Young bricklayer earning accolades, future career

FORT WAYNE—Morris Simpson III isn’t your typical 20-year-old. After all, it isn’t everyday that you run across someone that young with the type of professional building skills he possesses.

Simpson, who recently earned his apprenticeship license as a brick mason, and already has won awards and accolades for his skills with mortar, level and the like. Just prior to graduating from high school, he won a regional competition in bricklaying and captured a sixth place at the state level—quite an accomplishment for someone who said bricklaying used to be one of the furthest things from his mind.

“It’s a long story. I started laying brick when I was in high school I just graduated in ’08,” said Simpson. “I ran track in high school and I played basketball for a while. It never crossed me that I‘d be a bricklayer until I took this class at Anthis [Career Center].”

At first, Simpson said he didn’t like the course work in the industrial arts program. First, he said it was extremely hard work—and, he had one other thing working against him at the time.

“I wasn’t a patient person,” explained Simpson, adding that bricklaying requires extreme care and patience.

But, he stuck with it and found he had a knack for the work.

“After a while, I started getting better at it. It came natural to me. The more I did it the more I started liking it,” said Simpson.

He told his then teacher, Chris Roberts, he wanted to compete at the regional competition of Indiana’s SkillsUSA competion. SkillsUSA is described as “a partnership of students, teachers and industry representatives, working together to ensure America has a skilled work force.”

In addition to providing teaching resources and career guidance, the organization also holds a number of competitions for students to test their skills against others and to allow them to demonstrate their capabilities to potential employers.

Simpson said he spent extra time after school—when he wasn’t working at Kroger’s—to prepare himself for the competition. He said the idea of the competing in SkillsUSA was a bit daunting at first because, as an athlete, he’d always been part of a team, while this competition would make him depend entirely on his own skills.

The hard work paid off with Simpson winning the regional competition and qualifying for the state finals at Warren Central High School in Indianapolis. There, Simpson captured sixth place and the attention of contractors who hired him for various jobs after he finished his 12-week apprenticeship school and earned his apprenticeship license. That license also earned him membership in the union—Local 4 Indiana/Kentucky Bricklayers & Allied Craft Workers (BAC). Since then, Simpson has worked a number of professional jobs, including on the construction of an elementary school in Leesburg, Ind., and on the dugout for North Side High School’s baseball field in Fort Wayne.

That’s something different from what Simpson envisioned as his future, but it’s a welcome direction that he’s grown to really appreciate.

“I think I’m the first brick mason in my family. I just expected to get out of high school and get a degree in criminal justice. But, the brick masonry came natural,” he said. “I’m the first brick mason I know that came out of Wayne High School—and the only black person in my class.”

He said his experience traveling down that career path has given him more than just physical building skills. All that has helped to make him a better, more responsible and mature person.

“I was the youngest in my class. Everybody was older than me, but I had to teach them a lot of things,” he explained. “You have new people coming in and you have to help them by teaching them the things that they missed before.

“It’s hard work. You’ve got to want it. It’s not a job like any other job where you can walk around and just expect a paycheck,” he said.

Simpson said he had important encouragement from a couple of sources, including his brother, Isiah and his teacher.

“My teacher was a big help, Mr. Roberts. He’s the one who helped me,” he said.

Simpson has a number of compelling reasons for sticking with such a tough career choice. First, he said, his father always told him, “I’ll provide what you need, but you have to work for what you want.” Given that lesson, Simpson said he’s never minded working. He got his first real job at Kroger’s when he was 16.

“I always wanted to provide stuff for myself rather than asking my parents,” he said.

Second, it’s a noble profession that requires maturity to do well, he said.

“Bricklaying goes back to the Egyptian times, building the pyramids,” said Simpson. “I like it because it’s a manly job, it helps me to grow up.”

That really became evident when he started working in the field.

“I really had to stay focused,” he said. “I couldn’t bring my problems from home to my job because it would mess up my work. You’ve got to want it.”

Third, and most importantly, it’s for his family and his future.

“I’m also doing for my son so I can take care of him. He’s two,” said Simpson.

Ever ambitious, Simpson currently is enrolled in two schools pursuing a higher education. He’s at Ivy Tech to further his bricklaying career and at Indiana University- Purdue University Fort Wayne, still pursuing a criminal justice career.

“I’m working on getting my journeyman’s license. It’s the best part time job you’ll ever have. With my apprentice license I can go anywhere in Indiana. When I get my journeyman’s I can go anywhere in the USA,” said Simpson.

Ken Reiter, state apprenticeship instructor, for BAC Local 4, said Simpson is poised to have a good, productive future if he sticks with what often proves to be a difficult period of study.

“He’s got a long ways to go. It’s a four-year apprenticeship. He’s on the first steps of a long journey,” explained Reiter.

“Morris has all the attributes we’re looking for—he’s bright, one of the most polite young men you’ll ever meet and he wants to work,” he added. “It’s just a matter of him unlocking the doors himself.’

“We’d like for him to succeed and be that role model,” adding that African Americans and other minorities are severely underrepresented in the skilled trades.

Reiter said apprenticeship programs in the skill trades, such as bricklaying offer a great educational opportunity.

“It’s almost like a gold nugget in their own back yard. They get paid while they learn,” said Reiter, explaining that the union pays for apprentices’ education.

Simpson’s former teacher Roberts also said he hopes the budding craftsman sticks with it. He said, initially, the odds seem to be against Simpson, who had missed 35 days at the beginning of that school year and had a child to take care of when he was a senior.

“He had all kinds of things going on—he was a kid with no career path,” said Roberts. “All of a sudden he got in with this competition and he was a natural—he just never knew he had it. He’s got what a lot of people wished they had.”

That includes great hand-eye coordination, skill with tools and best of all a great personality, said Roberts.

“He’s good with people,” he said. “I could definitely see him in a supervisory position.”

This is part of the December 16, 2009 online edition of Frost Illustrated.

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