Building a future in the construction industry

Those in the know say a career in construction is still a worthwhile pursuit

By Andrew Weeks

The construction industry, as with other trades across the country, has been impacted by labor and supply challenges, which at some points during the past couple of years have seemed like a full-force gale.

But the daunting waves caused by the global pandemic have left regional companies undaunted as they hoist their sails to chart a path through the storm.

Some of the challenges are easing a bit, industry leaders say, but they still expect some stormy seas ahead. They also note that overall the future is bright for their industry, though finding enough laborers currently is still one of the challenges.

“It’s super busy and everybody’s looking for labor. That’s good and bad,” said Lance Monson, preconstruction manager with Construc- tion Engineers in Grand Forks, North Dakota. “It’s good because there are a lot of opportunities and a lot to do. But it’s also tough because the trades, like masonry and concrete, continue to get harder to find workers; it feels like the more labor intensive jobs are harder and harder to fill.”

He said years ago there was a push for everyone to seek a higher education, but times have changed, some of it enhanced by the pandemic. “You don’t need to go and spend $20,000 on college,” he said. “You can go to a trade school and find a trade as a career.” Monson doesn’t knock a four-year education, but knows that path is not for everyone and said the company supports efforts to enhance people’s understanding of the trades. As an example, it is helping North Dakota’s McKenzie County School District build an accredited skill center for trade workers and other adults called the Bakken Area Skills Center.

“It’s another avenue for people to get education and hone the skills they need to continue a career or start a career that’s not in an office setting, necessarily,” he said.

Construction Engineers, while not the construction company of the project, also made a $100,000 donation to the Career Impact Academy in Grand Forks.

Oliver Finneman, director of preconstruction at McGough, said his team also is trying to find creative ways to build the workforce.

“It seems like there’s a number of programs out there trying to encourage, or bring education to high school aged kids about trade work,” he said. “We’ve been supporting those efforts.”

One way it does this is by partnering with a Fargo-based company called Be More Colorful, which creates virtual reality job site tours.

“They’re building a database of all these different exposures so you can see a day in the life of a chiropractor or see the day in the life of a plumber through VR headsets,” Finneman said. “We’re working with them on a current project to help them develop content they can share (about our industry).”

Exposing high school students to the trades also is something that is on Ryan Christenson’s mind. Christenson, a self-perform lead with JE Dunn, recently moved from Minneapolis to Dickinson, North Dakota, to oversee the construction of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. It is a “once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said

By Andrew Weeks

As construction companies look to fill positions, schools in the region play a vital part.

Rick Simon, construction electricity instructor at Northland Community and Technical College in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, says he has companies that contact him all the time to ask about students ready to jump into the field.

“I have pretty good placement rates with them,” he said, noting when students make it through the school’s program, they are ready to hit the ground running.

“A lot of young guys are in demand right now coming out of school because they, for the most part, are trained. They know what they’re doing. Usually if they make it through our program, they are hard-working young men – and that’s what contractors are looking for. They don’t want to put a lot of money into somebody and have them quit a year into it.”

Simon, who also is a contractor, said students are ready and excited to get to work. Many of his students come from farming backgrounds, but some also have family members who work in the construction industry.

“For the most part, they know what they’re getting into and they’re ready for the work because that’s what they’ve been doing already with their dad or their brother or for a small contractor before they got here,” he said.

However, one challenge he sees is that some companies who take on first-year students want to keep those new hires, often telling them they don’t need to go back to school. But Simon said it is always best to finish school training.

“I hear it, the young guys tell me they’re the person the company is looking for and they’ve been told to not go back,” he said. “But they want to finish, because once they finish they don’t have to go to night school; they’ll have all their schooling done.

“If you came right off the streets working for an electrical contractor, I know you have to go to four years of night school once a week. My students don’t have to do that when they graduate.”

Overall, Simon is optimistic about the future of his industry in the region, in part knowing the caliber of young people completing trade and technical training.

“We are really a strong industry. I would say as a whole, all the trades are very strong, ours in particular,” he said, noting it also pays well. He encourages students to get their journeyman license.

“I have two journeymen working for me at the moment and they’re both in the $30 an hour range; it’s a good amount of money,” he said. “The next step would be to get a master’s license, and then the person could go on and start their own business. Or they could be that guy working in a maintenance position or be that guy like me, who has a job as a contractor and is an instructor.” continued from page 13 early in September when he was just finishing details on his move. His plan once settled into his new project is to tap area schools.

“Workforce has changed drastically” over the past couple of years of the pandemic, he said. “We saw a lot of people that dropped out of the trades for a while. Whether it was because they had to take care of their families or a number of different reasons, a lot of trade people kind of disappeared from the workforce. We’re kind of starting to see that come back now, but in my role as the self-perform manager, that’s just about a daily discussion – how are we going to find carpenters and laborers and whatnot? There’s just not the workforce pool that there was, whatever, two or three years ago.”

One answer to the problem: schools.

“A lot of the work we’ve been doing, and that I’m planning to take care of out there (in Dickinson), is to start meeting with high school kids and do some apprenticeships and job site visits, those kinds of things, just to get some interest,” he said. He’d like to personally talk with students about “what it’s like to get into the trades. This is what it looks like, here’s where your career could go.”

Good traits of potential hires

People who want to make a difference in the field, who are willing to learn and take on new challenges and responsibilities, are standout traits for Monson at Construction Engineers.

“We’re not opposed to taking on somebody who has no experience if they’ve got some work ethic and are willing to learn,” he said, noting the company’s apprenticeship program helps train individuals.

“We’ll provide a path for anybody who wants to work toward a career in construction,” Monson said.

But is he finding those people?

“I’d say it’s challenging,” he said, “but I don’t know that it’s unique to the construction industry. … Other than, again, the trades that are more physically demanding are probably the harder roles to fill.”

Spencer Hilde, general manager at McGough, said he looks for base skills in potential hires but also those who fit well with company culture, which includes thinkers. “As construction managers, our job basically is to solve problems on behalf of our clients, to find solutions, and so we need people that are geared that way to help serve our clients and solve some problems and be a team player.”

Christenson said technical skills come in handy at JE Dunn, but the thing that stands out even more

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is drive and attitude – “those are the two things we look for when we‘re going to hire somebody, when we’re going to hire a carpenter or laborer,” he said. “I would rather hire a person that comes in and says, ‘I’ve never thought of the nail in my whole life. But I’m going to show up for work at six in the morning and I’m not going to complain. I’m going to listen and I really want to learn.’” continued on page 17

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