New Book 'Pass the Torch' Warns of Skilled Trades Brain Drain as Millions Near Retirement
Pass the Torch - A Rallying Call to Rescue the Future of Trades by Manja Horner
Manja Horner, Author of Pass The Torch - A Rallying Call to Rescue The Future of Trades
Launching March 23, 2026, Manja Horner’s book reveals how trades companies can capture retiring experts’ knowledge and train the next generation faster.
TEXAS, TX, UNITED STATES, March 16, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A new book launching March 23, 2026 is sounding the alarm on one of the most urgent workforce challenges facing North America’s construction, manufacturing, and skilled trades industries.
In Pass the Torch - A Rallying Call to Rescue the Future of Trades, workforce development expert Manja Horner argues that the skilled trades shortage is a knowledge transfer crisis that threatens to drain decades of expertise from the workforce as experienced tradespeople retire.
Across the United States and Canada, millions of skilled trades jobs are expected to go unfilled in the coming decade while a large portion of the current workforce approaches retirement age.
Horner describes the situation bluntly in the book.
“Not only are we losing the head count; we’re also losing decades of experience and mastery,” she writes. “Ontario is losing a generation of craft mastery.”
The book explores how industries that rely on hands-on expertise, including construction, manufacturing, infrastructure, and restoration trades, risk losing critical knowledge if companies fail to capture and transfer it to younger workers.
Horner’s work draws on years of experience developing workforce training for skilled trades organizations across North America.
In Pass the Torch, she explains that many companies unknowingly depend on undocumented knowledge held by veteran workers.
“When someone does show interest in taking over, they have a monumental job of learning how to run things,” Horner writes. “Why isn’t this written down?”
The book outlines practical strategies companies can implement to protect and scale their expertise before experienced workers retire.
These include:
- Capturing critical expertise before retirement
- Converting mastery into teachable systems and procedures
- Developing technical supervisors into stronger leaders
- Improving onboarding and retention
- Creating workplaces that attract and retain the next generation
Horner also addresses how workforce expectations are changing.
Younger workers entering the trades expect stronger leadership, better onboarding, and clearer career pathways than previous generations.
“Gen Z wants their employers to onboard them well and show them right from the start that there is a promising future for them at the company,” Horner writes.
For many trades companies, that means developing leadership skills among experienced technical workers who move into management roles.
Through her company Boost Leadership Development, Horner works with organizations to strengthen those leadership capabilities through programs such as senior leader communication training for skilled trades, designed to help experienced trades professionals transition into effective supervisors and mentors.
The book also explores how modern training systems can dramatically accelerate workforce development.
Horner argues that training should move beyond classroom instruction and into the flow of daily work.
“Training needs to be intentional and easily referenced with video and documented procedures and checklists,” she writes. “Skills need to be stacked and practiced… it has to be really practical.”
According to Horner, the companies that thrive over the next decade will be the ones that intentionally capture and pass on their expertise.
“If we want a healthy trades industry, we need everyone working together,” she writes, pointing to collaboration between employers, unions, training providers, and government.
Horner is the founder of Boost Leadership Development, a company specializing in leadership development and workforce training for skilled trades and manufacturing organizations. Her work focuses on helping companies implement systems that preserve institutional knowledge, improve leadership capability, and accelerate skill development.
The book Pass the Torch launches March 23, 2026.
More information about the book is available on the Pass the Torch website, while additional workforce training programs are available through Boost Leadership Development.
Manja R Horner
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