If you’re a turfhead, I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard of Tyler Bloom by now.
He is, like me, noisy on social media including Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. He’s been an award-winning writer and turf social influencer for years but he was also a leading industry voice for finding innovative ways to solve the labor problems that continue to plague most facilities. Yet he was also still searching for his own opportunity at an elite club. But the big job he wanted eluded him.
WATCH NOW: The Evolution of Tyler Bloom
Last spring as COVID roared, Tyler and I partnered up to co-host several terrific pandemic education webinars. He confided in me then that he had come to a fork in the road, so to speak, and was about to take the direction less traveled by starting a business to help golf courses with labor solutions. But since Tyler is Tyler, he had a million other things he was trying to do as well including a training program for assistants, recruiting for open superintendent positions and other types of consulting.
So, for the past year, I’ve been watching him evolve, talking with him and trying to nudge him in the direction of trying to focus on the HUGE opportunity he has helping clubs build better talent programs. His concept isn’t radical: he mainly helps clubs connect with existing resources in their states that not only provide candidates but also funding for apprenticeship positions in many cases. It’s simple legwork but it seems revolutionary to facilities where the most innovative recruitment strategy they’d tried was posting jobs on Indeed.
So, here we are in the spring of 2021 and I wanted to find out where Tyler is on his evolutionary journey so I recorded a Q&A with him and pushed him to tell it like it is. It turns out he still has a million ideas, but the demand for his apprenticeship programs and real-world education for aspiring assistants has caught fire and there’s no doubt this road less traveled in the right road for him.
If you’re a super or GM who’s frustrated trying to find good help or an up-and-coming assistant who wants tips and ideas to take them to the top, take a half and hour and watch this. It could be a game-changer for you.
WATCH NOW: The Evolution of Tyler Bloom