Verify In Field: The Millwork Podcast

Building the Future of Woodworking with Tovi Spero

• Marketing • Season 3 • Episode 6

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In this episode of  Verify In Field, host Jacob Edmond sits down with Tovi Spero, Education Director at the Association of Woodworking and Furnishings Suppliers (AWFS), to explore the critical role of education in shaping the future of the woodworking and millwork industries. With a career rooted in teaching and technical education, Tovi shares how his journey from high school STEM instructor to industry advocate has positioned him at the forefront of workforce development.

Together, they discuss the growing talent shortage, the importance of early exposure to manufacturing careers, and how initiatives such as student competitions, CAD design programs, and partnerships with organizations like SkillsUSA are helping to build a sustainable pipeline of skilled professionals. This episode offers valuable insights for shop owners, educators, and industry leaders who want to ensure the long-term success of the wood manufacturing sector.

 

About Our Guest

Tovi Spero is the Education Director at the Association of Woodworking and Furnishings Suppliers (AWFS) and a lifelong educator dedicated to advancing career and technical education. His professional journey began as a high school STEM teacher, where he developed a passion for hands-on learning and student mentorship.

At AWFS, Tovi leads educational outreach initiatives, organizes the education conference at the AWFS Fair, supports the Fresh Wood student competition, and facilitates public policy advocacy for the woodworking industry. He also collaborates with organizations such as SkillsUSA to connect students with real-world career opportunities. Through his work, Tovi is committed to strengthening the talent pipeline and ensuring the continued growth of the wood manufacturing industry.


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Tovi Spero

They don't know who we are. need to be boots on the ground telling them who we are. And by the way, that does happen on a face-to-face level.

Jacob Edmond

Welcome back everybody to Verify in Field today. I'm excited to share with you guys. Tovi Spero is joining us. He is the education director with AWFS, and overall a career educator. And I'm excited to talk to him about his background and the work he's doing in education in our industry. So thanks for joining me, Tovi.

Tovi Spero

Yeah. Thanks Jacob for having me.

Jacob Edmond

To get started, if you wouldn't mind just giving us a little bit about your background and how you came through your current career, your career directory to where you're at now with AWFS.

Tovi Spero

Sure. I think like a lot of people, my journey was not a straight line. It had a lot of loops. I actually started out as a teacher, as a high school teacher and taught a little bit of college, stem mostly, and started out in public schools with public school kids and found my way across the country to the other side to teach private school. And actually it led me to where I am today because at one place where I taught, they had just started Makerspace, right?'cause a lot of schools don't have wood shops anymore, but a lot of them are developing these maker spaces, which has some woodworking stuff, but other stuff. And I had a student that bought some very fancy, I don't know, purple heart and all kinds of other stuff he wanted to make a skateboard with and I had no idea how to help him. It did break. But he had all this leftover stuff and I didn't know what I knew it was nice. I didn't know what to do with it. And so I just started Googling, how do you make wood smooth? And I went on a little YouTube adventure for a few years and started doing woodworking as a hobby. And so when I decided to leave the classroom. I saw this opportunity come up that said it's woodworking and it's education. I said, that kind of sounds perfect for me. Yeah, so I found AWFS and I've been on board for, over two years now.

Jacob Edmond

Oh, awesome. And so now in your role at AWFS, can you talk a little bit for those who maybe aren't familiar with AWFS, what does AWFS do and what does your role there look like?

Tovi Spero

Sure. I'll give you the word salad. AWFS is the Association of Woodworking and Furnishing suppliers. So we're a trade association in the wood industry. Our member companies are suppliers of machinery. Hardware, software, materials, to the woodworking industry. And part of what we do is run the AWFS Fair, which is in Las Vegas every couple years on the odd numbered years. And I do things for both. For the fair, I run our education conference, so that's, bringing in speakers from all over the country or sometimes even out of the country to come and deliver sessions or hands-on workshops, at the trade show. And also coordinating. Speakers on our stage. And I also help facilitate our student competition. So we have our fresh wood student competition, where students from all over the US enter and we fly their pieces in and display them. Outside of the trade show on the association side. I help organize and run our member benefits for member companies, so discounts, things like that. I also facilitate our public policy work that we do. So we work with lobbyists in DC and we actually take a trip out once a year and make meetings with, congress people, senators, and their staff, to really advocate for not just our own members, but to advocate for the whole industry. And so I help facilitate that. And then probably the biggest part of my job, the thing that I do most of the time is educational outreach. it's really important, not just for AWFS, not just for our member companies, but for the whole wood industry to really develop that talent pipeline from honestly, as early as middle school and really encourage kids to, pursue this industry for a career and even know about this industry as a career.'cause a lot of them don't know about it at all. So that's umbrella. The things I do.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. And yeah I know many people maybe are familiar with the fair, but there's a lot more that AWFS does for industry outside of just. The every two years. Fair. And there's also a lot of work that goes into preparing for that. Can you tell us a little bit more about, you mentioned Fresh Wood and the student competition, right? So that you ultimately culminates at the fair, I believe, every two years. Correct. But how does that ultimately work? Who is that for and how does that work?

Tovi Spero

Yeah. It's been going for, I wanna say it's been at least 14, 15 years, something like that. And it's open to high school students and post-secondary students, from all over the US and Canada. it's really a build focused competition. We have categories in furniture, in case goods we always get instruments, we always get different kinds of tables and seating. It's really meant to, first of all, bring the best of the best from the country together and display that work and show the industry like this is the next generation that's coming through, especially on the furniture and case good side of things. And hopefully as a way of getting these students, and again, when I say students, sometimes they're adults. We do cap it now at 35 years old because we do want to encourage people to participate that really wanna pursue the wood industry for a career. We ship all their pieces into Vegas, then we have all big booth, we have awards, we have prizes and award ceremony. And the goal is really to bring these people in and get them to network with companies in the industry. So that's a really big focus is to spread that word. And we usually have somewhere between. 40 to 50 different pieces that make it through the preliminary round to the final where it's in Las Vegas. But you're right, it is a long process. They have two years really to build for the next competition.

Jacob Edmond

Wow. And then you're also relaunching Design It Digital this year. Going into, the Vegas show as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Tovi Spero

Yeah, so Design It Digital was a competition that AWFS ran before COVID, and then after COVID got put on pause. I'm personally really excited to help bring that back because as much as, core of our industry are people on the shop floor, people making things more and more, You know, CAD cam, everything digital design wise is so much more important than ever before. And that's one of the really big motivations for why we wanna bring this back. It's a student CAD design competition. It's all online. We extended it now to be open even to middle school students, if middle school students are interested because that kind of software is much more widely available than I think it used to be. the goal is really to reach out, not just to existing woodworking programs in schools, but also. Not woodworking programs, maker spaces, like any, anything to do with digital design and fabrication. And that's, so much more broad than the Wi Wood industry. So we really want to advertise and say, Hey you have this kind of skillset. You use AutoCAD or, whatever it is. That's us too, right? We want you in wood product manufacturing. So yeah, I'm really excited about it. It's open now and we're gonna be judging online and announcing the winners by the end of the calendar year.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. And then, you're also involved with Skills USA California, I believe. Can you tell us a little bit about Skills USA and as an organization, how it works and the work you do with it?

Tovi Spero

Sure. So Skills is a non-profit organization and they're international. So there's Skills USA, Skills, Canada, Skills Germany, lots of different chapters all over the world. And it's really, not exclusively, but heavily competition focused organization and competitions related to all sorts of different trades. Specific to us would be cabinet making. And in California there's also an Introduction to woodworking competition, and, robotics and public speaking and culinary and all kinds of things. So it's a really great organization and, they are one of the, my understanding now'cause I didn't know about them until I really started this job. One of the most wide reaching organizations with schools and with the trades, especially in the us. Every state and territory in the US has its own chapter. So there is a California chapter and for I don't know how many years now, AWFS has been supporting them. By helping organize and find judges for competitions, reaching out to our member companies to get donations of materials and hardware so that the kids don't have to pay for it, when they do their live build. And then also working with people from the industry to actually do industry level. Designs and plans for the kids to actually build. And again, thank you. I'm gonna put you in there, Jacob,'cause I know you guys help out with it too. I believe also the national one, right?

Jacob Edmond

A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, we've helped with the drawings for some of the competitions. And so, that's a good point. So just in skills, USA, there's a a state chapter of it, and then there is a national competition where kind of the winners from each state ultimately come to Atlanta and compete. Right.

Tovi Spero

Yeah. And then every couple years there's also an international competition, a global one, and that rotates to different countries each time. So it's really big. I was really excited last year when one of our top competitors from California actually got number three in the

Jacob Edmond

Wow.

Tovi Spero

for cabinet making. Yeah it's exciting. Yeah. And every state does it a little bit different, but I know in California, our priority is definitely we want this industry focused, industry integrated. So having, people like DuckWorks come in and really show professional drawings and have, some of our members like. Bloom, donate drawer slides so kids can see real equipment real hardware that we want them to be familiar with as they pursue a career. So having industry be involved is extremely important.

Jacob Edmond

Yep. So all of this work, really through your whole career and in recent years with AWFS and with Skills USA is, very much focused on technical education. And the trades and woodworking specifically. Why is that so important and what, has kept you driven and passionate towards this for our industry. Why is education of, school age people starting with middle school with design of digital all the way through, twenties and thirties. It's so important for our industry.

Tovi Spero

For me personally, it's my passion, it's my vocation to work in education and support students of all ages, like you said. I think for our industry, and I know we'll probably talk about this more as we talk, we talk very aspirationally. Oh, the next generation and you gotta support and everything. But to be honest, it's very selfish for us as the wood industry is to say, we need to make sure our companies not just, survive, but thrive. And that means we need to plan for. Who's coming up, who's getting trained, who's gonna take over, and that's really why this is so important. I think it can seem very to people in industry who don't work with students or, do the kind of stuff that I do. To say I'm busy. I'm busy making stuff. I'm busy, with my organization. But you really have to think much further ahead. Not just as baby boomers retire, but just all the time. Where is that next step coming from? How are you, training the next generation? Not just in the way that you were trained, but in all the newer technology, the newer skills, the new machinery, as much as we love to say education is such a selfless thing, it really isn't. I think of it as being very selfish. If I want my company to survive And do really well, I need to bring in the best of the best and I gotta train them the way that I need them to be trained, to take over.

Jacob Edmond

And I think that's a key point there, because ultimately AWF S specifically it is a trade organization for largely the suppliers of our industry, and very much it is a selfish endeavor. Their businesses are dependent on their client's success, right? And the success of the industry as a whole. And on that front are you guys, what are you as an organization hearing from your members that drives the initiatives? Of education being so important or what are you hearing from industry?'Cause I know, every week I have guests on here that are talking about talent shortages and workforce shortages and like we're retiring at a higher rate than we're bringing in. But, are you guys getting specific feedback that you're hearing from industry that's driving the direction you, of what you guys are focusing on for education?

Tovi Spero

Yeah, definitely I would say yeah, we hear a lot of that. Especially, can't find enough skilled workers and then some people are, I can't even find people that know how to show up on time and stay around and, and thank you for bringing that up. You're absolutely right. It's. It's selfish. Not even just for our members, but for their customers. It's why it's important to our members too. But I hear from a lot of different people. Some people they want to participate and they want to do it'cause it's good of their heart. They're further in their career. They own a company and they want to give back. And that is wonderful and I love to hear that. in terms of. How is it changing our trajectory with AWFS and with education? I would say one of the biggest shifts, and this is part of, it kind of ties in a little bit even with my background'cause I also teach engineering, is because there is going to be. already is and probably will continue to be a huge worker shortage for manufacturing in general. And for our part of that, people are automating, more people are upgrading their equipment and things like that. But that doesn't mean that we're not gonna need people to run those things. It just means the skillset is gonna be very different. And so what I'm hearing from a lot of people is like we love fresh wood, we love the gorgeous bespoke handmade furniture and all that, but. The majority of the industry is not that, right? Majority of the industry is not, really high-end custom furniture. It's in millwork, it's in mass production of furniture, it's in all those kinds of things. And so we really need to prepare people to understand CAD cam, CNC machines, like all these things. And so that's been our real big focus and that includes even. Workshops.'cause we also try to facilitate workshops for teachers and students. And, my priority is we want them using CNC machines. We want them to understand, laser cutters and engravers and some of those widely applicable digital fabrication skills that then they, when they start using, more industry specific software and equipment. There, there's more familiarity. I don't wanna produce hobbyists like myself,

Jacob Edmond

Yeah.

Tovi Spero

h that's ow I make my living. And that's, most people can't make their living that way. Yeah, that's definitely been a big shift in the last, I don't know how many years.

Jacob Edmond

yeah, and I think also that's one of the specific roles in our industry that is the most unique to our industry is the engineering the CAD cam side of it, in that, for manufacturing as we're getting more automated and getting more CNC, heavy, it's a lot easier to translate a CNC operator from another machinist or manufacturing background to woodworking machinery. It's a lot easier to have. Project managers that have a project management background in something else and translate to this. But the design side and the software that we use for woodworking and millworks is very niche and specific to what we do. And also it's still really new within the last 20 years that it's proliferated to where it's a given that our shops are utilizing it. And the current kind of engineers have really. Grown up with the advent and the adoption of it in that they learned it after they became a part of the industry. And so we haven't really figured out how to breed from the start that talent. And there isn't really any programs like most other industries like construction management and manufacturing. There's technical schools, there's things, there's not really any programs specifically dedicated to, woodworking.

Tovi Spero

I'll say there are a few, but it's definitely really rare

Jacob Edmond

Yeah.

Tovi Spero

and to speak to that, so yeah. One thing that we don't have that construction as an example, does have is a very robust apprenticeship program. It's something that they do really well and we don't have that in industry-wide, so that's definitely a challenge. Is there a federally registered apprenticeship? Yes, there is. It's on the books. It's publicly available As a company, you could run your own program, but that's also a lot. And then in terms of school programs, I can tell you again, we're where our offices are based out of Southern California. I know of two. industry specific programs. Really close. One is in LA County, Cerritos College, and the other one's in San Diego County, Palomar College. And those are wood product manufacturing programs. And they do have actual industrial level equipment. And we're not talking about table saws, we're talking about panel processing saws and bigger equipment. They're out there, They're, it's definitely, you're right. It's absolutely not common. And a lot of times you do have to find the related stuff. Like when I talk to students or I talk to teachers about careers, I say to them, take classes on CNC. Might be CNC with metals, but if you can do metals, you can definitely do wood.

Jacob Edmond

Yeah

Tovi Spero

take a CAD class, take manufacturing technology classes. Like those kinds of things are much more common, but again, re related, but not the same.

Jacob Edmond

and industry at large. Is not very aware of them or heavily recruiting from them. That's something else that I find is, there's so much of our industry are really kind of small operations, and so they're not, it's not like large scale manufacturing where they're constantly have a pipeline of talent for these roles. And so a lot of the companies in our industry aren't very aware until, Hey, every five years I need to go hire an engineer. I need to go hire this role. And then they're like where do I get'em from?

Tovi Spero

Yeah, and I think it definitely goes into the. It's an existential dilemma about do you poach or do you develop talent? Yep. if all you're doing is just trying to shuffle people around in a very small industry, It's not a long-term solution. I'll say, my personal opinion, and it is because of my background in teaching, one of the things that I think is really great about that industry is that, schools. Knowing that they're gonna, maybe not retain people long term, but very often could you take on student teachers. You take on people brand new to the industry and you're responsible for training them. And sometimes they stay on and they get hired and sometimes they don't. And I would love to see something closer to that as a model for us, where you have people that are. In a community college, they're taking classes and at the same time they're working part-time for a company or in an apprenticeship at a company. And yeah, they're new. They don't know a lot. You're teaching them what they need to know, unlike education, the education industry, need those people anyway. So you're probably gonna hire them on full time and then you've trained them from the ground up. Exactly. The kind of employee you need them to be. So it is a very different model than I think a lot of what industry companies do currently, it's definitely something I think we need to do more of.

Jacob Edmond

Yeah. What else do you think? Just industry at large, those that are listening to this, our owners or leaders in the mill workshop in the US and at large, what can we do better to support education and workforce development?

Tovi Spero

Yeah, I think there's a lot of different things that a company or an individual can do. I'll give a shout out to Skills USA. Again, I think it's probably one of the better ways of getting connected with. High schools and colleges that have woodworking programs, and I say woodworking as, yeah, it might be a construction program, but they have some cabinet making, related stuff in that class. Or maybe a little tiny bit of millwork even in high school. Because if you volunteer, and I'm not saying it's not work, but if you volunteer to help run a competition or even to donate. Your excess material, something that's just sitting around in your warehouse, some spare plywood, whatever it is, it really develops a longer term connection with that region and with the schools in that region. So that way, first of all they know your name, they know your company. Maybe they know your product. Doesn't hurt if they go into the industry later and you want them buying from you. So that's me talking to suppliers. But even for shops, where you're actually making wood products, that it could be your next employee. Again, you don't know. But because we do have such a need, you need to figure out where these hubs are, right? And they're not everywhere. And instead of having to do all that legwork yourself, which is a lot of legwork, you can go to a Skills USA, you can go to an AWFS, you can go to some of these kind of in the middle organizations that, try to bridge that gap. Between education and between industry like that's what we're here for. And we can direct you to schools. You're someone in, let's say you're a shop in Utah and you're looking for people, and it's like, well, because we do fresh wood and we work with a lot of, not only high schools, but also colleges that have woodworking programs in Utah. I can give you a list of names, that's the real value of it and a time saver. So I would definitely say, yeah, volunteering for skills USA is absolutely the right thing to do, supporting other kinds of competitions. Also, competitions are good because. In some ways they're really short term. It's not like it's a continuous thing, there's a season for it, same goes with fresh wood design and digital, all that kind of stuff. So it's not necessarily something that you have to be doing constantly, but it's still a good touch point. the other thing I would say is working with your local community college to try and develop a program that doesn't already exist, right? If you're in a part of the country or your state. Where, you do have local trade schools or colleges, but they don't have exactly what you do. They don't have millwork or whatever it is. But they might have manufacturing, they might have all these other related things. Work with them. Try to connect them to your supplier. Where do you get your equipment from? See if you can get them some discounts on equipment or materials. Really help them develop that program because if you help them develop it, that provides a pipeline for you. And that is something that you can do consistently. And then there's lots of little things. Talk to your local high school, volunteer at a career day. Talk to kids about what you do every day. I go to career fairs a lot actually, not for what I do specifically, with lots of examples for industry type career jobs. And yeah, I think those are some of the things that are not necessarily easy, but definitely really good ways to interact with schools and students, to work on your next worker.

Jacob Edmond

Yeah, so just get involved definitely connect with, the trade organizations and like skills you say like AWFS. I think that's a good thing'cause you guys are basically aggregating a lot of resources and data that can be useful in a time of need for, for,

Tovi Spero

Yeah,

Jacob Edmond

that don't, or don't have the resource to do that themselves.

Tovi Spero

and I'm not saying don't use a job board. We have a job board too. That's great,

Jacob Edmond

Yep.

Tovi Spero

They, you know, they know about all these other industries. They don't know who we are. need to be boots on the ground telling them who we are. And by the way, that does happen on a face-to-face level. Students are local, so you don't need to go travel outta state and, go through a whole bunch of expense and all this kind of thing. You just have to reach out to your local school district and ask them, Hey, do you have this? Oh, you don't, would you like some help setting it up? Can I help in any way? Yeah. They and schools eat that up. They just, they really want any kind of interaction they can get with industry.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. Looking ahead, what are you seeing in career and technical education coming towards us that maybe is changing? Is anything that is changing that you see coming down the road that's different from the past?

Tovi Spero

Yeah, I mean, I think it's already been an evolution of a process, but I know from, when I was in school and at the time I was in school, they had already really devalued a lot of the trade programs. So I didn't have some of those opportunities like other people did. But it's definitely starting to come back. Schools are very interested in starting programs, including woodworking programs. A lot of that is tied to federal funding. There's lots of money that the federal government can supply, to these schools in order to buy equipment and start a program and things like that. so there is a real appetite for it. Now, it might not be called woodworking, and I think that's one of the key differences. You go to some schools. And they have a wood shop and they're turning pens and they're, making cutting boards and like that kind of, small fun. But again, hopefully not offending anyone in my opinion, hobby type of stuff. unless you are a manufacturerof t housands and thousands of cutting boards, you're not probably making your living that way. So I think the real transition needs to be from wood shop to wood manufacturing program. That's a really big change. And we want kids exposed to panel saws, we want them exposed to CNC machines. We want, that's the stuff we want them to be working with. And that might not be in a woodworking shop, might be in a maker space, it might be in a robotics lab, or some of these kinds of things. So that's been a real shift. And it's still shifting and as the old guard, is retiring out in education, we do need people to step in. By the way, it's another way of getting involved if, you want a moonlight as a teacher, there's a huge need for teachers that are familiar with manufacturing and specifically wood product manufacturing. If, you know, that's something maybe you wanna do, you're interested in, you're at the end of your career, in the industry and you wanna switch and you're familiar with all that kind of equipment, that's huge. Yeah. I hear all the time from school districts. Even if they want a program, they either can't find a teacher to teach it to have the students, maybe they need to double up. And it's not just exclusively wood or they're gonna call it something different. They're gonna call it engineering. It's not exactly engineering, it's wood product, manufacturing and other stuff. so I do see a lot of that in schools. It's not a traditional wood shop, but I don't personally think that's a problem. We can't take advantage of kids just being pushed into it like they were decades ago, right? When wood shop was ubiquitous. we have to target the kids where they are and they're in makerspaces and engineering classes and manufacturing classes. That's what's coming up.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. So for those that maybe are listening and are like, Hey, okay, this all sounds great. How do I start, how do I get involved? How can I do some of these things that Tovi's telling me, what's the best way for them to reach out or find out or explore the resources to get involved.

Tovi Spero

Yeah, obviously always, feel free to reach out to me, AWFS and honestly, whatever trade association is part of your industry doesn't have to be me. Places like AWI, KCMA, like all these associations are great resources for networking for education. I would say if you're interested in skills USA, if you go on the skills USA website, they have publicly available every single state chapter head, the person that runs that whole state. And they are always super excited to hear from people in industry, whether that's something simple we would love to donate some raw materials for your competition, or we need someone to help run cabinet making. You know that's a huge variation in that. I would say definitely reach out to Skills USA and then I know it's probably gonna be controversial, but use ai. Use AI and ask it what are local school districts and give me a contact person in their CTE Career technical education department or program. And just reach out to them. And that can be someone at the college level or the high school level, for middle schools. They'll just be happy if you show up and talk to the kids for 30 minutes or an hour or run a workshop, a little hands-on workshop with them or something like that. So AI can be a really good tool for saying, okay, in this region, these zip codes, whatever it is, give me a list of the local schools. You could even try to ask it. Who has some woodworking classes or manufacturing classes? Yeah, and then look at competitions, all kinds of different competitions, whether that's AWFS or not. It's a great way to really interact with, especially talented high level people that are interested in the industry.

Jacob Edmond

Awesome. I appreciate that we will link as many of those resources as we can in the show notes. So if you're listening, we'll have links where you can go to AWFS and go to Skills USA and find out more. Tovi, thank you so much for joining me today. Sharing about your story. Thank you for all the work that you're doing for our industry and for education. And look forward to having you on again in the future.

Tovi Spero

Yeah. Thanks Jacob. I really appreciate it.

Jacob Edmond

Thank you.

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Jacob Edmond

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