Balancing in a tree perhaps 20 feet up, a utility worker belays to another branch.

Nearby, a mason levels a concrete floor while a would-be big-rig driver shifts through the 18 gears on a semi-truck simulator.

They all wear orange and blue uniforms — as in Michigan prison jumpsuits.

The tree climber is doing time for armed robbery. The mason was busted with more than 200 marijuana plants. The semi-driver is a felon, too.

The men are convicts, part of a Michigan Department of Corrections skilled trade program that officials say is showing early success in slowing the revolving door of repeat offenders.

Consider the story of Tyques Banks.

Twice imprisoned for drug convictions, Banks landed a union job with a building contractor straight out of Parnall Correctional Facility near Jackson last summer.

The Detroit man is laid off now, sidelined by the coronavirus that is like sand in the world's economic engine, but the apprentice carpenter is bullish on his future beyond the walls of prison.

"At first I thought it was bull----," said Banks, who lives with his son and the boy's mother. "They put my foot in the door. My life was locked and they actually cracked them doors (open) for me."

Employers, unions and prison officials give the state's Vocational Village program high marks for creating opportunity for ex-offenders who historically struggle to find gainful employment when they get their freedom back. Perhaps more importantly, so do inmates past and present.

Juan Ortiz spent five years looking through the wrong side of bars inside the federal penitentiary in Milan, getting out in 1992. Today he is a business rep for the carpenters union.

"I spent years on the streets tearing down this city and now I get chance to build Detroit back up," said Ortiz, 56, who was convicted of laundering drug money.

Ortiz estimates 20 to 25 parolees found work through the union, good paying jobs with benefits and health care. None have been re-arrested, a testament to the life-stabilizing power of a middle class living, Ortiz said.

After prison, "They go and try, taking whatever (work) they can get," he said. "But they can't pay their bills, and they get frustrated and go back to what they know."

"We're trying to change that," Ortiz added.