The Craft Instructor of the Year Award is sponsored by NCCER and Tradesmen International.
Imagine being a continuing education student, new to a construction field. Motivated and enthusiastic for your upcoming courses, you’re prepared for a serious discussion. You show up to your evening class after a long day of work, tired but ready to learn—reading from the expert textbook, front to back.
Not in Bryan Gamble’s classroom. “I don’t want to waste the term on things they already know,” says the owner of Nashville, Tennesee-based Gamble Electric Inc. and winner of ABC’s 2020 Craft Instructor of the Year Award. This construction workforce award, presented in tandem with Craft Professional of the Year and Young Professional of the Year, is awarded to an instructor who possesses outstanding creativity, a positive attitude and the ability to transfer knowledge via communications skills and innovative teaching to promote lifelong learning within the future construction workforce. Gamble embodies these traits.
An “entertainer” rather than a traditional instructor, Gamble studied televangelists, stand-up comedians and talk show hosts in order to captivate his “audience.” “I tell stories because that’s what makes people learn,” Gamble says.
In one story designed to discourage complaints pertaining to hardhat regulations, Gamble bluntly describes how a worker choosing not to wear a hardhat did not survive an accident: “And that’s it. That’s the story. I say, ‘If you want to get home every day, what would you do?’”
Deviating from the strict style of textbooks and hands-on application, Gamble cements lessons in his students minds with verbal sleight of hand. “The last thing you want to do is get into a lecture and put everybody to sleep,” he says. “Sometimes, it’s good to mix it up with a little shock-and-awe. In order to get the students involved, interested and engaged you have to be creative and go off track. Once you get their full attention, learning takes on a whole new dimension.”
STRAIGHT TO WORK
Gamble admits that he took the fast road to the trades, but the slow road to success. With a father as a professor at Auburn University, Gamble was luckier than most—he had a free ticket to college. But he didn’t want it.
“I was done with school,” Gamble explains. “I needed money and I didn’t want to be a poor college student, so I went out to get a job and with dumb luck, the job I found was in the electric trade. I was fascinated.”
Although his father advised him to get educated in his chosen field—“Get into an apprenticeship program; obtain as many certifications as possible; do this and you’ll find life much easier as a certified professional,” Gamble’s father said—Gamble was 17 and wasn’t ready to get serious. “His advice fell on deaf ears at the time,” Gamble says. A few years later, when he had a wife, a child and a mortgage, he realized that his salary wasn’t enough, but construction could give him a pathway to success.
“Having a master electrician’s license is the equivalent of having a college master’s degree in terms of the financial position it puts you in,” Gamble says. And not only did he achieve that license at age 25 with just seven years of experience, but he set both an age and score record when he passed. Not too shabby for a young father who, until that time, had been “done with school.”
NOTHING MEASURED, NOTHING GAINED
His master electrician’s license barely in the frame, Gamble realized that he didn’t only want to know how to do things, “I wanted to know the ‘why,’ because I was merely a glorified installer with papers,” he says. Once he had a grasp on the “why” of each task, Gamble would teach fellow workers on a jobsite. And, finally following his father’s advice, he collected every certificate and credential available. When he was offered a teaching position with ABC in 1996, it was a natural fit.
“The merit shop philosophy is my philosophy,” Gamble says. “I’m glad I’ve been given a platform and opportunity to reach so many students.”
Over his tenure with ABC, teaching electrical years two, three and four, as well as electronic service technician, Gamble has graduated more than 600 journeyperson electricians, assisted more than 40 students to achieve master electrician status and, as he says, “inspired many to be the best they could truly be.”
A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
Sugar and spice and everything nice might be the ingredients for a sweet rhyme from the 1800s. Water, aggregate and cement might be the ingredients for concrete. But the right ingredients for teaching, according to Gamble, are knowledge, compassion and determination.
Knowledge
“That’s probably my greatest asset,” Gamble says. “I can make the most bang for my buck as far as sharing my knowledge.” At 60 years of age, Gamble has held his master’s license for 35 years. He has also held the title of laborer, apprentice, journeyman, superintendent, estimator and project manager—if construction has needed a job, Gamble has filled it. “Looking back, had I entered college, I would not have the field experience required for my trade,” he says.
Compassion
“I dial into what a student’s interest is and show them what they need to do to reach that goal,” Gamble says. It’s a lengthy, individualized process that begins when each of his students cross the classroom threshold.
A typical lesson including 30 students will contain both an initial lesson and a quiz. Then, after feedback and two hours of a three-hour lesson, Gamble releases those who grasp the lesson and did well on the quiz along with homework. For those with concerns or challenges, Gamble spends the next 45 minutes answering questions and reworking the problems, and then releases the next round of students who understand the material. This continues until he is working, one-on-one, with whichever student requires the most assistance with the lesson.
“It’s not a matter of these students being dumb,” he says. “I want to make sure that they don’t lose their confidence, so I take the time to make sure they understand the information.”
Determination
“I was determined to make sure that no students were left behind,” Gamble says. “If I can’t explain something in simple terms, then obviously I don’t understand the topic well enough myself.”
His determination stems from a time early on in his career, just after deciding to study for his first certification, when he did not pass the first few practice exams. Gamble has now passed the master exam fourteen times. “Preparation and confidence are key to achieving your goals,” Gamble says. Turning this lesson into a methodology, Gamble always creates a “miserably hard” test for his students’ first one of the class. “I want to know what they know, what they don’t know and the common areas they are all missing,” he says.
As a result, while that sets a high bar, and when test-takers tell their teacher that the field is “too hard,” Gamble’s response is always, “here’s how we find the answers.” Now, after joining the trades more than 40 years ago in 1978, Gamble recognizes the irony of becoming an instructor, just like his father. His technique of challenge and encouragement creates well-trained electricians with confidence in their craft.
Gamble’s emphasis on safety and perfection—“You might have 77 points, but you missed 23 points. And those are what will kill you”—ensures that each student duplicates the meticulous efforts that have become his signature.
And although his company does contract work in addition to instruction, one takes the favorite.
“I am most happy being an instructor,” Gamble says.
