In 2019, the heavy metal band Metallica started an unusual workforce training program for the trades. The program initially focused on training the next generation of workers in the touring and concert industry—specifically the people who construct and deconstruct massive sets and stages every night and move the equipment across the country and the world.
But in time, the band members realized they could do much more. Their nonprofit, All Within My Hands—a hopeful spin on a dark Metallica song of the same name—had already been providing disaster relief worldwide and combatting hunger. They decided to add a third branch focusing on educating young people in the trades.
Peter Delgrosso, the executive director of All Within My Hands, says it was a natural fit.
“The band felt that the trades were being overlooked,” Delgrosso says. “[Guitarist and lead singer] James Hetfield, in particular, believed that America runs through tradespeople, and far too often students are pushed more toward four-year schools instead of community colleges and trade schools. With a lot of the fanbase of Metallica being in the trades, it made a lot of sense.”
Today, the Metallica Scholars Initiative has more than 90 community college and trade school partners and serves thousands of students every year. This year, it launched the first international program in the United Kingdom with Capital City College Group. Working with the American Association of Community Colleges, the initiative funds programs that respond to local demand, which means it’s grown beyond the trades, too, with funding for nursing, firefighting, air traffic control, and more.
An independent study of the Metallica Scholars Initiative from the University of Southern California last year found that students were expected to earning a median wage more than eight times the cost of the program.
Funding for first-time recipients is $75K, and the colleges largely choose how they spend it, whether for equipment, tuition, or student support services. In subsequent years, the funding decreases and bottoms out at $15K.
On the Ground: SUNY Westchester Community College in the Hudson Valley region of New York was one of the first recipients of the Metallica funding and continues to receive it. The college has used the money to fund its advanced manufacturing program, which consists of four modules spread out over an academic year. Students can earn a minimum of four certificates—one for each module—under the National Institute for Metalworking Skills. The college is in the process of adding a fifth module for blueprint reading based on employer feedback.
Not all advanced manufacturing students are Metallica Scholars, but the funding, combined with funding from the SUNY Future of Work initiative, has made the program completely free for students other than a $25 registration fee.
Jim Irvine, director of corporate and continuing professional education at the college, says the advanced manufacturing program has attracted a high-caliber student population, including some who already have degrees. In the most recent cohort of 10, half of the students were honors students in high school. One was simultaneously earning a PhD. The Metallica branding—complete with swag for the scholars—has helped bring in students.
“It’s become word-of-mouth, and we’ve had a lot of success,” Irvine says. “Some people have jobs and they want to advance their careers, but a lot of students come into the program without a job and they want to work with their hands. They like building and creating things.”
Dillon O’Toole, a 25-year-old Metallica fan, was one of those students. O’Toole graduated from Binghamton University in New York with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 2023, but for the next two years he struggled to find a job in his field.
“I wasn’t finding a lot of entry-level positions that were a reasonable distance away or would provide relocation costs,” says O’Toole, who lives in the Hudson Valley area. “Then I started pivoting away from physics and looking for anything, but I was just getting rejection letters or not hearing back.”
In the meantime, O’Toole was doing some home repairs for a family member and offering light landscaping services to get by. Both his father and grandfather were sheet metal workers, so O’Toole had the trades in mind as a back-up. Eventually, a friend who had participated in the Metallica Scholars program told him about it, and he applied and got in.
Within a month of the nine-month program, O’Toole landed an entry-level job at a local manufacturer earning $17 an hour. He finished the program at Westchester Community College in June and now earns $20 an hour. He has also started training to be a supervisor, which will raise his wage to up to $30 an hour. While he still values his degree, he says his employer didn’t even look at his education and hired him instead on a referral from a classmate.
Delgrosso attributes the success of the Metallica Scholars Initiative to the community colleges, which lead the way in guiding the funding. For its part, Metallica gives the trades an extra sheen.
“We’re providing a different spin on what it means to be in the trades,” Delgross says.