Though the shortage of skilled workers is continuing to plague the construction industry, the number of potential solutions is expanding.<\/p>\n
One is to reach the next generation of youngsters before they\u2019re old enough to safely use power tools, let alone operate heavy machinery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think with the good intention of making college accessible to everybody we unintentionally made trades appear as a lesser path,\u201d said John Hurd, talent acquisition manager for\u00a0Lakeside Industries, a heavy highway construction firm with asphalt plants in Portland, Hillsboro and Washington state.<\/p>\n
A profound culture change is needed, Hurd believes, before the trades are again considered a viable route to building a successful career.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you build this concept that you\u2019re only successful if you go to college, even if you\u2019re successful and work at what is traditionally known as a blue-collar trade, maybe you don\u2019t feel proud about it and maybe you don\u2019t want to talk about it,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I get back to the fact that we need to give all students options in what they want to do. We need to stop telling them what success is and give them the tools to decide what success is for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That belief is driving an award-winning program\u00a0run by the\u00a0Associated General Contractors\u2019 Oregon-Columbia\u00a0chapter. Leaders of the\u00a0Educator Externship\u00a0program\u00a0aim to bring educators from across the state to the metro area to meet with contractors, apprenticeship program officials and others in construction.<\/p>\n
This year marks the third year for the program, which wrapped up a two-week-long camp for approximately 75 teachers this summer. They visited jobsites, checked out business offices and spent time with a construction contractor. Participants also toured both union and open-shop apprenticeship program facilities, community colleges and technical universities. The Educator Externship is run in partnership with the\u00a0Willamette Education Service District\u00a0(WESD) and gives participants professional development or graduate-level credits.<\/p>\n
While educators gain a better picture of the career possibilities available to their students, the challenge is to convey that information effectively.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of the stuff we\u2019re able to do is get kids to trade fairs,\u201d Woodburn High School teacher Mario Garza said. \u201cBut we\u2019d like to bring more of that stuff on campus. It\u2019s important for us to expose them to the different pathways that are available so they can make good choices for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where AGC and the WESD are looking to fill a gap.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is if you go to school and want to be a teacher, your pathway is marked,\u201d said Cherie Clark, WESD manager of careers and college. \u201cIt\u2019s the pathway they know.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lack of exposure to trades in public schools is so profound that even ancillary areas of construction often are overlooked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen kids think of construction they don\u2019t think of advertising, accounting, project management or safety,\u201d Clark said. \u201cSo what we tried to do with construction is to open that up so they could see the back office part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Externship started at the\u00a0Pacific Northwest College of Construction\u00a0before teachers split into groups and headed to the\u00a0Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute\u00a0and the\u00a0Sheet Metal Institute.\u00a0P&C Construction\u00a0President Steve Malany and safety coordinator Rick McMurry then led tours of an\u00a0R&H Construction\u00a0project site, an\u00a0Andersen Construction\u00a0site and a\u00a0Bremik Construction\u00a0site.\u00a0Yorke & Curtis\u00a0and\u00a0Lease Crutcher Lewis\u00a0business offices were shown, and educators visited specialty contractors as well as highway and roadway contractors. Program participants also stopped at the\u00a0NECA-IBEW Electrical Training Center,\u00a0Oregon Tradeswomen Inc.\u00a0and Andersen Construction offices, as well as colleges that host technical training programs.<\/p>\n
McMurry is convinced the industry needs to reach young people well before they finish high school. To that end, he\u2019s taken part in the Educator Externship the past two years and found it a great way of making connections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where we think the real money is,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we can get to the influencers of our kids, teachers and guidance counselors, people who are going to steer that decision a little bit in college or career and open their eyes to the fact there is all this stuff out there. There are lots of individual efforts, but this one seems so far to be the most coordinated effort with the target audience in the room. You don\u2019t get the focused opportunity like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why is it so important to reach kids before they\u2019re old enough to drive? Because if it doesn\u2019t happen then, Hurd said, there will be a lot of baggage to overcome. That alone has led to the average starting age for an apprentice to rise appreciably.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt starts fairly young,\u201d Hurd said. \u201cI remember growing up, it was about the fourth grade when I was starting to be told that I was either going to be getting a four-year degree or I was going to be flipping burgers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those kinds of messages sink in, he added. But there\u2019s no reason not to apply the same principles to the trades, he said.
\n\u201cOur best options right now from what I\u2019ve found is we\u2019ve been doing grassroots efforts,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing teacher externships like this. We visit schools where we\u2019re going in around the fourth grade and setting up field trips and talking to students about what it is, who we are and what it means to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hurd\u2019s entire job revolves around recruiting new talent. In that role he speaks with roughly 6,000 to 10,000 high school students annually and hosts more than 1,000 others at Lakeside Industries\u2019 Northwest Portland asphalt plant.
\nOthers in the industry agree that outreach is needed early on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been saying for the longest time the most important work happens in K-12,\u201d said Bob Strader, president of the Northwest College of Construction. \u201cThe more exposure they get to all walks of life the better prepared they will be when they walk through the doors here.\u201d<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Educator Externship cohort is roughly three times the size of last year\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s big when they tell you, \u2018I didn\u2019t know anything about this stuff,\u2019\u201d Garza said. \u201cIt makes you think: Why aren\u2019t we talking more about this in K-12? Why just when they\u2019re juniors or seniors in high school?\u201d<\/p>\n
A recent\u00a0construction workforce study\u00a0commissioned by Metro and the city of Portland arrived at largely the same conclusions in regard to bringing more women and minorities into the skilled trades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think schools is where it has to happen,\u201d said an apprenticeship coordinator quoted in the report. \u201cThe counselors and the teachers have to be educated to know the options available and what it takes to get into those programs. Then they can identify those individuals and direct them accordingly based off their interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly right, Hurd said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to help people understand and be able to follow their own desires,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s part of why we\u2019re in the situation we\u2019re in now, where a college degree has never cost more and it\u2019s never been worth less in the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Workforce development needs to start early Though the shortage of skilled workers is continuing to plague the construction industry, the number of potential solutions is expanding. One is to reach the next generation of youngsters before they\u2019re old enough to safely use power tools, let alone operate heavy machinery. \u201cI think with the good intention …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5138,"featured_media":15,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14","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\/14"}],"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\/5138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}