In a city where hip coffee shops and luxury apartments are quickly replacing small factories and neighborhood repair shops, one corner of Salt Lake City still hums with the sound of tools, engines, and something even rarer: pride in American craftsmanship.

Alan Boyer, owner of Clarks Auto and founder of Blue Star Works, isn’t trying to build an empire. He’s trying to build engines—and a case for bringing back something this country once did best: working with our hands, making things that last, and training the next generation to do the same.

Raised in St. Louis, Boyer comes from a long line of tradesmen. His dad worked on cars, his neighbors were carpenters, and nobody thought twice about choosing a vocational path over a college degree. “You went and got a trade and you made money doing that trade,” he says. “College was for doctors and lawyers.”

That worldview followed Boyer west. After working as a technician for years, he bought a run-down garage on the corner of 1700 South and 500 East—a place with history but no computer. The original owners never transitioned into modern auto repair. They handed it off to Boyer in 2010, and he hasn’t looked back since.

He kept the name Clarks Auto, not to brand himself but to honor the shop’s legacy. His wife, who runs Schofield Tax Service across the street, maintains the flower gardens that have bloomed there since the 1960s. The shop has grown, but its soul remains intact.

Yet what Boyer sees happening around him—both in Salt Lake and across the country—concerns him.

There aren’t enough tradespeople. Not enough kids going into apprenticeships. Not enough technicians who can fix things with their hands. A Wall Street Journal article he shared on the Utah Stories podcast cited 3.5 million men, ages 25 to 54, who are no longer in the workforce. They aren’t unemployed, technically. They’ve opted out—choosing gig work, TikTok, or speculative online ventures over traditional careers.

“People just don’t know what’s out there anymore,” Boyer says. “They don’t know they could be making $100,000 as a machinist or an auto technician instead of getting a sociology degree that earns half that.”

Federal student loans will happily fund degrees in tourism or creative writing. But apprenticeships? Training programs for pipefitters, welders, or CNC operators? Those don’t qualify. The result is a system that rewards theory and neglects practice.

Boyer believes the solution lies in bringing vocational training back into schools, starting in high school or even earlier. When he was growing up, machinist programs were part of public education. Kids could see the work, touch it, and understand what their future could look like.

Now, those programs have largely disappeared. And so has the respect for what used to be called an honest day’s work.

Through Clarks Auto and Blue Star Works—his engine rebuilding facility just a few blocks away—Boyer is trying to reverse that trend. The facility was born out of necessity. Too many imported remanufactured engines were failing. So Boyer decided to build his own. That meant buying machines, training staff, and bringing precision engine rebuilding back to Salt Lake.

Today, Blue Star builds and remanufactures Subaru engines with exacting standards. Most of them go into customer vehicles at Clarks, allowing Boyer to control quality from start to finish. “We were getting burned,” he says. “Now we do it ourselves. And we do it better.”

But even with the success of both businesses, there’s one thing Boyer still struggles with: hiring.

Skilled labor is hard to find. And when he trains young employees, there’s no guarantee they’ll stay. “I can invest time and money in a guy, and then he leaves for another shop,” he says. “I lose that investment.”

That’s why he believes in the need for a national apprenticeship program—something structured, supported, and incentivized. If employers like him could get reimbursed to train young workers, more shops would take that chance. “We need a system where they’re not just employees, but apprentices on a defined path.”

The biggest obstacles aren’t money or willingness. They’re systemic. Policies that once prioritized trades and blue-collar careers have been slowly replaced with an insistence that everyone needs a four-year degree. “It started under Clinton,” Boyer recalls. “That was the message—everyone should go to college.”

It’s not that he’s against higher education. It’s that the system no longer reflects reality. The housing market is out of reach. Entry-level jobs can’t support rent, let alone a mortgage. The trades could be a solution—if we make them accessible and respected again.

He also sees another forgotten group with untapped potential: those on the autism spectrum or with ADHD. In the right environment, with the right mentor, these individuals can thrive in highly technical fields. “There’s a genius in them,” Boyer says. “If you give them space to work and the right tools, they can do incredible things.”

For now, Boyer keeps doing what he’s always done. Fixing cars. Rebuilding engines. Teaching young workers what he knows. At a time when new developments are bulldozing the past, he’s preserving a corner of Salt Lake that still values sweat, skill, and independence.

Clarks Auto may not look like the future. But maybe it should. In Boyer’s world, work is honest, craftsmanship is respected, and American industry isn’t dead—it’s just waiting for a second chance.