They say, “everything is bigger in Texas,” and electrical contractor Rosendin is aspiring to live up to that expression with an ambitious recruitment campaign in the central part of the state. The firm launched a goal to hire 700 tradeworkers last month for the development of the region’s digital and energy infrastructure.
“Our growth in Texas catapulted in 2023, with contract awards in biomedical, transportation, semiconductor and mission-critical,” said Shaun Mahan, Rosendin’s operations manager.
Mahan said the San Jose, California-based firm recorded $560.7 million in revenue in 2023, 8% more than the previous year.
“The momentum of 2023 has continued throughout 2024 and we expect it to extend well beyond 2025,” Mahan said. “We continue to see tremendous growth in the data center market to support the growing demand for AI, cloud resources, and data analytics. The demand for skilled tradespeople and project leadership continues to exceed the labor supply."
The hiring plan is specifically focused on growing Rosendin’s teams in Dallas-Fort Worth, Temple, Abilene and Austin. Rosendin workers there have contributed to projects such as the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport terminal expansion and infrastructure upgrades at Texas A&M and the University of Texas.
Currently, the company is hiring commercial electricians, journeymen and solar panel installers for various Texas-based projects, including offsite manufacturing, aviation, transportation, semiconductor facilities, commercial, education, data centers and renewable energy projects.
“We’ve been invested in Texas for over a decade, and these projects will bring another seven to 10 years of stable work,” Mahan said.
Finding labor
Given the current skilled labor shortage, Rosendin developed a strategy for finding the workers it needs in an effort to separate itself from the competition.
The company coordinated with local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the National Electrical Contractors Association to develop the Electrical Training Alliance, Mahan said.
“This program combines classroom and online learning to improve the apprenticeship experience and offer flexibility,” he said.
In addition to partnering with local union halls to attract men and women interested in a career as an electrician, the company is looking to build the workforce long-term by partnering with local school districts to educate students, their parents and teachers about opportunities in the industry, Mahan said.
For that reason, the company ramped up its recruiting efforts in Texas, including developing a hiring website to target craftworkers in the area.
Qualifications for the jobs
Rosendin is hiring across all skill levels and is open to learning opportunities at every stage of a craftworker’s career journey. For example, the company developed the Craft Empowerment Program to help give its electricians extra support in the field.
“The program provides a jobsite with additional team members who are available to answer questions about safety and quality and provide an outlet for our project teams to make suggestions on how to make our project sites safer, introduce innovations, or build camaraderie among contractors,” Mahan said. “Rosendin also offers robust in-house training programs that include an electrical boot camp, OSHA certifications, first aid/CPR and much more. Our electricians are trained on the latest innovations in tools to perform their jobs safely and at a high level of quality.”
As of early November, things were going “extremely well” with the hiring process, but the majority of the onboarding will come next spring: Rosendin expects to bring in approximately 500 electricians by April, according to Mahan
Rosendin was recently ranked by ENR Texas as the No. 1 electrical contractor in Texas, so it hasn’t been too much of a challenge to find interested workers.
“We foresee the new hires in Texas becoming valuable assets to the Rosendin team and potential conduits for future leadership, innovations and award-winning work,” Mahan said. “We’re a culture of learning and development, so it’s always exciting to see what the next generation of craft workers will do with their legacies.”
