Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/933470
Hear these voices: "From as far back as I can remember, I can recall having my picture taken in excavators, dozers and cranes. It can be easy in day-to-day life to take construction and the engineering behind it for granted, but when one takes a step back and considers how the roads they drive on every day to work got there and where the power that generates their house comes from, the importance of con- struction is apparent." "Construction has always been my thing! From carpentry in high school to building duck blinds, it is what I have always loved." "What better way to inspire young people to join construction than by showing them they can build some of the coolest structures in the country. A trade provides a person with a valuable skill, a great career and the ability to say, 'I built it' (or 'we built it'), when the project is complete." "I am part of a rare breed that actually enjoys passing construction sites on the highway. I am eager to figure out what stage of construction they are in at their project. Are they fixing a culvert? Setting bridge beams? Paving a new road? It is all so intriguing to me." "My favorite part of working in our great coun- try is being able to say, 'I build America, what do you do?'" Ladies and gentlemen, these are the voices of the winners of HCSS's 2017 Construction Intern Awards. More than 220 students competed for a total of $50,000 in internships, generating more than 151,000 votes on the awards website https://cia.hcss.com. These students speak from experience, because they did real work, not make work. They tracked crew performance, scheduled concrete, operated machinery, set up total stations, tested asphalt mixes, checked invoices, did take-offs, tied re- bar, graded roadways, surveyed and set bridge beams. With in-the-field experience, they came away with a renewed passion for the career they were studying. Now imagine hearing these voices as a young person in a middle- or high-school setting. Hear- ing these voices as a young man or woman, as a person of color, as a foreign-born student. These winning interns not only reflected those basic di- versities, they worked for firms that showcased the amazing scope of work in our industry – from gen- eral construction to telecommunications to indus- trial, to heavy, highway and bridge construction. As I helped judge this year's contest, it struck me: These students are the perfect ambassadors for the construction industry. They're enthu- siastic, they have real-life experience, they're younger. Fortunately, this is something contest sponsor HCSS recognizes, too, and the company is working to get its arms around the recruiting possibilities. On a final note, congratulations to Keith Krass, a safety management major at Slippery Rock Uni- versity, who took away this year's $10,000 grand prize. Wanting to put his Army deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan to work, Keith first looked at a career in nursing. Instead, he fell in love with construction safety management. "Rolling my sleeves up, getting in the dirt and making sure every worker made it home safe every night – that was how I was going to continue to help people," he says. His is one of the many voices that need to be heard in schools across this nation. EquipmentWorld.com | January 2018 9 on record | by Marcia Gruver Doyle MGruver@randallreilly.com Construction's hidden ambassadors