{"id":115,"date":"2016-09-20T20:44:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T20:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.djcorprod.wpengine.com\/skilledmag\/?p=115"},"modified":"2018-10-03T20:15:41","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T20:15:41","slug":"apprenticeship-paves-way-for-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/2016\/09\/20\/apprenticeship-paves-way-for-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Apprenticeship Paves Way for Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"apprentice\"A career that almost wasn\u2019t brings big rewards to journeyman laborer David Oancea<\/strong><\/p>\n

When David Oancea was growing up, a career in construction was not even on his radar. \u201cI\u2019d see crews working on various projects and think \u2014 \u2018I\u2019d never do that,\u2019\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n

In high school, Oancea was a pretty average student. He cruised through his classes, which left him uninspired, except for Psychology, earning a \u201cB\u201d average. He dabbled in sports and got along well with everyone, but when he graduated from Skyview High in Vancouver, Wash., he had no career plans whatsoever.<\/p>\n

An error on an application thwarted his attempt to enter his first term of college and sent his life in a direction he\u2019d never imagined.<\/p>\n

Today Oancea is a journeyman laborer for Kodiak Pacific Construction, which has him working on a resurfacing project at the Portland International Airport.\u00a0 Oancea does work that he is proud of, is employed by a company that makes him feel valued, and he earns about $1,200 a week, easily two or three times what most of his friends are making.<\/p>\n

He also enjoys the physical challenges of his job, and says that working in construction has strengthened him as a person and helped him mature mentally and emotionally as well.
\nWhile Oancea has come a long way \u2014 learning a trade and landing a good job \u2014 in relatively short time, he\u2019s the first to admit it did not come easy.<\/p>\n

Upon graduating high school, he learned about the Northwest College of Construction from his mom, Sarah Oancea, who is an administrator there. David Oancea entered the Laborer\u2019s apprentice program, one of nine construction programs NWCOC offers \u2014 ranging from Carpentry and Bricklaying to Heavy Equipment Operation \u2014 in the summer of 2013.<\/p>\n

To complete a Laborer apprenticeship, students must complete 160 classroom hours a year, plus they must put in a total of 4,000 hours of on-the-job training. Shortly after Oancea began his apprenticeship, he was dispatched to a demolition company. Looking back, he realizes he wasn\u2019t prepared for what was in store.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went from not having worked a day in my life, to getting up at 4 a.m. and putting in extremely physical 10-hour days,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Oancea\u2019s duties consisted of pushing a wheelbarrow full of broken bricks up a long ramp and then down a chute and emptying it. Back and forth \u2014 all day long.<\/p>\n

The job paid $28 an hour, but it was too much too soon. \u201cI was pretty skinny back then, and it was by far the hardest work I\u2019d ever done,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After a few weeks, when Oancea was let go, he felt disappointed, yet also relieved. At his next stop, Cascade Bridge, LLC, he did much better, lasting more than two years, and filling the majority of his needed OJT hours by working on 10-plus bridges before he was sidelined by a layoff.<\/p>\n

With 10 years as a journeyman laborer, Jack Burns worked for more than two years with Oancea at Cascade. \u201cDavid came in as a young, green kid, and he left as a seasoned laborer,\u201d Burns says. \u201cHis work ethic, reliability, and desire to learn are going to impress his employers. I requested him a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oancea did a little bit of everything at Cascade: digging holes, stacking lumber, pulling nails, clean-up work, traffic control, and he earned iron worker scale wages for a time when he sorted all the nuts and bolts on a bridge project (Mill Plain).
\nThe layoff wasn\u2019t long, as Oancea was hired by Kodiak Pacific Construction, a paving company based in Sherwood, Ore.,\u00a0 in late July. It\u2019s a new environment, but he\u2019s growing more comfortable and confident by the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cA supervisor told me, \u2018You did a really good job today and we appreciate it,\u2019\u201d Oancea says with a smile. \u201cKodiak is a supportive, encouraging company and that makes me want to work even harder, to do my absolute best for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

With 35 years in construction and four at Kodiak Pacific, superintendent Jason Kern says Oancea is getting off to a good start. “We’re pretty careful who we hire. David is new and young, but he’s conscientious, works hard, and is a fast learner. He’s seems to be fitting in real well.”<\/p>\n

The outlook for Oancea and others in the construction field is good. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that construction laborers will increase in demand by 13 percent from 2014 to 2024 – the fastest growing of all sectors.<\/p>\n

“There’s a shortage of skilled construction workers in Oregon,” says Stephen Simms, administrator for the state’s apprenticeship\/training programs. “As the workforce ages, (currently one in three members of the labor force is above 50) not enough young people are exploring careers in the trades to fill the gap caused by retirement and growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work is physically demanding and Oancea is on his feet all day, in all kinds of weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t need to go to a gym and work out,\u201d he says. \u201cConstruction work has been a little bit like being in the military for me. It\u2019s toughened me and made me grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oancea is happy and content with his present situation and feels a sense of accomplishment, even though he realizes he\u2019s just starting out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve learned to work hard, to do something valuable, and to take pride in that and I feel I can go as far as I want to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A career that almost wasn\u2019t brings big rewards to journeyman laborer David Oancea When David Oancea was growing up, a career in construction was not even on his radar. \u201cI\u2019d see crews working on various projects and think \u2014 \u2018I\u2019d never do that,\u2019\u201d he recalls. In high school, Oancea was a pretty average student. He …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5539,"featured_media":415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}