STUDENTS GIVEN THE CHANCE To PLAY WITH HEAVY EQUIPMENT.
On March 26, 1,013 high school students from 47 west central and southwest Florida schools descended on the Hillsborough County Fairgrounds in Dover for Tampa Bay Construction Career Day. “This is a field trip opportunity with my GAP program,” Rion Wingate said. “A GAP program is for kids at risk of falling behind and not being able to graduate. So, they put us in a program where we can make up credits and get back on track to graduate.”
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) put together the event in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration, Florida Transportation Builders’ Association (FTBA), Suncoast Utility Contractors Association, and dozens of private companies in the construction industry.
The target audience was junior and senior high school students who might consider any of the thousands of career opportunities in the construction industry. They had chances to speak with, and learn from, professionals in construction. But this wasn’t your typical employment field trip—among other things, students had the opportunity to operate backhoes (after being shown how to handle them—under supervision, of course), weld, build model bridges, and try other actual job-site activities that could be catalysts for their future careers in construction or transportation. Students were able to take part in nine different “learning labs,” each with a 40-minutes rotation. One of the rotations included “career center” businesses such as FDOT, Dallas1, Preferred Materials Inc., HNTB, CAT Ring Power, Linder, AJAX and Southland.
“We took 28 students from Simmons Career Accelerated Academy to the Florida Construction Career Day to explore employment opportunities within local industries to help promote workforce growth,” Shalini Rajpaul, Mathematics teacher and workforce program advisor, said. “Some of our students were able to get applications on site….Overall, the hope is to expose students who may not be going on the traditional four-year college route, to career opportunities and a pathway after high school.”
The construction industry is more than hard hats, bright vests, and steel-toed boots. Students were also introduced to fields like project management, engineering, design, and environmental science to show them construction can offer roles for people with a variety of interests and skill sets. “This event was useful because it was eye-opening that construction isn’t as narrow as I thought it was,” student Layla Knight said. “It is actually a broad field, and there is so much that you can do in it. It was interesting to see everything. There is a lot of interesting stuff in it.”
The reason these organizations have gotten together for this initiative is, as the population of Florida is booming, the transportation network is expanding, and the need for qualified transportation workers is growing in proportion. Southwest Florida and the Tampa Bay area amounts to 15,330 square miles in 17 counties. The 5.5 million residents in these counties travel 75.6 million miles daily on the highways. In addition, there are 63 public airports, including five international airports. The districts also have three deep-water sea ports, and five railroad companies in operation. So, there are great needs for construction staff across these square miles.
The Construction Career Day one of the State of Florida’s strategic investment in its’ current and future construction workforce. This event also directly connected students with potential employers and career mentors, and opened opportunities for internships, apprenticeships, and full-time employment. This industry is essential to improving the future of transportation that will impact all Florida residents. This Construction Career Day is part of developing a talent pipeline ready to build and maintain infrastructure to fuel Florida’s long-term economic success.
“It gives us seniors and juniors the opportunity to explore other career fields that we may want to go into after high school if we don’t want to go straight into college,” student Gabrielle Thompson said. “These careers also give you an internship opportunity, to see if you enjoy their company and would like to work alongside their employees, and further impact your life.”
Other Construction Career Days are also held in Central, South, Northeast, and Northwest Florida.
