Nate Bargatze Is (Sort Of) Leading By Example

It’s a bit hard to believe that Nate Bargatze, one of the biggest comedians today, met his wife while working in Applebee’s in Tennessee. Or that on his first job overseeing the dog kennel in an amusement park (apparently a thing), he let the dog out (“it was a whole thing … and that was kind of the end of the dog kennel.”) Or even the basic fact that at the height of his career he decided to move back to Tennessee so that his teen daughter might have a more normal life. Bargatze’s life, like his comedic work, reads like a folksy tall tale. It draws you in with the details and lulls you with its sense of warm-hearted authenticity — then lands a punchline. But authenticity matters to him, in his story-telling and what he’s learned over the years. He recently brought some of his experience to Ford’s Accelerate conference , where he is a spokesperson for what they’re calling the “essential economy” — of skills technicians and skilled tradespersons, a group that, according to economists, are in short supply and needs to grow. Bargatze is an interesting choice for this forum, a comedian with a high school degree and no formal trade skills besides those he learned on stage. He went to community college for a year and worked a variety of jobs, from waiting at Applebee’s to reading water meters. But he gets the value and opportunity in trade school. “I relate to it very much, because I'm someone that should've went to these trade schools. I did not go to college…. they're going to re…