The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe

Episode 448: Sheree Utash — It’s Only the Best School in America
Date: August 26, 2025

Overview

This feature-length episode spotlights Sheree Utash, President of WSU Tech in Wichita, Kansas, widely hailed as a model of effective and innovative skills-based education. The conversation is a deep-dive into the future of workforce education, the importance of work ethic in technical and vocational training, institutional innovation, and practical solutions to America’s skills gap. Utash discusses WSU Tech’s partnerships with industry, pioneering work ethic curriculum, expansion of opportunity for young students, and her vision for a more responsive, bottom-up education system.

Main Themes & Purpose

• Celebrating WSU Tech as a National Model: How WSU Tech has transformed technical education, with hands-on industry collaboration and a commitment to work ethic.
• Reinstating the Dignity of Work: Destigmatizing skilled trades, rethinking the “color of collars,” and championing the value—and dignity—of all work.
• Work Ethic as a Teachable, Essential Skill: Exploring the practical integration of Mike Rowe’s Sweat Pledge into curriculum, resistance to these ideas, and how work ethic can be taught alongside technical skills.
• Industry-Driven Education: Reviewing how programs are constructed directly with industry input, ensuring real-world relevance and high placement rates.
• Expanding Opportunities for All Ages: Exposing K-12 students to career pathways early, using hands-on camps, dual enrollment, and innovative storytelling (like the “Tech Tykes” children’s book series).
• Philosophies of Leadership and Administration: Utash’s bottom-up, risk-tolerant approach to leading an education institution, and her thoughts on the future of national education policy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. WSU Tech’s Transformation & National Model

• Mike Rowe and Chuck set the stage, lauding WSU Tech as “the best school in America,” particularly for aviation technology and skilled trades.
  • Bias admitted: Rowe’s work ethic curriculum was first piloted there.
  • WSU Tech viewed as a bottom-up, industry-responsive solution to a national problem.
  • (00:30–01:13)

2. Work Ethic: From Pledge to Curriculum

• Origins: Utash discovered the Sweat Pledge after hearing from local industries that graduates lacked essential work habits.
  • Instead of just signing the pledge, it was woven into orientation and coursework.
  • The program later grew with industry partners and foundation support.
    • “...all we were doing at that point in time was saying, here is this Sweat pledge. And part of what you do in your orientation is you sign this... These become values within who you are as a person as you go into the workforce.” —Sheree Utash (09:00–10:10)
  • The model is now being expanded to other schools.
  • Integration is not only about technical skills but also learning and demonstrating work ethic.
    • “Knowing how to not only get the job, but keep the job, which is really what it’s all about..." (10:20)

3. Industry Alignment & Placement Success

• Industry at the table from day one: Programs are built to match both current and future workforce needs.
  • Example: Aviation companies helped design the National Center for Aviation Training.
    • "We built those programs... because the industry told us that’s what was needed.” —Sheree Utash (35:37)
• Active feedback loops ensure curriculum evolves with changing industry needs.
• Placement rates: 90–92% of graduates work in their field, continue their education, or join the military—“all active programs” designed this way. (37:29–39:07)

4. Teaching Work Ethic: The Challenges & Practice

• Student and Industry Resistance:
  • Some students claim, “I already know all this.” Utash’s approach: Encourage humility and mentoring others.
    • “If I can learn something every time I teach this, you can probably learn something by taking this class one time.” (15:00)
  • Industry has wholeheartedly supported the approach as a solution to soft-skills gaps.
• Pedagogy and Mindset:
  • Work ethic cannot be lectured—it’s developed through exposure, awareness, demonstration, and role-modeling.
  • Technical know-how + work ethic = employability and effectiveness.
    • "It’s more of, you know, exposure, awareness, and then demonstration..." (20:00)
    • Labs and classrooms are run like industry—“I want to be able to eat off the floors of those labs...” (21:19)
• It’s universal: Just as many white-collar professions struggle due to work ethic shortfalls.
  • “You still have to have work ethic side by side. Because none of us would be successful if we didn’t have it.” (22:18–23:06)

5. Efficiency vs. Effectiveness in Education & Work

• On AI and Technology:
  • Automation and AI will transform work, but work ethic and values are still foundational.
    • “Technology is a tool... we do have a responsibility to be ethical about how we use it...” (23:53–25:00)
• On “Efficiency”:
  • Utash prefers to “take effective measures and then create efficiencies” rather than prioritizing speed over substance.
    • “Efficiencies just mean you’re getting it done faster. It doesn’t mean that you’re getting it done better.” (25:07)

6. Rethinking the System: Bottom-Up vs. Top-Down

• Department of Education Critique:
  • Current systems demand more from institutions but don’t provide the structural support needed for responsiveness.
    • “You spend a lot of time... trying to figure out how to work around the system to stay compliant so that you don’t get in trouble and you don’t lose funding, but to actually deliver upon what you’re being asked to do.” (29:21)
  • Bureaucracy and over-prioritizing compliance can dehumanize and reduce educational effectiveness.
    • “Just because we were in complete compliance did not mean we were out of danger. And just because the Department of Education is checking all these boxes doesn't mean kids are graduating with any facility or, well, any education.” —Mike Rowe (30:47)
• Utash's advice to future leaders: “You need to think about what your level of comfort is with risk... There are 12 different roads to get somewhere. You don't always have to take the same one.” (32:15)

7. Early Exposure & Career Pathways for K-12

• Early Access and Awareness:
  • Future Ready Centers, career camps, and a children’s book series (“Tech Tykes”) offer hands-on, age-appropriate exposure to technical careers.
    • “You can’t be anything that you don’t know what it is.” —Sheree Utash (40:08)
  • 4,000 high school students now enrolled at WSU Tech; only 700 ten years prior.
  • Stories of first-gen graduates going straight from high school to industry, debt-free, through these pathways.
• Middle school camps teach “through play” and “applied fun”—from building drones to flight simulators.
• "Tech Tykes" books introduce STEAM concepts to 4–8 year olds, e.g., "Ella the Engineer and the Big Fix".
  • "They had this robust conversation... that's the beauty of this because we're bringing, you know, we're bringing that out." (47:10)

8. Leadership, Mission & Philosophy

• Mission-driven, Risk-tolerant Leadership:
  • Utash credits her business and entrepreneurial background, as well as personal resilience, for her success in educational leadership.
  • She describes her job as "removing barriers and getting out of the way," empowering 800+ staff who share the mission.
    • “Our success, I’m the one who always gets to talk about it. But... there’s 800 people working every single day that believe in the mission... My job is to help them make that happen. And the more we can do bottom up, the better... just get out of their way.” (52:06)
  • Innovation comes from empowering those on the ground—examples like “Shock Tank” invite grassroots ideas.
  • On transformational vs transactional partnerships: "I'm not a fan of transactional partnerships, but I'm a super big fan of transformational ones." (68:04–69:21)

9. Personal Journey—A Story of Grit

• Utash’s unique career path—from advertising and entrepreneurship, through adversity (divorce, unemployment), into higher education and ultimately into leading WSU Tech.
  • “You never really know what your pathway is going to be... but that's the beauty of being part of America too. The beauty is that you can... be whatever you want to be. You have to work. And what does that mean? ... You have to be responsible and accountable...” (66:18)
• Mike Rowe on resilience: “Everything that can upend a person, that can break them or make them.” Utash: “Gotta have grit.” (68:02)

10. Measuring Success and Spreading the Model

• WSU Tech grew from 700 to 9,000 students in ten years, now the largest tech college in Kansas and the third-largest two-year college in the state.
• Open invitation for interested students and families to explore industry-aligned pathways at WSU Tech.
  • “No matter what your career aspirations are, you can find a career pathway with a job at the end of it at WSU Tech.” (72:59)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“I think that we've destigmatized a lot of what people thought of vocational education.” —Sheree Utash (06:09)

“You can’t be anything that you don’t know what it is.” —Sheree Utash (40:08)

“It’s more of, you know, exposure, awareness, and then demonstration. Like, how are you going to demonstrate that skill? Who do you see demonstrating that skill?” —Sheree Utash (20:00)

“Efficiencies just mean you’re getting it done faster. It doesn’t mean that you’re getting it done better. So if you can figure out how to do it better and then create how to do it faster, think about that.” —Sheree Utash (25:07)

“There are 12 different roads to get somewhere. You don’t always have to take the same one. So don’t get bogged down by that. Figure out a way to respectfully get to where you need to go as a leader and an educator...” —Sheree Utash (32:15)

"Our job is to set the vision, meet the mission, provide resources, remove barriers and get out of the way and let great people do their work." —Sheree Utash (52:06)

“You gotta have grit.” —Sheree Utash (68:04)

“We called it the National Center for Aviation Training before we’d earned it… Aspirational names to become aspirational national leaders.” —Sheree Utash (49:36–50:41)

“I’m not a fan of transactional partnerships, but I’m a super big fan of transformational ones.” —Sheree Utash (68:04)

Important Timestamps by Segment

• 00:30 — Mike and Chuck introduce WSU Tech as a model for skilled trades education.
• 05:16–06:09 — Utash on championing work ethic and changing vocational stigma.
• 09:00–10:10 — How the Sweat Pledge was integrated at WSU Tech.
• 15:00–15:36 — Addressing student resistance to work ethic curriculum.
• 20:00–21:19 — How work ethic is taught: exposure, role-modeling, real-life application.
• 22:18–23:06 — Work ethic isn’t just for trades; it’s needed across all professions.
• 23:53–25:07 — Discussing the impact of technology, AI, and balancing efficiency/effectiveness.
• 29:21 — Utash’s critique of the Department of Education and compliance culture.
• 35:37–39:07 — Designing programs in direct alignment with industry needs and feedback.
• 40:08–43:34 — Early exposure pathways: from children’s books to high school dual enrollment.
• 49:36–50:41 — Branding WSU Tech as a national leader and the power of aspiration.
• 52:06–54:20 — Leadership philosophy: bottom-up empowerment, “Shock Tank,” and outreach.
• 66:18–67:38 — Utash on career twists, constant reinvention, and the American ladder.
• 68:04–69:21 — The necessity of “grit” for both students and leaders.
• 72:59–73:50 — Final pitch: WSU Tech’s scale, relevance, and open invitation.

Final Note & Tone

Sheree Utash’s infectious optimism, practical wisdom, and results-driven leadership shine through the conversation, matched by Mike Rowe’s humor, humility, and deep respect for WSU Tech’s mission. The episode is thoughtful, inspiring, and loaded with hands-on strategies for changing how America thinks about work, education, and opportunity.

For More

Learn about programs at WSU Tech: wsutech.edu
Contact or connect with microworks: mikeroweWORKS Foundation

Summary prepared using direct timestamps, original language, and key speaker attributions to ensure tone and substance match the source episode.