The Federal Highway Administration has awarded a $250,000 grant to the University of New Hampshire to improve the state’s highway construction workforce training. The new training program is designed to create a pipeline for private employers and municipalities who desperately need more workers to help build highways, bridges and other infrastructure.
The workforce shortage isn’t specific to New Hampshire. Nationally, 89% of construction firms said they struggled to find qualified workers despite a constant demand for road construction projects, according to UNH’s Technology Transfer Center.
“Our biggest client is the [NH Department of Transportation],” Cody McGraw, a construction superintendent with the Plymouth-based company RM Piper, said. At times the company has struggled to maintain enough workers to complete state transportation projects while staying on budget and meeting the deadline.
“There's a ceiling in which you can't accomplish jobs without more people than what you have,” McGraw said.
A shortage of workers can lead to bridge or road construction projects going over budget and dragging on far longer than planned. McGraw also said the workforce as a whole is aging, and existing workers are at risk of burnout.
The new UNH training program will have two tracks to grow the workforce: one focused on teaching adults seeking a career change, and the other for high school students to learn about the potential careers in the transportation construction industries.
Marilee Enus, the director of UNH’s Technology Transfer Center that will run the program, said many high schoolers, even those enrolled in trade programs, don’t know that highway construction is a career path.
“Everybody kind of grows up knowing what a doctor does,” Enus said. “Many young people never meet the people who design or build or maintain the transportation system.”
The high school track will have about 15 people in a cohort starting this October and going through next year, where they’ll have monthly training sessions and a week of field work on construction sites. The adult track is tentatively scheduled to begin in December and will be an entry-level course in skills highway construction employers are looking for: heavy equipment awareness, work zone safety, knowledge of roadway materials and environmental considerations on site.
Brooke Hayward is a construction superintendent with Pike Industries in Belmont; she started as a traffic coordinator after spending years as a paraeducator in elementary schools. She said that the UNH training can set someone up for success, but most employers will teach you on the job.
“There's so many [positions] you can try,” Hayward-Miller said. “And with the shortage of help, there's a lot of opportunity in the construction field. Not everyone has to be a laborer.”
