How North Bay construction firms are trying to recruit reluctant younger workers

Garrett Anken enjoys his career and finds it rewarding. But he’s made choices that many of his Gen Z peers didn’t.

Anken, 24, works as an apprentice plumber at Sonoma-based Peterson Mechanical, a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning contractor that serves Napa, Marin, Solano and four other Bay Area counties.

“I enjoy being hands on and seeing something positive come out of it because we’re essentially helping (people),” Anken said. “When we go to hospitals and we're running water lines, or gas lines, or the oxygen lines that people are using, it's helpful to them. So it’s almost like a reward at the end. I get a good feeling afterwards.”

But Anken’s interest in the skilled trades isn’t common these days among Gen Z workers (those born between 1997 and 2012) nor the younger end of the millennial set who were born between 1981 and 1996.

The reasons seem to be attached to a long-held stigma that white-collar professions are preferable to blue-collar careers. That messaging is driven by a number of factors that include little advertising for careers in the skilled trades; a lack of exposure for young workers who didn’t grow up in that environment; and parental pressure to get a four-year college degree.

“A lot of people go to a four-year school and then come out in debt,” Anken said. “You're making money as you're going to school, and you get full benefits.”

Anken is a member of UA Local 38 Plumbers, Steamfitters & HVAC/Refrigeration, which currently represents approximately 2,500 members in San Francisco, Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties, according to its website.

More money, more opportunities

The theory that chasing a college degree gives students a leg up to enter the white-collar working world better off than blue-collar professionals isn’t necessarily true, as one Sonoma County business leader found out.

Amy Christopherson Bolton, president of Christopherson Builders, made $48,000 a year at her first job coming out of grad school with a master’s degree in the sciences. She thought that was a pretty good starting salary.

“The people I knew who became plumbers and (other trades) were making $65,000 and $70,000 a year,” she said. “So all those years I spent in school started off at a way lower price point.

“Another thing about the trades is that it provides a really nice kind of low-barrier-to-entry opportunity to become your own boss, to start your own business,” Bolton added. “If you are working in a typical white-collar profession, to start your own business is this huge, daunting, expensive task.”

Fruits of his labor

Zach Brandner, president and CEO of Peterson Mechanical, was raised in what is largely a family business, working in the field from an early age before leaving the company to go the suit-and-tie route and become a design engineer.

But life away from construction job sites wasn’t for him.

“From the engineering architecture standpoint, you put these buildings and plans on paper and then they leave your office,” he said. “And you have no idea whether they got built or what it looks like.”

Brandner returned to Peterson 15 years ago in an administrative role, which also required him to sometimes be out in the field.

“I wanted more interaction and I wanted to see the tangible results of what I was doing,” he said.

Last summer, Brandner took over as president and CEO.

Even though Brandner is now running the company, he continues to know firsthand what is happening in the field and still visits job sites. He said the construction industry and its culture is where he feels most comfortable.

“I think it's because I was raised in it,” he said. “It goes back to that family theme.”

These days, Brandner said he sees little interest in careers in the trades among younger workers if they didn’t grow up in that environment.

“It was sort of brewing with the millennials and now it's continuing on with Gen Z,” Brandner said. “It just seems to get overlooked. College is just so well-advertised as where you go to make a good living.”

Research-driven solutions

Why someone decides to choose a four-year college degree over the trades is something Peter Tateishi, CEO of the Sacramento-based California arm of the Associated General Contractors advocacy group, is charged with finding out.

“What we're seeing as the number one barrier to Gen Z are the influencers around them, which means, at this point, millennials and Gen X,” Tateishi said, “and even boomer parents who are still of the mindset that a four-year degree needs to be the direction for their children to have a healthy, sustainable life.”

Long-held stereotypes aren’t helping either.

“We know it through jokes in sitcoms, as the butt-crack plumber or the chauvinistic construction worker hollering at women on the street corner,” Tateishi said. “That’s not what craft workers are. We are a career of choice, but we have not told that story.”

In September 2020, after two years of marketing research, GCA launched Build California, an industry campaign aimed at the younger workforce to increase awareness and help generate interest in considering a career in the skilled trades.

“We learned that Gen Z is the first generation where 100% of them were born with basically a tablet in their hand,” he said. “So if something doesn’t catch their eye, they swipe quickly.”

In its research, Tateishi said, the organization found Gen Zers will make an assessment on a commercial in 6-to-8 seconds, so it’s important to get to the point quickly. Gone are the days of older generations who grew up watching television and had to sit through a commercial before getting back to their program, he added.

The organization also discovered that Gen Z will pay attention to messaging if it is informational, educational and authentic, he said.

Job stability

The need to introduce the skilled trades to youth is critical and is starting to happen as early as kindergarten, said Mike Ghilotti, president of San Rafael-based general engineering contractor Ghilotti Bros.

“I know companies that are trying to actively get into kindergarten and grade schools, trying to share construction books and construction toys … and develop that passion early,” he said. “Because a lot of times that is a difference maker.”

Ghilotti also said younger workers who choose a career in the trades may find their lives are less stressful than their white-collar counterparts.

“You're outdoors, you get variety and don’t get stagnant, and you're not commuting to the same place and getting into that grind every day,” Ghilotti said.

And there’s another reason.

“Layoffs in construction are few and far between,” he said. “Look at the next 10 years with the infrastructure spending and how far behind we are in roads and bridges. That’s a great opportunity to have a long-term career that’s already kind of set up for you.”

A change of heart

One of Ghilotti’s employees took a career path that goes against the norm. Reed Carter graduated from California State University, Chico, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in construction management. His intention was to become a project engineer for a big construction company.

But after two summer internships with Ghilotti — the second one working as a project engineer — the 27-year-old had a change of heart — not about the company, but about his line of work.

“It just wasn't necessarily for me, and I told the company that I was going to finish my schooling and get my degree, but I wasn't going to pursue a career path in project engineering,” Carter said. “They thought I was an asset to the company, so they extended an offer to put me through the operators’ union and sponsor me.”

Carter took the opportunity, worked as an operator for the last four years and is now a foreman with Ghilotti, where part of his job requires him to operate heavy equipment.

Still, his college education gave him a leg up. He knows how to read plans and how to build a job from the ground up. Carter noted that college debt wasn’t much of an issue because he was able to secure scholarships and financial aid through most of his schooling.

Carter is a member of Operators Engineers Local Union No. 3., which represents nearly 40,000 members across California, Nevada, Utah and Hawaii, according to its website, which also states it is the largest construction trades local in North America.

Carter is now intent on helping steer the mindset of the generation coming up behind him.

“My little cousin, he's 16, and his family pushes the idea that he needs to go to college, but I always tell him, ‘No, don't feel that pressure,’” Carter said. “Going to trade school for two years, you can learn just as much, or just jumping into the trades after high school. Don’t feel like that’s the life you have to live.”

Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care and employment. She previously worked for a Gannett daily newspaper in New Jersey and NJBIZ, the state’s business journal. Cheryl has freelanced for business journals in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.

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