JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
New England is full of historic homes, barns and churches, but there's a growing shortage of people who know how to repair them. New Hampshire Public Radio's Jackie Harris reports on a program there that's turning to high schoolers as a possible solution.
JACKIE HARRIS, BYLINE: Joshua Adams had never heard of timber framing until his historic barn repair class. It's a centuries-old building method where heavy timber beams are held together without screws or other metal fasteners.
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JOSHUA ADAMS: They didn't use nails. They just used wood - wooden pegs - and all fit together perfectly.
HARRIS: The 17-year-old isn't new to carpentry. He's in the construction track at a technical school. But this year, he also decided to apply for a program that exposes students to old building trades. It's a week full of classes on historic building techniques. Adams says these skills could line him up for a lot of jobs.
ADAMS: There's so much historical stuff. I used to go to historical places and museums with my grandfather all the time. And there was just so much work that there is to be done, but I think people just aren't pursuing it.
HARRIS: A survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire shows young people aren't joining the historic trades workforce nearly as fast as tradespeople are retiring. That means the owners of historic buildings might have to wait years to get something fixed. Jennifer Goodman is with the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance, which organized this week of historic trade workshops. She says if the wait for repair work is too long, people could decide that restoring an old building isn't worth it.
JENNIFER GOODMAN: And what that can mean is, you know, loss of old windows, loss of old plaster, loss of an old porch that's really a - gives the building its character. You know, on another level, we can see that there could be demolitions and total loss of buildings if there aren't enough people around to do this work.
HARRIS: Canterbury Shaker Village is one of the places that will be hiring the next generation of tradespeople. The national historic landmark was settled in the 1700s by followers of the Christian Shaker movement. The structures here date back centuries and are in constant need of maintenance. It's where the teenagers in the program are training this spring.
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HARRIS: To build the preservation workforce, the training program is open to not only construction and carpentry students, but also people who are new to the building industry entirely, like Rowan McGrath, an 18-year-old studying computer engineering. He's learning how to replace shingles on one of the colonial Shaker buildings.
ROWAN MCGRATH: So much people want to go into the tech industry. It's, you know, AI. You know, it's a big thing that's going to probably take over tech. So I have something I can rely on as a backup, and it makes pretty good money.
HARRIS: And stonemason Kevin Fife says this line of work is rewarding. He's leading a class on how to rebuild stone walls, and he's made a career of maintaining the stone structures people put together centuries ago. He grew up in the same town as the Shaker village, and his family goes back generations here.
KEVIN FIFE: I like to do it the traditional way 'cause that's a part of our ancestry, our heritage. And that's why people come to New England. And it's just - it's more fitting.
HARRIS: He hopes these classes spark an interest in these trades for the students. Maybe they'll be the ones repairing the Shaker's stone walls when he's ready to retire. For NPR News, I'm Jackie Harris in Canterbury, New Hampshire. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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