Why Blue Collar University®?

Blue Collar University® is a different kind of toolbox for a different kind of manager. It is a training and mentoring program for managers that are struggling or may never have been trained.

Here you can find information and articles to help you manage your managers and supervisors better and to help them succeed. There is also information on the offerings of Blue Collar University®. I highly recommend*** that you subscribe to this site so that you get updates as they occur. I learned these lessons both from life and from consulting with clients at all levels, not just blue collar.

My intent is two-fold: To train and encourage blue collar managers and supervisors; to help others understand and work with the blue collar manager.

Marketing gurus say I should tell you briefly what the benefits are of working with me – here it is in a nutshell – respect and a better bottom line.

Blue Collar University® is a system of management and leadership training and mentoring for blue collar managers, and the people that want them to succeed. It is based on years of pain having been mangled by my managers. Which hurt, because I really wanted them to appreciate what I was doing. The biggest problem though, is agreeing on what, why and how things need to be done. And THAT is due to a series of mis-communications that interfered with progress.

Blue Collar University® is my brainchild – I am Bart Gragg. I worked my way through college – compressing four years into ten – and got my Bachelor of Science from the University of Houston by literally living and working on drilling rigs in Texas and attending classes between shifts.

For decades I worked in some of the toughest industries out there – the oilfield, heavy industrial dismantling, refinery repair services. I was mangled by managers who often knew no more about management than myself. I will never forget the time that six supervisors were sitting around a conference table and the branch manager came in and slid thick ‘green-bar’ sheafs of paper in front of each of us. We were then told “Those are your numbers. You have to do better. I want to see a plan on how you are each going to raise you gross margins…” In the end, I was asked to explain what a gross-margin is, because even the boss didn’t know. You can imagine what the plans looked like when they were submitted.

Enough was enough. I set about learning and implementing better management and leadership principles. As I did this, I came to realize that many, if not most, “blue collar managers” struggled with the same issues:

  • How to make the shift from labor to leader?
  • What to focus on at work and just as importantly, why?
  • Who to approach when help is needed?
  • How to make that approach so that time isn’t wasted.
  • Who needs what information, when and in what format?
  • How to effectively get their point across…

And so much more.

If you want to help your managers and supervisors succeed, and if you want to do better as a result, then talk to me. I don’t bite.

Call me at 925.757.7473 or email me here.

Bart Gragg
Blue Collar University – a Different Kind of Toolbox for a Different Kind of Manager.

**Highly recommend is the term the Marine Corps Drill Instructors use at Camp Pendleton when they want someone to learn something.

If this matters to anyone I am active with both Professional and Volunteer Organizations.

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