This fall, Coppera Plumbing & Commercial Services is launching Craftsman College, a new earn-as-you-learn trade school in Taylor.
“We’re working with the United States Department of Labor and area school districts to create innovative environments for entrepreneurial students,” said Lindsie O’Neill Almquist, the college’s inaugural president and the chief culture officer for Coppera. “We have our inaugural pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs starting Fall of 2023.”
Almquist, formerly a veteran educator and administrator, including for the Hutto Independent School District, and who holds a doctorate in education from the University of Texas at Austin, was the featured speaker at the Greater Taylor Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon at the Taylor Mansion on July 17.
“The neat thing about this school is the entrepreneurialship leadership,” Almquist said. “People will walk out of this trade school knowing how to actually build their own program and company. What we are seeing so much of right now is students and individuals have a desire, but they have no understanding of what it means to not live in the red.”
Almquist said the school, which is being spearheaded by Coppera’s CEO and Owner Samuel Dowdy Jr., will be run as a non-profit, where high school students can earn credits, and adults can earn money as apprentices.
All students’ education will be tuition free, and sponsored and supported by mentors, as well as through grants and partnerships with area companies, she said.
“Right now, we have pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship program in plumbing, and so starting in August Taylor, Thrall and Thorndale (high school) students, their cohorts will start,” Almquist said. “The adults will be two evenings and on Saturdays, and those are apprentice, so they will earn as they learn while they are in the work, and they will have the classes either in the evenings or on Saturday.”
Currently, the school is launching a plumbing track for students, but officials hope to expand with different trades in the near future, Almquist said.
But Almquist said a
