The construction industry faces a stark shortage of workers, but programs and people across the country are working at the local level to solve the problem. This series highlights those efforts helping to recruit the next generation of construction pros. Read previous entries here.
Do you know of a group that is helping to attract workers to the construction industry? Let us know.
“Growing up my big dream was to become a mechanical engineer,” said Nathan Evans.
Evans, 19, has long had his eyes on a career in the construction industry. Now, the Sacramento, California-area resident is pursuing his dream after completing Kitchell’s Hard Hat Scholars program.
“It was amazing,” Evans said of the experience. After going through it as a student, Evans returned as a teaching assistant, in part because he earned an internship at Phoenix-based Kitchell’s Sacramento office.
Evans said not all of the high school students in the program, hosted at Kitchell’s office in Northern California, knew about construction beforehand like he did, but they were equally excited as he was for the opportunity.
Hard Hat Scholars has evolved since its inception in 2020, but the core idea has remained the same: opening doors to construction careers for those who may not know those pathways exist, especially young people in inner-city areas.
“The big picture of the program is for the communities that do not necessarily have these resources, how can we go about giving them the information?” said Kristoffer Bridges, project manager at Kitchell. “When you think about construction you always think of dirt, grime, labor, that kind of thing. We wanted to showcase the trades, technical background and other aspects.”
Program beginnings
Kitchell CEO Wendy Cohen told Construction Dive she started “kicking around the idea” of developing a program for inner-city schools in Northern California that lack career technical education programs in 2020, and spent the better part of a year formulating ideas.
The result was a partnership with school districts in Northern California and other stakeholders — including STEM nonprofit Square Root Academy, which introduced Evans to Hard Hat Scholars — to create a program taking place across 16 Saturdays in the summer.
At first, Cohen said, they had concerns about students sacrificing one of their weekend days for the program, but Kitchell soon saw the kids were excited for the trades. Even more surprising? The parents were stoked, too.
“When we kicked off the first program, we felt like the parents were going to come and drop their kids off. But what happened is the parents came and sat in the room,” Cohen said. The adults got the opportunity to learn about the trades as careers for their kids, she added.
The first cohort was 20 high school students enrolled in four four-week sections on architecture, engineering, construction and a few jobsite tours, Bridges said. The second year, the camp extended to 18 weeks. Each week, professionals spoke to the students about the specifics of their jobs and students received hands-on experience as well.
The first two camps culminated in a $2,000 scholarship for each student. After the first two cohorts, Kitchell extended an internship offer to one student, which Evans took the first year.
Going forward
Now preparing for the third year of the program, Bridges said Kitchell is figuring out how to streamline it and make it easier to replicate.
Rather than four months of Saturdays, Kitchell has pivoted to a camp-style format, with a week of full days focusing on different aspects of the trades. Instead of the scholarships, Bridges said the program gives the scholars a free laptop and a $100 gift card.
Eventually, Cohen hopes to have Hard Hat Scholar camps at multiple Kitchell locations.
‘My goal is that starting next year, we start to take that program to our other offices across the Southwest,” Cohen told Construction Dive. “And then my long-term goal is to take the program national. In my opinion, in construction, there's such a need for more people that are interested in the industry.”
And small cohorts may be a drop in the bucket, but they’re a place to start.
“I am a firm believer in you pursue what you have exposure to,” Bridges said, saying that many construction professionals have family in the industry, and noting how Hard Hat Scholars seeks new groups to feed into industry pipelines.
Evans, who is taking classes at junior college before he hopes to study engineering at a local university, said he liked the hands-on portion of the Scholars program, as did his classmates. While they enjoyed visiting jobsites, there was another aspect of the experience that got him and his classmates excited about the industry.
“I need money,” Evans said. “Showing the salary that project managers can make, that’s one way to get people excited.”
Whatever methods it takes, Cohen said construction needs a game plan.
“The industry is going to continue to have a labor shortage. I can see it particularly here in Phoenix,” Cohen said. “But as the United States really starts — or continues — to invest in manufacturing, that is competition for our workforce. And if we're not careful or thoughtful about how we grow a diverse workforce, we are going to have a worse shortage.”
