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Construction Leaders Podcast
Building the Pipeline: Career Pathways in Construction Management
00:25:49
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- [00:03]
A
Welcome back to the Construction Leaders Podcast where we explore the people, ideas and trends shaping the future of construction. I'm Carly Trout and I'm here with my co host Evan Hendershot. Hi Evan.
- [00:14]
B
Hi Carly, how are you?
- [00:16]
A
I'm doing great. Today we'll be talking about an age old question. What do I want to be when I grow up? I can tell you as a mid career professional, I sometimes ask myself that same question. So I can only imagine how daunting it is for today's young adults and how they could navigate to construction management. As the answer. To dive into this topic, we're excited to welcome Jim Ostrom, professor of Construction Management at Joliet Junior College. Jim is a dedicated educator helping the next generation of construction professionals find their way into the industry. Whether you're a student exploring construction management, an industry professional passionate about workforce development, or an organization looking to strengthen the talent pipeline, this conversation offers a valuable perspective on building strong careers and a strong industry. Welcome Jim. Thank you so much for joining us today.
- [01:12]
B
Thank you.
- [01:13]
A
Can you get started and just briefly tell us about yourself, introduce yourself to our listeners and share how you got started teaching construction management?
- [01:23]
C
Yeah, it's a longer path. I was not a great student as a young person, so I started out in shop classes like most people do in high school, ended up at the career center, built a couple homes there, and then through high school I got a job in a material supplier and through that, the owner of that company, I learned about construction management program at Purdue University Northwest and that's how I got into the whole idea of construction management as a career. I didn't really learn it through high school. And that's really. As we get through this and go through the dialogue, you'll hear a continuous theme here that construction management is not known. Although construction is well known and design is well known. I think the vastness of the profession of construction management, what it covers, is really what we struggle with. So I basically started at a material supplier, ended up working my way through college, took me six years working jobs including rough framing homes. Ended up after graduating college working for general contractors as estimator, superintendent, construction managers as project manager, and then had the opportunity to interview and get a position as an owner's rep for a healthcare organization, hiring and managing architects, engineers, consultants and contractors. So I spent the first part of my career with general contractors, construction managers. The second part of my career, the last half of my career as owner's rep, managing projects and the planning, design and construction aspect of projects. How I got to teaching was later in my career. After having success and moving around a little bit, I wanted to try to give back and get back to where I started, which was how do we get more people into the industry that don't know that this is an option. There's a huge industry here. So the way to get back was to I did teach a class back. Probably now it's been 10, 15 years ago and I was raised in a young family and I just couldn't dedicate the time to teaching. But 10 years goes by and things settle down with the family and you're able to consider teaching as a profession. So I've been in the teaching realm for this is my fifth full time year after owner's rep. I spent a little bit of time while I was transitioning to education as a building inspector and a building official. Seen a lot of different perspectives throughout the industry and I think that's what gives me some advantage in teaching is trying to help people find where they would best fit in the industry.
- [04:02]
B
All right, let's get into it. Jim, this is a really interesting topic. Obviously it's really accessible to a lot of people and we all know someone also who's in the construction, especially young people. What has been the best way to educate young people, people about the construction management profession?
- [04:16]
C
I think the biggest thing is access and getting to them at a younger age when they're forming their decision on what direction they want to go in their career. Usually most people conventional would say, okay, high school as you get towards the end of high school is the time where people start thinking about their career. But I think the best way to approach this is getting to students if you can, like in the middle school years or towards the end of middle school before they start high school. Especially in the environment where everything's so fast and digital and technology is there. I think students are able to grasp onto the industry, the profession and kind of what's going on. Best way to do that. And we'll talk a little bit more about resources and how to do this because it's difficult at the middle school age is trying to get in those classes. If they have shop classes, if they have a career class, if they have a technical class, students thinking or leaning in that direction and not focus just on an entire school, although that works too. You could speak to an entire school, it's a little more difficult to do. But instead of going into the literature class or the poetry class, focus on a shop class or a career class or a technical class to try to Just tell the students what construction management is, how big and vast the profession is. And it's not just about plumbers and electricians and carpenters. It's also about, you know, suppliers and marketing and business development and estimating and scheduling and project management. The whole vast side of the other part of that, it's not just skilled labor, it's also the other management side. So if I had to pinpoint where you want to kind of plant that seed, if you could get into a sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade class, kind of plant that seed. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Right. So once you do that, you plant that seed, you got to then go to the high school and kind of catch them earlier on to continue the discussion. But basically educate, tell them the vastness of it, and give them some examples of students that have been successful, hopefully from their school. Right. If you're lucky.
- [06:23]
A
Yeah. I think that makes total sense. It makes me think about recently I went to a career fair that was happening at my son's elementary school, and I had a booth there. It was tough to explain what a construction manager was. And Evan said, there's a lot of folks who are interested in construction when they're younger, the bulldozers and the excavators. But how would you explain what a construction manager is and does? People might be more familiar with the trades or engineering or architecture, but not as familiar with construction management. So how would you best explain that?
- [07:03]
C
Yeah, I think trying to break it down into simple terms. And if anyone's ever done projects at home, that probably rings a bell. Right. Or help mom or dad or aunt or uncle with a project at home. Right. It's not just the work. And the way I basically explain this to young people is you have the skilled trades people in the field, the plumbers, electricians, carpenters, actually doing the work.
- [07:25]
B
Right.
- [07:26]
C
And that's one component and a huge component. And really, you can't build anything without that component. But the trick is those people in the field, they don't order the materials, they don't get the jobs, they don't hire the people, they don't send them to the job site. They don't order the equipment or the supplies or the fixtures. They don't coordinate with the owner and the architect and the engineer and the suppliers and consultants and the regulatory bodies. They don't do any of that. Right. They're just building the building or the road on the site. Right. Basically, construction management is everything except those skilled people in the field. You're in the field Working with them. But you're the ones buying the materials, getting the jobs, estimating scheduling, making sure the right people are in the right places at the right time, working with the planners and the designers and the owners to make sure everything that is needed on the job site for those builders to work with on site is there. And the best example is if anyone's done work at home. I know I have. The best example I could say for do it yourselfers is how many times have you been in a project and you end up going to the hardware store, the lumber yard, three or four times in a day or every weekend you're there. Like you're on a first name basis, Right. With the hardware person or the lumber person. Right. You're. Oh, you're here again. Right. You're here again. That's because you're inexperienced in it. Right. And you're doing this as a do it yourself or on a major project, there's actually people there estimating, making sure you have the exact right amount of materials you have when they're needed, when they're there, how they're delivered, and you have them there so the carpenter can put them all in. Right. If every job ran as inefficiently as do it yourselfers would do. Right. We would never get anything built. The management side of that whole equation is exactly that. Right. Who's buying the material, who's estimating it, who's making sure it's there on time, who's coordinating with the designer to make sure it's the right product. All of those things that go into a project that seems simple, unless they're really well coordinated, it could really be a mess. So that's what basically construction management is. It's everything except the skilled trades. Right. It's everything except the people working in the field.
- [09:45]
B
All right, Jim, so let's take it back to what you'd mentioned before about going into schools and trying to educate young people there. Is there anything industry has done or can do to help facilitate engaging young people in the construction industry?
- [10:00]
C
Yeah, I think Carly just mentioned it that she's gone to her middle school or high school or elementary school. And I think this is happening and it happens. I have three kids now, they're of adult age, but this happens pretty regularly where we get stu. Parents go in and talk to their class, right. Their students, class and the industry. It's a small world, but it's a huge industry. Right. And we, and I think that the problem we have there is it's not real coordinated so we really don't know how much it's happening, and we don't really. Everyone in that world, mom or dad talking about their profession, they might do it with passion and they might do it with their experience, but are they doing it at a level that really communicates it really well? Right. And paints the entire picture to make it available to the most students? Right. Because some people might go in and say, I'm an estimator. I work in the office all day. I estimate I use a computer. And that student in the classroom might be thinking, I don't want to work in the office, I want to work in the field. So the question is, it's happening. Are we getting the right people in front of the student to explain that the right way, just to fully explain that it's really such a vast profession that you could find your little niche in any one of the different areas and you could be successful in those areas. Right. That it's not just limited.
- [11:23]
A
Jim, I'm curious, since we've talked about the skilled trades, how do the skilled trade groups view construction management programs in college? And from your perspective, do the majority of folks come from the skills trade and into construction management programs or are more finding construction management programs earlier?
- [11:45]
C
So this is a great question, interesting as well, regarding how we view each other. I think the skilled trades are. Their perspective is from a labor perspective. And although we partner with unions here, Joliet Junior College, just for those listening, we're outside of Chicago and we're in a heavily dominated union environment here for our skilled trades. The unions are very strong and there's definitely a very beaten path to their apprenticeship programs. Right. Everybody knows that there's union trades and they know how to get into them and they follow that path. So a lot of people out of high school follow that skilled trades path, and the others end up in our program. And then there's crossover. Right. We get a lot of students that have been in the skilled trades for three to five to 10 years, and they're either their body's breaking down or they want to do something different or they want to move in the office or they want to be a foreman or a superintendent or a project manager. So we get those students and then we get some from high school, and then we also get people from other professions, from other college programs that find their way to construction management because they've heard of it or whatever, and they come this way. As far as the skilled trades go, I think we're viewed. I think the skilled trades view us More as a competitor with young students. I will say that. And I just got done right now writing a reference letter. We do have. They do accept reference letters. A lot of times the unions require reference letters for their apprenticeship program. And the unions do accept reference letters from our instructors here because they know students come here and they take the basic classes of blueprint reading and safety and they're thinking, I really want to go into the trades. And so they take a few classes here and then we sign a reference letter over to the unions and the unions take that reference letter and hold it at a value. At least that's what they're saying, hold it at a value of somebody that was in the union writing a reference letter for them. As far as a partnership goes, that's the majority of the partnership is some of our students end up going the skilled trades route and then eventually they might come back or they might be successful in the skilled trades and stay there. But the big issue is in the unions, especially the well sought after unions, some of the union trades are more sought after than other. They're harder to get into. So a lot of students can't get into the union. They apply and they don't get in. And then they come to our program and they start taking classes and keep trying to get into the union. And that's where the reference letter comes in and might help them get into the union kind of thing.
- [14:22]
A
And you did mention career switchers as well. I'm just curious if you've seen a trend over the past five years of more folks switching careers and coming into construction management from even outside the trades and other unrelated fields.
- [14:39]
C
Yeah, we do get. And they're actually very successful. And I went to a CMAA thing in Chicago several years back and there was a presentation on trying to go out and get these other professional individuals with other degrees and try to bring them in. Because we're in search of good people, right? So we get a lot of students. I wouldn't say a lot of students, but the ones that do switch over seem to be very successful, especially if they're coming. Recently I've had people come over from accounting and business, marketing, business kind of related things. And they come over and try to roll their credits in from those degrees, which roll over kind of good, right? The gen EDS and a couple electives and then they could take the core construction classes and they're off to the races, pretty successful. So yeah, that is definitely another path. Again, educating those individuals to make them aware that it's available is the Trick just to get it out there to make sure that they know, hey, if you're in your job and you're not happy, you're not satisfied. Construction management's an option. Right. You could switch over and you could be right on a job site or on part of a build team and get that appeal. So they know that's the option there.
- [15:51]
A
Yeah. And there are a ton of management skills that would transfer nicely into construction management. It's just a matter of building awareness like you were talking about.
- [16:00]
C
Yes, absolutely.
- [16:03]
B
Do you find there is more interest in these past couple years? You said you've been doing this full time for 5 years. Do you find there's more interest in the construction management profession or is it still taking off?
- [16:14]
C
That's a good question. I don't have a. Since it's been five years, I will say over the last year or so I've had more students come over. I don't know if that's a trend yet. I haven't felt that just because I haven't been here long enough to do it. But that's definitely picked up over the last year or so. I think the tendency I'm trying to feel out younger generations. Two of my kids are in college right now. The third one's out already. The younger generations tend to be a little more flexible, I think, or be a little more demanding in their desire to have their work be meaningful and challenging and have some flexibility with hybrid or working from home or not in the office all the time. So I think that the opportunity there for construction management is probably higher because we do move around, we get out of the office. We're always doing something, building something new, something different. So I would think the appeal would be there. We just got to make the sell. We got to make sure we communicate that out to those different degrees so they have that opportunity. Kind of like the young people in school as well.
- [17:20]
B
Yeah. So what can professional organizations do to help facilitate educating younger individuals and into the construction management profession? So it can be considered a more common career along the pathways of architects, engineers, nursing, et cetera?
- [17:35]
C
Yeah. So the biggest thing and I think what has helped recently, and this is one of the reasons why I like partnering with cmaa, the CMIT program you guys created, the construction manager and training the steps to the ccm. And in the same way, the same way you do that for training people starting out in the industry, I think it would be great to create some kind of template to lay out how do we get young people into the industry. Right. This Isn't my expertise how do we do this? But it seems like that same CMIT program was laid out very methodically, very organized. And in our capstone course, we run them through the CMIT one at the end of our associate degree. So we put them on that track there. The question is, how do we get. I don't really have the answer, but it would be great to have like, how can we create like a brochure for individuals maybe in middle school, right? Just with the right graphics and the right level of high level understanding of what construction management is. And that partnered with the professional organization like CMAA and industry partners locally to go out and make that pitch, be the salesperson for that brochure, and then have maybe another one for freshman or sophomore and one for junior senior to guide them along their path. Making a decision about a career. Like I said, it's really all about education. What is it? What is construction management? Everyone knows what a doctor is, a lawyer is, even an architect or an engineer, right? Even if there may be a little misguided on it, they know generally what they do, right? How do we make that communication with young people for construction management? It takes some marketing, right? It takes some marketing and some, a lot of minds coming together say, okay, at the age of whatever a middle school, eighth grader is, what would they want to see in order to communicate what construction management is? And they graduated maybe one more or two more times as you go through high school. The biggest thing is as a freshman in high school by that age, the way the high schools work, at least in our area, is you could actually get out like by the end of your high school. We have a program here that in their high school year, they could take 3, 13 credit hours of the associate degree for construction management. In their senior year, they go to their high school for half a day. They come here. If you add the gen eds, the math, the English and social science and those things, AP credit, whatever, we literally could have students have almost half of their degree done when they get out of high school, right? And then after a year here at the community college that summer following graduation, they could actually be in the profession working as in an internship or part time. So I think selling that hoed IDEA that look, 12 months after high school, you could actually be in the profession with the right prep as a freshman. Laying this out for them is, that's exciting for people, right? Because a lot of students are like, I don't want to go to college. It's a lot of money. I could Stay home, go to community college and be working 12 months out and then worry about college later. Make a decision if I want to go on. I think just having some help from professional organizations like cma, just creating that guideline of how do we get young people into the industry? And maybe it's a little cartoonish marketing, kind of fancy high level stuff, but I think just getting them engaged at that young age, just say, okay, this is instruction management. Maybe having a brochure that they could take home and flip through or look through or maybe it's digital, maybe it ends up being TikTok and Instagram kind of things explaining what construction management is to the younger folks. Cause that's what they, that's what they're tuned into.
- [21:24]
A
Yeah, TikTok definitely entered my mind. And then, and sure enough, you said it. But these are all really great suggestions and great ideas and hopefully this conversation people are tuning in and gets the ball rolling on some of these things. I think that all sounds great, what you've been saying. I think we just have time for one more question. So I was actually curious if you had any advice for industry professionals who maybe are looking to give back like you were and getting more involved with their local colleges and teaching construction management. And do you have any advice for those individuals?
- [22:04]
C
Yeah, I think. And it's funny, I was in a meeting the other day last week, at the end of the week, I met with a company that hired three of our students over the past year and they happen to be in like horizontal construction, heavy highway construction. And one of the critiques of our program was that we're more building focused than horizontal focused. And I understood that. I explained to them, look, the reason most of this is our program, we have two full time faculty in construction management and we're not civil oriented, we're more building oriented. And I said, we don't have full time faculty on that horizontal side. And he's oh, I know a lot of people that'd be great for that role. I was like, have them reach out, right? Because that's what we need. We need the older generations or the people that have been around 20, 30 years or even 10 years or 15 years that want to give back in some way. And a community like that in Chicago has just. All we need is a handful of individuals willing to teach one class and we could actually create a whole certificate or a whole minor within that associate degree. Just for civil work or just for your branch of work. It's difficult because sometimes we need day teachers too. But a Lot of classes we have in our program are at night for students coming back. Adult students. Yeah. So I was like, I'm reach out. We'd love to do that and get them involved. And we rely on adjunct in our profession a lot. Fortunately or unfortunately, I think on a good side we get the expertise of people in the trenches doing the work every day. Right. On the flip side, it limits us sometime to night classes and students coming out of high school wanting to get through the degree a little quicker. Right. So there's good and bad, but I think the higher ed industry is starving for more people and I think a lot of professionals don't know that avenue's there for them. So, yeah, if anyone's willing to contribute, reach out to community college, I'm sure they'd love to hear from you and try to work something out to work you into a rotation. And honestly, it doesn't have to be like even a full time part time thing. Like you don't have to teach every semester. If we could just put together a group of, like I mentioned, civil folks on the horizontal side, if there was a handful of people willing to do that, you could rotate in and just you could teach one semester a year or one semester every third semester or something like that, and we could create a rotation so you could give back. And it's not to the level where it's burdensome or it takes you away from your other commitments.
- [24:37]
B
With that piece of advice, Jim, we thank you for joining us today. It was a pleasure chatting with you. And before we wrap up, we wanted to leave you with a resource that can help you or someone you know get started on their construction management career path. Something that Jim mentioned earlier. Actually. CMAA's Construction Manager and Training Program, also known as CMIT, is specifically designed for young professionals who who want a strong start in the industry. CMIT gives early career talent a way to validate their skills, build industry confidence, and stand out in the competitive job market. To learn more about this program, which is available to students Starting at age 18, visit cmaanet.org cmit to be sure you don't miss our next episode, please subscribe to the podcast and follow us on social media at cmaahq. You. And don't forget to leave us a review with your thoughts on today's episode and let us know what you would like to hear on an upcoming podcast. And keep an eye out for upcoming episodes on a Practical Guide to CM Roles and Technology Implementation. On behalf of cmaa, I'm Evan Hendershot with Carli Trout. Thank you for listening.