CONSTRUCTION
Building
Ages
for
the
The construction industry needs to overcome a labor
shortage, generational shift and new challenges
brought on by the coronavirus pandemic
BY Jeff Wilser
It looks a bit like the Oscars. A man in a tuxedo
presents the awards. A crowd erupts in applause.
Then Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg
comes on screen, holds a white construction helmet
and gives a brief speech. “Now, more than
ever, it is important to dream big as we turn the
page of history to design, to engineer and to construct
our future,” he says. “Congratulations.” Checks
made out to high school and college students
appear — it’s scholarship money for them to
pursue careers in the construction industry.
And this all happened during the
stay-at-home order caused by the coronavirus
pandemic.
The May 7 awards ceremony for the
Design Build Competition, hosted by the
Sacramento Regional Builders Exchange (an
industrial and commercial construction association
known as SRBX), like the competition itself, was
supposed to be in person. Then COVID-19 forced it to
become virtual. The applauding crowd in the video
was footage from long-ago Academy Awards ceremonies.
The checks were shown on-screen. Everyone
spoke from their home or office.
The man in the tuxedo was Jordan Blair, executive
director of the association’s Education Foun-
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62 comstocksmag.com | July 2020