything else — they're the one thing that can't be automated, and the demand for them is only going to grow.

We need more people to choose this path, and we need to build the awareness, training, and support to help them succeed once they do.

That's not optional. That's survival.

Sources: JLL Skilled Trades Research, 2026; Associated Builders and Contractors, 2026 Workforce Survey.

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Come Build Something That Outlasts You.

Service. Guidance. Ascension. That's the whole mission, in three words.