By Josh Kulla
10/24/19
Contractors in the Portland-metro area are continuing to address the skilled labor shortage by reaching out to educators. Walsh Construction, for example, is helping Benson Polytechnic High School build up its construction technology program.
Last year, Walsh employees spent time in the Benson woodshop to give students hands-on carpentry construction. This year, expansion has allowed instructors to take better advantage of Carpenters International Training Fund (CITF) curriculum. And from a pair of half-full woodworking classes a year ago, the construction technology program has grown to around 100 enrollees – approximately 10 percent of the Benson student body – engaging in classes that could lead them to careers in the skilled trades.
Participants in the two-year program take courses focusing on construction industry soft skills and preliminary hard skills they can use to eventually learn a trade or even go into project management. Students even are taught how to use 3-D modeling software.
“We’ve dramatically changed in the sense of participation,” said Benson woodworking instructor Dave Ketah, a former design professional. “We started the new elective woodworking, and last year was my first year on staff here, so on some level there is new direction for our department. We have gained some really good, new strategy; we have the partnership with Walsh and we’re amplifying our participation and our coverage of the curriculum we use from CITF.”
All told, students who participate in woodworking all year will have taken enough CITF coursework to earn pre-apprenticeship level 3 status, Ketah said. They will have soft skills and building skills needed to qualify for an apprenticeship with their local carpenters union – in this case, United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 1503 of Oregon City.
A few of Ketah’s former students already are making their way into the industry.
“The results are that we have had students in our partnership with the (Pacific Northwest Carpenters Institute) entered into an apprenticeship,” he said. “We had a visit from a student last month who graduated last year and he told us about it. He got some credit for this stuff here and for doing the PNCI construction camp. He got pre-apprenticeship credits that put him as a second-term apprentice.”
Someone following that same path, Ketah said, could earn as much as $80,000 annually after reaching journeyman status at age 22.
“We’re able to tell that story to our students as we recruit them to come into our program,” he said.