The labor shortage in the construction industry isn’t limited to the ground level; it’s happening at the supervisory level as well.

In fact, right now it’s probably harder to find qualified project managers and project engineers than skilled tradespeople, according to some industry professionals.

“We have a tremendous difficulty getting qualified candidates for PM and PE positions,” Hoffman Construction Vice President Dan Drinkward said.

And unlike the skilled trades, which are starting to regain attention from schools, nonprofits and others, construction management is still largely unknown to many young people. Oregon State University, for instance, offers a renowned construction engineering management (CEM) program, but struggles to fill classroom seats – despite a nearly 100 percent job placement rate for graduates.

“They’re able to get a job pretty easily,” said Joe Fradella, a professional engineer and a senior instructor at OSU‘s School of Civil and Construction Engineering. “Our challenge becomes: How do we get more students into the program? So, we’re continuing to focus on doing that.”

The construction industry as a whole can do more to encourage college-bound students to consider such academic pursuits, Drinkward said.

“We spend a lot of time with colleges and reaching out to engineering programs and others we hire out of,” he said. “What I think what we as an industry don’t do enough is engage enough with high school students and guidance counselors so we make sure that kids who are looking at their path after high school have an understanding of the opportunities in our industry.”

OSU’s program is one that apparently is suffering from a lack of awareness.

“Once students know about it, they love it,” Fradella said. “They just don’t know about it.”

Fradella said that at one point he asked the students in one of his senior-level courses whether they had started in construction management.

“All but one of 30 students transferred in from a different major,” he said. “That tells me students don’t know about it as freshmen or in high school. But when they learn about the opportunities, they want to be a part of it and they come over.”

With few construction management graduates available, however, some companies are looking elsewhere for talent. Woodburn firm Triplett Wellman Contractors even scours the architecture ranks, superintendent Daryl Giorgini said.

“They make good project managers,” he said.

Hoffman Construction, Andersen Construction, Walsh Construction and other large general contractors are taking similar approaches. They all hire from the college ranks and develop talent from within, but they also pursue graduates of architecture, urban planning, engineering and other related fields.

Sometimes skilled tradespeople move into management after gaining valuable field experience. That was the case for Scott Rascoe, a project engineer for Walsh Construction.

“The thing I like about Walsh is they look outside the bubble,” he said. “For me, my whole background I was a diving superintendent and an underwater welder, and I have general construction experience before I went to dive school. I have a whole different trade knowledge, but management style and skills are all relative when it comes to schedules, clients and subs.”

Rascoe spent 11 years in heavy marine salvage working around the world before returning to Portland and earning an associate’s degree in construction management from Portland Community College. He understands intimately the on-the-ground needs of subcontractors and he knows the day-to-day challenges they face. Students in a classroom can’t learn that, he said.

“If you’ve never worked a trade or understood the hurdles our tradespeople are going through, how can you better manage them?” he asked. “Your degree is 20 percent of the foundation of the whole building, but then your experience is the 80 percent that will go and finish the project. For me that’s hands down the better way.”

Drinkward said most new Hoffman project engineers and project managers come through traditional construction management programs. But there are a growing number of exceptions.

“We do have several each year that are from one of the other related majors,” he said. “It has gotten more difficult, but it’s been like this since the end of the recession.”

Then, of course, there’s the rampant recruitment of personnel from other companies.

“I’m just a year into this and there’s a lot of people looking, for sure,” said Laura Waddick, a Walsh Construction project engineer who earned a degree from Portland State University in urban planning before moving to construction management. “I know that recruiters reach out to all of us on LinkedIn and other places every day.”

Glen Whitefield, a superintendent with Andersen Construction, said this practice is widespread in the industry.

“We’re getting phone calls from recruiters personally going, ‘Hey, do you want to go to Seattle? Do you want to go to Los Angeles?’” he said. “So, it’s not just the local market that’s trying to get people; it’s the market across the country that’s trying to get people. Everywhere.”

Mitch Smith, an R&H Construction project manager working on the Saltwood South mixed-use project in Northwest Portland, agreed. Even when companies are able to hire seemingly qualified project engineers or project managers, retention is still an issue, he said. At Saltwood South, just one of four original project engineers remains since ground was broken this past October.

“We had three people either quit or just not show up,” Smith said.

Companies realize attrition is always a possibility.

“I only speak for Andersen, but by the time people get to be a project manager here there’s a little bit of loyalty there and a little bit of a vested interest on both the company’s side and the employee’s side,” said Eric Sprague, a senior project manager with Andersen Construction. “There were a couple over the years – they had opportunities to go be a part owner of a subcontractor or who wanted to switch to form their own company. But I haven’t seen that many PMs just leave.”

OSU’s construction engineering management program is evolving constantly, Fradella said. Officials now actively recruit students pursuing other majors and reaching out to high schools around Oregon.

“We’ve made some pretty impactful improvements over the past several years,” he said. “We’ve started offering the OSHA 30 certified safety class and we’ve developed a construction management partner program to engage with contractors so they can be involved at OSU.”

The curriculum now employs the most up-to-date technology in courses on virtual design and construction using Revit and even 4-D building information modeling applications. The school now also hosts an externship program that bring high school teachers to OSU to learn about the CEM program.

“One thing they cling onto is the virtual construction part of it,” Fradella said, “because they have students interested in that sort of gaming and modeling. And students could specialize in that and work for a VDC (virtual design and construction) company all day long.”

There does not appear to be on the horizon any sort of single industry solution to the shortage of construction management personnel. More likely, each firm will find its own path forward.

“I think it’s more about ramping up what we have been doing and putting more energy into it,” Drinkward said. “I don’t think there’s any silver bullet anyone’s come up with.”

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