Hartford Business Journal

8 Hartford Business Journal • October 14, 2019 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Gregory Seay gseay@hartfordbusiness.com S omer Hicks has held various jobs over the years, including as a bartender and painter, but her latest in the construction industry has been the most satisfying, she said. "I love it,'' said Hicks, 38, of the Terryville section of Plymouth, who started a year ago as a laborer — assisting carpenters, electricians and other building-tradespeople — after completing a state-funded pre-apprenticeship training. "I love that it's like going to the gym,'' she said. "When you see what you've completed, you can look back and say, 'I did that.' " Hicks' entry into the male- dominated construction industry is more common these days. As the sector faces an aging workforce and tight labor market, big contracting firms, as well as smaller subcontractors and their suppliers, are being forced to diver- sify their hiring. As a result, in recent years, private design, engineering and contracting firms, construction trade groups, la- bor unions and nonprofit workforce- development agencies have mounted a full-court press to identify and train more women for the industry. In particular, employers and oth- ers involved in recruiting, train- ing and supporting women in the sector point to a steady migration of females into posts that don't in- volve field work, such as design and engineering; project management; accounting; and marketing. U.S. Census Bureau data shows a higher percentage of women in Connecticut construction jobs. For example, women held 17.8 percent of the 61,647 construction jobs that existed in the state last year vs. occu- pying 17 percent of construction jobs in 2008 and 15.6 percent in 1998. Yet, some observers say women, as well as ethnic minorities, remain underrepresented in Connecti- cut and U.S. building trades amid greater legal and social emphasis on fairness in hiring and training. "I believe that as women become more aware of the opportunities that are there, the percentages are going to increase,'' said Yolanda Rivera, who has spent the past 20 years filling Connecticut's trades pipeline as director of construction- sector initiatives at Capital Work- force Partners (CWP) in Hartford. Rhode Island's Gilbane Building Co., a builder of public and private projects in Connecticut and the Northeast, says more women than ever are among its staff — and not just in the field. John Hawley, vice president in Gilbane's Glastonbury office, said his company has extend- ed its job recruiting to female college students in majors such as mechani- cal and electrical engineering, as well as accounting and marketing. Women, says Amy R. Blackwood, executive director of the John J. Driscoll United Labor Agency (ULA) and community engagement direc- tor for the CT AFL-CIO, are a deep talent pool that could benefit the building-trades sector. "You've got a retiring workforce and an untapped workforce that's never had an opportunity,'' Blackwood said. In 2016, the CT State Building Trades, in concert with ULA, launched "Building Pathways CT,'' to put women and men through seven weeks of pre-apprenticeship training to qualify them to work in construction. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island have similar programs. Participants, Blackwood said, spend eight hours daily in the class- room for training in certain trade skills, plus certifications in flagging, fire watch, CPR, among others. Since Pathways' launch, nearly nine of every 10 adults who com- pleted the training program got a construction job, she said. Hicks is one of those. The divorced mother of three held various past jobs, including 13 years as a bartend- er and 3½ years as a house painter. She briefly worked for a roofing installer and as a roadway "flagman.'' "My best friend … heard about the [Pathways] program,'' Hicks said. "She wanted to be a carpenter. We had planned to go through the union, but we didn't know how to get our butts in the door.'' Since Hicks landed in the Path- ways program in 2018, she has worked as a laborer at three in-state jobs sites, including remediating a former General Electric industrial site in Bridgeport into ballfields. Hicks' base pay as an apprentice is $18 an hour, with an extra $2 to $3 hourly for every 1,000 hours worked, she said. But she looks forward to the day, four or five years from now when she has amassed 4,000 work hours to quality for a construction journeyper- son's pay of at least $38 an hour. More work to be done Architect Laura Cruickshank is UConn's master planner, oversee- ing dozens of the college's building projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars in her 16 years there, and even more in her 44-year career that included a stop as Yale's architect. Although UConn has stiff stan- dards for female and minority partici- pation in campus building projects, FOCUS: CONSTRUCTION Building Diverse Ranks As industry faces workforce shortage, more women embracing construction trades HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Tatiana Southwick, 38, is a finishing trades apprentice instructor for District Council 11 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades in Middletown, a position rarely, if ever, held by a woman. More building- trades training Capital Workforce Partners in Hartford will host its next training class in Feb. 2020, for women interested in building trades. For information, con- tact Yolanda Rivera, Director, Construction Sector Initia- tives, email: yrivera@capital- workforce.org Phone: (860) 899-3448; Fax: 860-524-8860 John J. Driscoll United Labor Agency will host its next Building Pathways CT training class in Dec. 2019, for women. For information, contact Build- ing Pathways CT, email: build- ingpathways@ctula.org; phone (860) 258- 6640 x233; www. ctula.org under programs and Building Pathways CT for an online application and FAQs; and on Facebook under Build- ing Pathways CT. Continued on page 11 >>

• Cover