Two years ago the phone rang. The Crossroads area program lead was standing up something the Jamboree had never run before, a program area called Skilled Trades, and she needed a director. A friend from the Order of the Arrow had put Matthew Pigg's name in.
He owns it plainly: he is the kind of person who gets flattered to death by that sort of call. So he did not say no. That is how the man running Skilled Trades ended up running Skilled Trades.
The day job is residential construction in Columbia, Missouri, where he is a builder and general contractor. Some new construction; mostly remodeling. The Scouting side runs a decade deep in the scenic tech department on OA shows, building stage pieces and props for the big arena blowouts. Over those ten years he built a specific reputation: the guy who takes the unusual, outlandish, last-minute request and turns it into something that actually stands up.
That philosophy has been load-bearing this week. Every Jamboree has its own flavor of problem, and this one is materials. The bill of materials was ready to go, but Skilled Trades is a genuine first: a working construction site running as a program, rather than outside administrators running a site and handling their own vendors and their own stock. So other people ordered the crew's materials for them, and the crew has been adapting on the fly to what showed up.
His answer is the same answer as the philosophy. Use your head; get what you need out of the materials and tools in front of you. With the crew he has, he says, the creative minds are there.
The side effect has been the part he is proudest of. Because these are people who can turn tools and materials into whatever is needed, they have become utility players for the whole Jamboree. Skilled Trades has already pitched in for several other program areas, including the OA Legacy Experience and some of the special stage pieces for the opening show. The program builds its own thing, and it props up everyone else's at the same time.