Roadtrip Nation

>>Narrator: How do I know which path is best for me?

Is it possible to take on these challenges and obstacles?

Where do I even start?

What should I do with my life?

Sometimes, the only way to find out is to go see what's possible Since 2001, we've been sharing the stories of people who ventured out and explored different career paths and different possibilities for their futures.

This is one of those stories.

This is Roadtrip Nation.

[MUSIC] >> Melissa: So in the next couple weeks, we're going to take a road trip around San Bernardino County.

>> Amelia: We're going to be traveling around in this big green RV.

>> Ansh: We'll be exploring a lot of the different career opportunities within the San Bernardino County.

>> Lovely: We're going on the Metro?

Let's go!

>> Melissa: We're gonna meet leaders from five different fields, which is manufacturing, logistics, construction, government, and healthcare.

>> Luis: And we're going to ask them what their day-to-day is like and get to know more about their jobs.

>> Michelle: So this one was commissioned by NASA in 1987.

>> Melissa: That's really cool.

>> Amelia: I am currently not in school simply because I didn't wanna go to school not knowing what I wanted to do and just waste a bunch of money.

>> Lovely: I still need to find my path, so I wanna learn from someone who didn't take that linear four year path.

>> Melissa: In San Bernardino County, like I always assumed that I had to get a job elsewhere in order to pursue the career that I want.

>> Ansh: I'm actually really excited to go on a road trip and find out what exactly the community of San Bernardino has to hold.

There's so many different things that I don't even know about the community and that I am excited to learn about.

[MUSIC] >> Narrator: San Bernardino County is located in Southern California and at over 20,000 square miles, it's the largest county in the United States.

The county is made up of five different districts, each of which are represented in the road trippers.

>> Melissa: My name is Melissa Ochoa and I live in Victorville, California.

>> Ansh: My name is Ansh Trivedi and I've been calling Chino, California my home for four, five years now.

>> Lovely: My name is Lovely, I was born and raised in the city of San Bernardino.

>> Amelia: My name is Amelia Macall and I currently live in Redlands, California.

>> Luis: My name's Luis and I am from Fontana.

>> Lovely: I brought this game called We're Not Really Strangers.

Basically, the whole premise of the game is to build meaningful connections.

Are you guys ready to play?

[LAUGH] >> Ansh: Just by looking at you, I think I'm Just by looking at me, I think I'm about to go on a road trip across the next three weeks >> All: [LAUGH] >> Ansh: My name is Ansh Trivedi, I'm a recent college graduate, but as I have graduated college and now have come into the real world as people say.

I'm trying to explore more and more career options and see what exactly is out there.

We'll be exploring a lot of different career opportunities within the San Bernardino County.

And I think especially for me as a recent college graduate, that is what excites me the most is to see what exactly a place that I've lived in for so long have to hold that I never even knew about.

We all live in the county but I feel like there's so many places here that we haven't seen or visited, so it'd be cool to highlight these places as well.

>> Melissa: I live in Victorville, it's that city that you pass by when you go to Las Vegas so I kinda live in the middle of nowhere.

There's just a lot of things that I would like to improve.

I really want them to rebuild Old Town Victorville and actually help these local businesses thrive in these communities cuz I know that they can.

My name is Melissa Ochoa right now I'm currently a student at Victor Valley College, and I decided to pursue a degree in political science.

In terms of my career, some of the challenges that I'm currently facing is imposter syndrome, in regards to my career, in regards to my abilities.

Even though I have a bachelor's degree, there's just that voice in the back of my head that tells me that it's like there's no point.

What I hope to get, in regards to conversations out of the leaders is some insight into their field of course.

Ask them about how they're able to maintain themselves, mentally, physically, and how they manage that stress and maybe that imposter syndrome that they also probably deal with.

>> Amelia: What about you, Lulu?

>> Luis: Well, I've lived in Fontana all my life, so to me I always wondered if not doing a four-year college plan works, you could always try something like that.

And I feel like that's something I'd be interested in learning.

My name is Luis, I'm currently 19 years old, I'm from Fontana.

I love motorcycles, I like taking the bike to the cities around me so like Rancho, Upland, Rialto, even Riverside.

Like you're having a roller coaster strapped to you on the road.

[MOTORCYCLE ENGINE] I finished high school last year but I'm honestly looking into finding out what I wanna major, just trying to see my options around me and see what there is to offer.

I want to make my family proud and my friends proud, and I know that my friends are already starting their lives with college already, so I know that I'm taking things slower.

Something I'm kinda looking towards getting from meeting these leaders is perspective.

I would like to really know how they see the world and to see if there's anything I could learn while I'm interviewing them that could maybe help me achieve my goals.

Is there anybody you guys are really looking towards meeting?

>> Lovely: I would say I'm probably looking forward most to government education portion, mostly because I'm working with high school students right now.

Where I went to school it was always you can only make it in life if you go to a four-year university but they didn't really explain kinda like vocational schools or certification programs.

My name is Lovely, I'm 19 years old and I was born and raised in the city of San Bernardino.

I ended up taking a gap year after I graduated high school in 2022.

It kind of extended into two years [LAUGH] but I really wanna go back to school.

I've become really passionate in like education, government, and I've always been really passionate for different types of sciences for marine biology.

I've gone through so many different paths, but I still need to find my path.

So I wanna learn from someone who kinda did something similar to me.

>> Luis: And what about you?

>> Amelia: I think meeting leaders who probably found what they want to do, not what everybody else was telling them to do or pressuring them to do.

It'll be interesting just seeing how they even came to discover it, how they found what they love, and how they just took it and ran with it.

[MUSIC] >> Amelia: My name is Amelia Macall, I am 19 years old.

Some of my biggest interests and my passions are sports, cars, communications and broadcasting, and the other one that kind of interests me is statistics and logistics.

But I'm leaning more towards the interview journalism side, simply so that way I can tell their story, what made them want to be where they are and how they got there.

What I learned most from this is one getting over my camera shy and kind of experience what it would be like to do what I wanna do, which is interview someone, ask questions, and get their side of the story.

So I guess our journey embarks.

>> Ansh: Off we go.

>> Luis: Looking forward to it, honestly.

>> Amelia: Off we go.

let's go.

>> Melissa: Yeah.

>> Lovely: Yeah.

>> Narrator: As the five road trippers travel across San Bernardino County in the big green RV, they'll be taking turns interviewing people across five different industries; construction, healthcare, government, logistics, and manufacturing.

[MUSIC] >> Luis: This is cool.

[MUSIC] >> Luis: What is this sorcery?

>> Amelia: Wizardry.

[WHOOSH] >> Lovely: Okay I like that, I like that.

I could spin.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> Narrator: One of the largest industries in San Bernardino County, and really all around the world, is none other than construction.

In fact, some of the most in-demand jobs in this industry might already sound familiar to you, from general contractors and equipment operators, to electricians and carpenters.

There are many different ways to get involved in this growing field.

But what do some of these jobs actually look like day to day?

The road trippers set out to talk to industry leaders across San Bernardino County to find out.

>> Angel: My name is Angel Esparza, lead representative here at the San Bernardino County, the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters.

I oversee the daily operations of the local and the servicing of the area, as well as the organizing within San Bernardino County.

Our daily goals are to create jobs, wages, and benefits for our membership, I got a lot of tasks.

>> Michelle: Nice to meet you.

So my name is Michelle, I'm the programs director here at CalEarth, Earth, Art, and Architecture.

I've been here about seven years now.

I took my long-term apprenticeship program and pretty much never left.

[MUSIC] >> Narrator: There are many different niches within the construction industry, including earth and architecture.

You might be more familiar with construction materials like concrete, wood, steel, and brick, but earth and architecture uses unfired earth, as its primary construction material.

This can look like anything from mud to clay, even sand to straw, basically anything that's locally sourced and natural to the Earth, making for a more eco-friendly and sustainable building option.

>> Amelia: I just wanted to ask what it is specifically that you do here at CalEarth.

>> Michelle: So, I do a little bit of everything, I'm the programs director, so I basically oversee all the programs and workshops that we offer and teach here at CalEarth.

I also help steward the land, so I am involved with maintenance and upkeep and just renovations to the structures.

I also am one of the senior instructors, so I teach the workshops to the public.

My main job is to bridge the communication gap and to recognize that we all speak different languages.

I definitely don't speak the same language as a conventional builder or architect, but they don't necessarily speak the same language as an earthen architect.

>> Angel: No open toed sandals, right?

>> Amelia: Nope.

>> Angel: All right, union carpenters actually fabricate everything within this yard here.

Now over here, you can take a look, now you got the finished product.

You got the walls that those guys are building over there, wall panels, those things are gonna stand up, and they're gonna pour concrete against them.

It's about 17 feet tall, but now you gotta climb it and unhook it.

Some people don't even wanna climb a small stepladder.

If you're afraid of heights, take into consideration that you will be climbing a ladder, will be climbing heights.

[MUSIC] >> Narrator: The average hourly wage for a construction worker in San Bernardino County is $49, and this covers a number of different careers within the industry.

If you like strategic planning and coordinating big projects, you might enjoy becoming a foreman or a superintendent.

Or, if you'd prefer a job that's more hands-on, you might be interested in roles like heavy equipment mechanic or civil engineer.

Each of these positions and more are all about to experience some major growth.

Thanks to new projects coming into the county.

>> Angel: Growth, there's big plans coming for the the stadium area right here at the Toyota Center.

Can you picture LA Live, in downtown LA, around Staples Center?

This is gonna look very similar.

Big opportunities there in which we have an agreement set up with the developer there, which is gonna provide jobs, wages, and benefits here in the near future for beginners and all carpenters alike.

Bright Line Rail or the Metrolink, I'm gonna say 400 plus tradesmen will be working on that project right there, creating an opportunity to transport folks from Rancho to Hesperia.

There's many huge projects here coming to the Inland Empire, so lots of opportunity out there.

when I say student, I really mean student.

>> Luis: What are some skills required for somebody like me, who are looking to join this career path?

>> Michelle: The answer is pretty simple, it's zero.

Most of CalErth, 97% of it was student built, and Somebody that had never picked up a hammer, came and actually built what you see.

Honestly, I feel like most of the time when we're building, they come to the surface, what your skills are.

[MUSIC] >> Michelle: So, this one was actually the first super adobe structure ever built, commissioned by NASA in 1987, to come up with settlements for the moon and Mars, this was the first prototype, basically.

>> Melissa: Very cool.

>> Michelle: This one's actually our largest structure that we have here at CalEarth, it measures in 25 feet in diameter.

Down here it has earth bag walls and the top is actually made of tumbleweeds, so [LAUGH].

>> Melissa: Okay, that's really cool cuz the tumbleweeds are an invasive species here.

>> Michelle: Yeah, it is really cool cuz it's actually utilizing those resources, and it also means that everything that built the structure literally came from this desert, from the Mojave.

The one thing I do always try to be completely candid about is, this is extremely labor intensive, so, people watch YouTube videos or see things online and they're like, that looks easy, I can do it.

It's a whole different beast when you're actually doing it.

But if you wanna get involved then take a workshop, [LAUGH] you know, and that's usually where we all start.

[MUSIC] >> Angel: When I've hired somebody out there in the field, and I worked with young folks, even older, the attitude.

Good attitude gets you hired, but a bad attitude can put you in a bad place.

So going out to the job site, having a positive attitude is infectious, be coachable, okay?

Listen, you're an apprentice.

I always like to say some man taught me a long time ago, he said, hey, what you lack in knowledge, we're gonna teach you.

You just make up and hustle, we're gonna teach you along the way.

[MUSIC] >> Luis: He explained in a way that there's a lot of growth and a lot of opportunities, that when it comes to carpentry and also his entire union.

>> Angel: If it's to be, it's up to me.

>> Lovely: Thank you.

>> Luis: They had mentioned that they wanted someone really just hard working, and I feel like they have a lot to offer.

And I see myself going into trade school, with the Carpenters Union.

[MUSIC] >> Narrator: Up next, the road trippers are on their way to explore different career opportunities in healthcare.

When it comes to a career in healthcare, most people tend to think of doctors and nurses.

But healthcare jobs include everything from technicians, and office managers, to public health advocates, and mental health counselors.

In San Bernardino County, the demand for professionals in all different areas of health has skyrocketed in the last decade.

So what does a day in the life of a healthcare worker look like?

And how is this field evolving to create even more jobs?

Let's see what the road trippers were able to learn.

>> Dora: Hey, yeah, nice to meet you.

My name is Dora Barilla, and I am the President of HC2 Strategies, Healthy Connected Communities, here in Rancho Cucamonga.

[MUSIC] >> Priti: Hi, is that Ansh?

>> Ansh: Hi, nice to meet you Dr. Desai.

>> Priti: Come on in.

My name is Dr. Desai and I'm a pediatrician and I'm in private practice and currently we are sitting in my Chino Hills location.

[MUSIC] >> Ansh: On a day-to-day basis, what does it look like for you coming into work?

>> Priti: So I have two offices.

In this office I come two days a week, and the other office I go three days a week, plus the hospital.

So any newborn who are born, I see them and then I bring them to the office.

So that's how I build the practice.

And in the office, I see patients 9 to 5, and mostly they come for physicals like well-baby exams and then we give them vaccines and stuff.

I ended up used to seeing close to 50 patients every day.

So I have to keep the speed.

If not, then I won't be able to go home on time and none of my girls will be able to go home.

>> Narrator: Over the past five years, private practices like Priti's have grown substantially in the San Bernardino County area, offering more healthcare jobs than any other sector in the industry.

But if you don't wanna be tied to a single hospital or private practice, or if you prefer to have a little more variety in your day-to-day, there are plenty of other career paths in healthcare that offer just that.

>> Dora: My typical day is very not typical.

>> Melissa: [LAUGH].

>> Dora: Which is what I love.

Now, in a sense, found my flow of really what I love to do.

And it's kind of the three legged stool is working with hospitals and health systems, public health and community-based organizations.

So my typical day is helping to connect those three entities.

What are the barriers to providing access to care for, we call them populations of focus.

So, whether it's high utilizers, those that are experiencing homelessness, just a lot of the vulnerable or complex populations.

Really identifying where are the barriers in care and elevating those to either the health system, the public health department.

Or to the State Department of Health Care Services.

Or advocating in a national level to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to say, here's some things that we need to really address and fix.

So my job is to care about people in my community and identify where some things are broken and where we can fix them.

[MUSIC] >> Narrator: In San Bernardino County, the average hourly wage of a healthcare worker is $30.80, but this spans a number of different careers.

Right now, the top healthcare occupations include everything from dental assistants to registered nurses.

But the good news is there are also plenty of entry-level positions available which only require a high school diploma or GED.

So if just sitting in a classroom isn't your preferred way of learning, there are tons of opportunities to get on-the-job training as you continue your studies.

[MUSIC] >> Narrator: There are many paths that lead to health education and advocacy, but the road to pediatrics tends to be a bit more strict.

In order to practice as a pediatrician in San Bernardino County, you'll need a bachelor's degree, a medical degree, plus postdoctoral training.

>> Ansh: What exactly drove you to focus on health and well-being?

>> Dora: I was a PBX operator through college.

So working in healthcare got to know the hospital.

And I was getting my degree in sports medicine.

And naively, I just kinda knew, I wanted, I liked health.

I was an asthmatic as a child, and there was a lot of medications and a lot of care that was needed as you are a child.

But then as I got older, I realized exercise and being in a smoke free environment.

And eating right was really what helped me to not have my asthma attacks all the time.

And so I just had this real desire for health and well-being.

So sports medicine made a lot of sense.

Did I wanna be a physician?

Did I wanna be a physical therapist?

Where was it that I wanted to go?

And so, my undergraduate was really in sports medicine, that exposed me to just, I think, a whole cadre of different things.

>> Ansh: The traditional route is for medical school as well.

But if you know of any other routes that people could take, perhaps not the primary care physician role but as well as the supporting role.

>> Priti: So in my office, right, I have medical assistants.

So what they do is they do the course for medical assistance for like 12 months to 18 months and then we hire them.

There are colleges for that.

I have a physician assistant and a nurse practitioner.

For nurse practitioner you have to be RN, and then you do the master's program, and then you become nurse practitioner.

And for physician assistant, you can do bachelor's in any degree.

And if you're a healthcare-oriented, you apply to PA school.

It's a two year school, and after that you can work in the offices.

>> Lovely: Is there any opportunities of growth that you see for your industry within San Bernardino County?

>> Dora: Exponential growth, not only in San Bernardino County but across the nation and around the world.

The public health workforce needs to look very differently than it has in the past.

The CDC, the Center for Disease Control, recently put out billions of dollars for public health workforce.

The policies and the resources are flowing, and we don't have the workforce that's trained and developed in this space.

The growth will continue to be exponential because it will be people that understand the complexities and how to figure it out.

So, yes, we need you, let's get going [LAUGH] >> Ansh: I think the work that she's doing is definitely passionate and is impacting a lot of people.

And it's not something that a lot of people talk about, so I valued that she was able to take that community approach with it, but as well as take a positive approach to it.

[MUSIC] >> Melissa: So we're going to Joshua Tree National Park.

>> Lovely: I didn't know about Joshua Tree before.

[LAUGH] I didn't know it was in San Bernardino County.

>> Ansh: Having Joshua Tree within our region, like makes me proud to call San Bernardino home.

>> Luis: It was really fun, and I really got to see more of the funny and goofier sides of everyone there.

It was fun hiking with everyone and seeing everybody's personalities come out.

>> Lovely: I found that I really liked talking to people [LAUGH].

I struggled a lot with social anxiety so talking to people [LAUGH] can be kinda hard for me but I've been learning to love talking to people again.

>> Amelia: We mesh well really nicely and we all get along so it'll be fun to spend more time with them, cuz they were complete strangers not too long ago, and now we're friends.

>> Melissa: Each conversation that I had with the leaders, there was a sense of community.

If people really live like that, we can definitely make the high desert better.

>> Ansh: It's crazy to think that like on one side of San Bernardino, we have something as expansive and beautiful as Joshua Tree National Park, and you literally go an hour away.

And you can be in the middle of a downtown sprawling suburban area such as San Bernardino.

So, being in San Bernardino, you're literally in the middle of it all.

But I'm excited to see what else San Bernardino County has to hold.

>> Narrator: On the next episode of Paths Across San Bernardino, the journey continues.

As the road trippers explore careers in manufacturing, government, and logistics.

[MUSIC] >>Melissa: We're going to take a road trip around San Bernardino County, >>Amelia: We're going to be traveling around in this big green RV.

>>Melissa: We're going to meet leaders from manufacturing, logistics and government.

>>Luis: Just trying to see my options around me and see what there is to offer.

>>Ansh: I'm excited to take all the insights from like people across San Bernardino County and actually apply it to my life.

>>Melissa: These leaders really emphasize that you don't have to go all the way to L.A. or Orange County.

You can find a job like here locally.

We can make San Bernardino better.

Wondering what to do with your life?

Well we've been there and we're here to help Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path And you can check out all our documentaries, interviews and more Start exploring at roadtripnation.com