Matt Pruss, Pruss Excavation, Dodge, Nebraska, has been named Equipment World’s 2021 Contractor of the Year.

In accepting the award, Pruss said: “This is a great group of contractors and I was super excited to meet them. I’m very honored to be part of this.”

The construction linage is deep in the Pruss family. Matt’s grandfather, Jim Sr., started Pruss Excavation in 1968. His father, also named Jim, joined him four years later, and Matt came on board in 2001. The company now has 40 employees and has $7 to $10 million in annual revenues performing levees, road work, wetlands, site work and lagoons.

The event also marks the first time in the program’s 21-year-history that the succeeding generation of a former finalist has been named both a finalist and a winner. Jim Pruss Jr. was a Contractor of the Year finalist in 2004. 

The company now works within a 250-mile radius of its Dodge, Nebraska, headquarters. Local authorities called on the firm when two major floods hit Nebraska in 2011 and 2019. The company’s existing fleet of pull-behind scrapers plus a few more that it bought from as far away as Florida proved themselves on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood mitigation projects during the 2011 flood.

“That was our huge giant boost,” Matt says. “We went from $3 million a year to $8 million.”

That work ethic continued on the next major flood Nebraska went through, this time in 2019. “They continued to push through on our job even while they were doing levee work for the state,” says one client. “It was a big deal. Matt knows he can’t just be an owner and pick up a paycheck. He’s very involved and he drives the ship on their modeling.”

The Equipment World Contractor of the Year program has been sponsored by Caterpillar since its inception in 2000. It recognizes contractors who display the highest standards of business acumen, equipment management expertise, attention to safety and community involvement. Each year, 12 finalists receive an expense-paid trip to Las Vegas to participate in roundtables and an award ceremony.

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Still looking for the proverbial easy button to fill your talent pipeline? We hate to break it to you: there isn’t one.

“If you’re in this industry and not being the biggest promoter of it, you’re part of the problem,” says Benjamin Holmgren, president of Buildwitt Jobs. “You’re not going to solve it for the industry. Solve it for you.”

Holmgren was joined by Natasha Sherwood, executive director of the Independent Electrical Contractors Florida West Coast Chapter, and Steve Cona III, president and CEO of the Associated Builders and Contractors Florida Gulf Coast Chapter, in a recent panel discussion led by Autumn Sullivan, director of marketing and experience for Mobilization Funding.

The panel explored the issue of why skilled trade workers are leaving the industry, the impact of culture on recruitment and retention, and what companies can do to increase their talent pipeline.

Recruiting and retaining the next generation

So, can everyone stop blaming millennials already? Continuing to drone on about how millennials lack worth ethic is so 2010. Older millennials, those born in the 1980s, are established and in positions of power in their careers. Where the industry needs to focus its attention is Gen Z and Gen Alpha. 

“I don’t believe it’s so much a labor shortage, as a shortage of leaders who know how to lead the next generation,” said Holmgren. “Kids my age want to have a mission to get behind. They want to have a vision. They want to be led, trained and developed.”

The companies that have solved this understand this workforce development crisis is not about millennials. “Taking ownership of solving this for your company is the elixir,” said Holmgren.

Shop class makes its comeback

Getting in front of Gen Z and Gen Alpha starts in school. Trade education in middle school and high school was nearly extinct but is slowly making a comeback. Until there is wider support for the curriculum at a state and district level, getting involved at an individual level is critical.

Construction companies can help through apprenticeships and mentor programs. Contractors involved in mentorship see better hiring success because they already have name recognition with students, panelists said.

“The greatest benefit to our industry would be a solid pipeline out of high school and into the trades,” said Cona. “It has to be a statewide effort in our educational system to promote opportunities in all occupations that don’t necessarily require a four-year degree. The average age of our apprentice is 26-27 years old, and we have to get that lower to 21-22 years old. It can’t be an afterthought.”

Outside of local efforts, Holmgren suggests meeting the younger generation where they are online.

“It’s one thing to put on a trade show or job fair, but what about Instagram? TikTok? One thing you can start doing today is using social media to tell the story of your business and show people what it’s really like to work in your industry. It’s not that you have to make it look cool; the trades are already cool. Come join us – that’s what we need to be telling people.”

Work culture in construction 

Taking ownership of the construction recruitment and retention problem also means taking a hard look at company culture. For better or worse, every company has a culture. How that culture has evolved depends on how it is emulated and nurtured daily.

Work culture has been cited as a major factor in many skilled-trade veterans leaving their employer or the industry entirely. While culture is a hot topic in the construction industry, and often framed as something only young people are pushing for, it has a significant impact on retention across the board.

“You can tell that no matter the age of the employee, they are all looking for a culture that has a family atmosphere, opportunities for advancement, flexible hours and good benefits,” said Sherwood. “I just helped a fourth-year apprentice graduate who had an opportunity to go anywhere. He took a job at a company that paid $2 less an hour because it was a good fit. There’s that level of appreciation that is sometimes more important than the dollar bottom line.”

lternative talent pipelines

Beyond young people, there are many other viable talent pools and untapped markets to help fill the skilled-worker pipeline. Correctional institutions, foster care systems and the military are just a few options.

“We’re looking for all sorts of avenues to fill that pipeline, and one of those is folks coming out of corrections,” said Cona. “We’re getting asked by state leaders and politicians to work with them to help develop skills while people are still incarcerated. So whenever they get out, they can get plugged back into society. If you can give people opportunities and jobs when they get out of being incarcerated, their chances of going back are very slim.”

“The military does a great job recruiting kids, with ROTC officers and billboard campaigns,” said Sullivan. “The trades need to be seen as a viable option. You can feed your family, you can travel around the country – there’s a lot of opportunity depending on where you want to go with it.”

Continuing education for retention

While there are required continuing education credits in the construction industry, employers should also consider training that provides employees with a path toward a goal they value, such as moving from apprentice to superintendent.

“In this day and age in this economy, you have to invest in training your workforce. There are no unemployed electricians and plumbers sitting on the sideline,” said Cona. “You have to build your pipeline by investing in people who might not necessarily have the skills that you need at that time. Invest in your employees, train them, put them in apprenticeship programs and maintain it through their lifecycle as an employee.”

An engaged employee is someone who stays with you.

Changing the narrative

While the narrative that construction is a dead-end job is a systemic problem, individual companies can start making strides today to reframe the conversation and illuminate the opportunities.

“This country was built because people learned skills, created things and built things. No one can say this country was built because people went to college. That’s what we need to continue to push,” said Cona. “As parents, as an industry, we need to be better at pushing the narrative that this is a viable option.”

“Don’t people get tired of talking about finding good help?” adds Holmgren. “We know you can’t find good help. Do something.”

“I’m not interested in solving the industry’s labor-shortage challenge, but if there is one person who can take something from this and it lights a spark and they can solve it for them, that’s a win.”

Watch the full webinar here.

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If you’re a woman working in the post-pandemic world, construction isn’t a bad place to be. While there is still a wage gap between men and women, it’s less than in other industries, with women earning 99.1% of what their male counterparts make.

The pandemic hasn’t slowed things down, either. A survey of 700 women in construction in March found that 58% said they’re working about the same compared with before the pandemic, while nearly one-third (32%) said they’re working more, and only 1 in 10 reported working fewer hours. Meanwhile, 71% said opportunities are on the increase, while 28% said they were about the same, leaving just 1% to report they were declining.

This leaves women in construction with a leg up on women in other fields, such as retail and hospitality, who have been struggling to retain their jobs during the pandemic. Instead of scrambling to get back to where they were pre-COVID, many women in construction are riding the crest of a wave.

Opportunities Abound

Restaurant, retail, and travel industry closures hit women in those industries hard. Employment in February was down by 383,000 jobs compared with the year-earlier total in retail alone. Leisure and hospitality employment job losses were even worse, at 3.9 million.

Although many jobs in the latter sector are opening back up as travel and tourism increase, many displaced workers will see a chance to shift gears and find opportunities await in construction, where a March estimate identified a need for 200,000 skilled craft professionals. And these positions pay well, upwards of $66,000 for a carpenter, for example. To compare, a general contractor can make an average salary of $70,000 to $95,000 a year.

There’s room for growth, too: Women make up just 10.3% of the construction workforce, which means there’s both a challenge and an opportunity.

Stereotypes Persist

Many women may not even consider construction because of stereotypes that have kept trade industries male-dominated for some time. Media representations from Bob the Builder to Wreck it Ralph to Tim Allen’s Home Improvement are geared toward male audiences.

Women, meanwhile, have been dismissed as no longer “needed” in construction jobs.This is similar to what happened after World War II ended, with “homemaker” conventions resurfacing to replace Rosie the Riveter.

It’s still assumed by many that construction is a male industry. But that’s simply a false assumption, and it’s limiting both women and the companies that could be benefiting from their talents.

Challenging those stereotypes will be important moving forward in order to take advantage of opportunities that are opening up. A more diverse workforce increases the labor pool. It also boosts productivity and provides a greater variety of perspectives to promote innovation and better decision-making.

Technologies & Trends Emerge

From drones and artificial intelligence to 3D printing and modeling, construction technology is becoming more relevant by the day. As the industry as a whole embraces data as a driving factor in decision-making, it is becoming more obvious that the soft skills women bring to the table as effective communicators and team players improve both productivity and safety. That means, for women in tech, the emphasis on working smarter could help them get their foot in the proverbial door.

Similarly, emerging trends in construction will expand opportunities for women in tech to break into adjacent industries. For example, new directives designed to address the climate crisis have resulted in an industry-wide push to achieve net-zero energy in both new construction and retrofitting. As a result, subcontractors in heating, plumbing, electrical, and alternative energy (to name a few) will be looking for sustainability experts to help them “go green” and stay relevant.

Entrepreneurship is Rewarded

Self-employed construction workers are a force to be reckoned with. More than 23% of U.S. construction workers were self-employed in 2018, compared to 10% of the broader workforce.

As of 2016, more than one-third of carpenters (33.6%) were self-employed, nearly 42% of floor layers were, along with 38% of construction managers and 41.3% of construction and maintenance painters.

That means there’s plenty of opportunity to be your own boss under the right conditions. Of course, that takes understanding things like the need for various kinds of insurance, such as workers’ compensation (if you have employees), property and liability, and general liability.

It also means having enough capital and credit to make a go of it. If you’re thinking of going into business yourself, now is the time to get your finances in order so you’ll be in a position to invest in yourself and your company. As an added bonus, taking steps to build your credit can save you up to $11,460 per year in interest rates and fees on loans and credit cards.

## Alternatives are Available
If you have taken time off from your career, either due to the pandemic or personal reasons, you have options. Returnships encourage professionals who’ve taken a break from the workforce to get back in the game.

These paid internships allow companies and potential employees to get a feel for each other and provide training that can help in the long run, whether you wind up with that particular company or not. Companies like CDM Smith and Caterpillar are among those that offer or have offered returnships, often with a focus on women.

Opportunities in construction will continue to expand, but as stereotypes persist, it’s important for women to remain confident in what they have to offer, because it’s significant. Women can provide a broader and more diverse pool of labor and ideas that will serve the construction industry well in the years to come.

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Jessica Larson is a married Midwestern mom and a solopreneur. She creates online courses for students, and has started and run several other businesses through the years. Her goals are to support her family while still actually spending time with them, to act as an entrepreneurial role model for her two daughters, and to share what she has learned through The Solopreneur Journal.

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It’s tedious, time-consuming and often overlooked. A fresh paint job may not be on the top of your preventive maintenance priority list, but it’s a critical step to extend the life of your equipment.

Paint protects your equipment from harsh weather conditions, prevents rust and corrosion, maximizes resale value and ensures a professional image.

The process is simple, but even with the right tools, it can be painstaking. You can buy a sandblaster, pressure washer and paint gun to do the job yourself or have your local dealer do the refurbishing for you.

Here is the process for painting construction equipment:

1. Prepare the surfaces

The quality of the final paint job is all in the preparation. To start, remove all decals from the machine. A heat gun or adhesive remover and a scraper will make this process easier.

Next, manually or mechanically sand the machine to remove the old paint. Pay special attention to areas that have rust or corrosion. Use a wire brush or grinding attachment on deep pockmarks. And as always, wear personal protective equipment to prevent skin lesions, eye contamination or particle inhalation.

Finally, replace or repair any dented or damaged external parts. If you can’t find replacement parts for older machines, you can also patch the area with a fiberglass filler or polyester resin.

2. Clean and degrease

After the surface is prepared, thoroughly clean the machine. Use a pressure washer, washing detergent and degreasing agent to remove all dirt and contaminants. Any dirt or grease residue left on the machine will ruin paint adhesion, so washing the machine more than once may be necessary.

Make sure to comply with local environmental regulations for contaminated wash water disposal. Allowing wash water to enter the surface and groundwater reservoirs can result in hefty fines, jail time and expensive cleanup.

3. Preparing equipment for painting

Once the machine is smooth, clean and dry, the surface is ready for masking. Fancy supplies aren’t necessary for this step; masking tape, masking paper, cardboard and plastic will do the trick.

Remove any accessories, such as mirrors or mud flaps, that should not be painted. Tape off any parts or accessories, like door handles or chrome, that cannot be removed. Cover tires and tracks and windows with paper or plastic.

If you are painting indoors, protect the floor and surfaces in your shop with cardboard and plastic draping – overspray will happen. A proper ventilation system is also critical to remove any harmful paint fumes.

If you are painting outdoors, keep temperature and wind conditions in mind. Paint will not dry properly in cold temperatures, and high winds will result in dust, uneven coverage and excess overspray.

4. Paint the machine

Spraying paint will guarantee even coverage and a smoother finish than rolling or brushing.

Professional painters recommend using an HVLP (high-volume/low-pressure) spray gun set between 25-30 psi. Ideally, the temperature should be around 68°F to ensure proper paint viscosity and adhesion.

Always hold the gun perpendicular to the surface of the equipment. Maintain a constant distance of about 6 to 8 inches away from what you are spraying. Start with the edges and hard-to-reach areas before painting the larger flat areas, moving the gun at a steady rate of travel.

Apply a primer to areas where bare steel or filler is exposed. Allow the primer to dry for 24 hours before applying the base coat. Apply the paint in thin, even layers. Wait 15 to 20 minutes or until the paint is tacky to the touch before applying the next coat. As a rule of thumb, use two to three coats of paint to ensure adequate coverage and durability.

Take proper precautions to ventilate the space and protect your eyes, nose, mouth and skin from dangerous fumes and chemicals. A full-body paint suit, respirator mask and gloves are essential.  

5. Apply decals

Once the paint has dried for at least 24 hours, you can apply new decals to the machine.

The key to installing any decal and making it last is having a clean surface before you start. Wipe the area with rubbing alcohol to ensure proper adhesion. Position the decal on the machine with tape and mark the location where you intend to place it with a pencil. Carefully remove the backing and position the top corners on your pencil marks. Take a squeegee and slowly smooth the decal onto the machine, starting at the top and working your way to the bottom and edges, removing any air bubbles along the way.

Now that your machine looks close to new, you can earn top dollar for your trade-in or turn some heads on the next jobsite. 

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