Construction Industry Showcases Careers
Last updated Friday, September 26, 2008 9:09 PM CDT in News
By Rose Ann Pearce
THE MORNING NEWS
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SPRINGDALE -- The tires on the 40-ton rigid frame haul truck were as tall or taller than the three teenage girls standing nearby contemplating whether to board the mammoth machine.
"My dad drives one," said 17-year-old Susana Salguero, a junior at Crossroads Alternative School in Rogers. She plans to join the National Guard after high school graduation rather than follow in her dad's footsteps as a heavy equipment operator.
Salguero was among a smattering of female students from Northwest Arkansas high schools who joined their male counterparts at Construction Career Day held Friday at Northwest Technical Institute.
The first of its kind, the career day was to showcase careers in the construction industry that could appeal to 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders.
Organizers set up a variety of heavy equipment behind the parking lot at NTI. The students were allowed to climb into the cabs and operate the controls without driving the equipment. They also had an opportunity to make a small round piece of decorative concrete at one booth.
Lauren Meyers, 15, a sophomore at Pea Ridge High School, tried to pick up a basketball perched atop an orange plastic cone with the scoop on an excavator backhoe. The object of the skill test was to pick up the basketball with the scoop and dump it into a basket a few feet away.
She successfully moved the first ball but missed the second.
It was her first time to operate such equipment, and she said she was nervous and excited.
"It's hard," she said, but it is easier when an operator stands nearby and talks you through using the controls.
Ashley Beeks, 16, a junior at Farmington High School, liked the National Guard Humvees and a semitrailer.
"They're hard to drive," she said.
Her friend, Ashley Alvarado, 16, a junior at Farmington, said, "I'm not normally interested in this, but you get more insight."
Chrissie Doyle, a teacher and senior adviser at Crossroads, brought 32 students to the career day. Many of her students work full time at night and come to school during the day.
It's important to get information to students who one day will be the basis of the work force, she said. Her students are more likely to attend a technical school than a four-year university, she said.
The day was sponsored by the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department, Office of Human Concern and Northwest Technical Institute.
At A Glance
Construction Jobs
• In 2008, there were 952,000 vacant skilled construction jobs.
• There will be 1 million-plus new people needed to fill construction jobs each year thereafter.
• The average age of skilled trades workers nationwide is 48, and these workers will start retiring between 2010 and 2015.
Source: National Construction Career Days Center
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