Home improvement billionaire Eric Smidt never went to college. Now he’s become one of the largest backers of skilled trades education in American high schools.

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In Nicholas Jordan’s high school classroom, students don’t spend much time sitting at desks. They learn how to read a blueprint, put up framing and assemble a roof. Their skills are in hot demand, and they’ve been called upon to build backpack racks at elementary schools, construct a snack bar for the high school swim team and expand the weight room for the football team. Many go on to full-time jobs as carpenters, plumbers or electricians, making enough money to put a down payment on a house by the time they’re 24, said Jordan.

“I have people calling me every day to hire my students. Every day,” Jordan, 44, who teaches at Montecito High School, a continuation school in San Diego, told Forbes.

It’s a U-turn for many students, who landed in his classroom because they were flunking out or not showing up to class. The vast majority have jobs to help pay the bills, often at fast-food joints or retail stores.

“Our students are not bound for college and that’s okay,” Jordan said.

Billionaire Eric Smidt agrees. The cofounder and chief executive of Harbor Freight Tools, a discount home improvement chain with 1,400 stores and $7 billion in annual sales, has been funneling money into classrooms like the one at Montecito High since 2017. His foundation’s flagship program, Harbor Freight Tools for Schools, has donated $6 million directly to skilled-trade teachers at public high schools over the past five years to help them better prepare students for careers in welding, construction, auto repair, plumbing, electric or manufacturing — and expanding Smidt’s customer base in the process.

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