Construction industry faces worker shortage

View Larger The Bottom Line Other Business Features Local Stories from ThisWeek More Articles By Steve Wartenberg The Columbus Dispatch Sunday May 18, 2014 11:10 AM

Like many other high-school students, Alyssa Cuzzolini didnt think of the construction industry as a career path.

I didnt know anything about it, she said.

Then she went to a meeting of the local chapter of the ACE Mentor Program while attending Columbus Downtown High School & Career Center. ACE stands for architecture, construction and engineering.

The goal is to get students to look at the construction industry as an option, said Brian Moran, chairman of the local ACE chapter and a project executive with the Columbus office of Turner Construction.

Its also a goal that has become increasingly urgent as the industry faces a growing worker shortage, especially as construction work rebounds from the recession.

Moran and others in the construction industry hope to increase the number of high school and college students involved in mentoring, vocational and apprentice programs.

Were not seeing anywhere near the number of young people entering the industry as we need, said James Smith, CEO of Elford, a Columbus-based construction company. It hasnt really affected us yet, since were not seeing the volume of work we did 10 or 12 years ago, but we could soon."

In other words, Cuzzolini, 21, probably wont have a tough time finding a job.

She completed the ACE program while in high school; she graduated in 2012. She is majoring in electrical engineering at Ohio Northern University and will spend the summer as an intern at HAWA Inc., a Columbus engineering firm.

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Construction industry faces worker shortage