Darnell Pope

I am a master electrician in Philadelphia. I came up through a union apprenticeship at the local IBEW chapter, made journeyman at twenty-six, made master at thirty-three, and started my own four-man shop at thirty-eight. The shop has been running for fourteen years now. I am the boss, the senior electrician on the harder jobs, the bookkeeper, the dispatcher, and the man who has to fire someone when it comes to that. I am also an apprentice mentor with my local IBEW chapter and have been for the last ten years.

I coach brothers in the skilled trades through the career stages I have walked. The first stage is the apprenticeship — the first two to five years, depending on the trade — when the work is hard, the money is thin, and most brothers either leave the trade or get discouraged enough that they never quite commit. I help brothers in this stage get clear about whether the trade is for them, build the technical discipline that makes the apprenticeship pay off, and set up the finances that let them survive the lean years without taking on debt that will haunt them later.

The second stage is the journeyman years. This is when the money starts to be real, the work is consistent, and the brother has to decide what kind of tradesman he wants to be. Some brothers stay as journeymen for their whole careers; that is a respectable path and I do not push brothers off it. Some brothers want to pursue a master's license; I help them prepare for the exam, build the field experience they need, and navigate the credentialing process which varies by state. Some brothers want to start their own shop; I help them think through whether they actually want to be a small-business owner or whether they are romantic about the idea.

The third stage is the small-shop years, which is the stage I am in. Running a small trade business is a different skill from being a good tradesman. The bookkeeping, the insurance, the payroll, the scheduling, the bidding work, the customer relationships, the management of two to ten employees — none of this is what most master electricians trained for. I help brothers in their first three to five years of operating their own shops with the specific operational pieces that I had to learn the hard way.

I work primarily with brothers in the electrical trade — that is my specialty — but my coaching is useful across the broader trade landscape because the business and career patterns are similar. Plumbers, HVAC technicians, welders, mechanics, carpenters, general contractors with crews — the issues you face are recognizable across the trades. The trade-specific questions I will defer to a mentor in your specific trade; the business and career questions I can engage.

My rate is eighty dollars per hour. I work in arcs of three months, with biweekly hour-long sessions over video. I am based in Philadelphia and I have a limited number of in-person slots for brothers in the Philadelphia, Wilmington, or Trenton area. I work in English. I keep a small no-cost mentor track for apprentices in their first two years — write me directly if you are in that situation.

I do not work with brothers who want to make money fast. The trades are a long game. The first five years are hard, the middle ten years are when the work rewards the patience, and the rest is the long arc of building something durable. If you are looking for a fast path, the trades are the wrong field. If you are willing to do the work over decades, the trades are one of the most reliable economic paths in our communities and I will help you walk it.