LEGACY BUILDING IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
“Look all around you. What can you see that has been created, built, and maintained by the trades?” My Pops loved this question. He’d ask me wherever we’d go – local or on the road. When I was very young, my answers were simple as my understanding of the construction trades was just beginning to evolve. As I aged, my mind would wander deep into the infrastructure and composition of thoroughfares, signal systems, cell towers, clean energy, electrical grids, building and demolition of structures, building remediation and structural reinforcement, utilities, bridges, persons who kept the boilers operational in the cold of winter, and those that built the bleachers and laid the floor for the basketball/volleyball court at my school.
When you think about building a legacy, what do you think of? In the construction trades legacy is all around you, everywhere you go, keeping our cities, towns, and communities thriving for centuries to come. The legacies you build stand the test of time and connect every person in our region to the larger world. Would you go further to say legacy in the construction industry has several more meanings than objects involving our physical labor?
I also think of legacy through my childhood and what my Pops built for me. A choice for my own future. The tools and knowledge to design, build, and create my own professional path. The opportunity to be the first person in my family to graduate from university. The legacy to be where my passion, abilities, knowledge, and skills grew and evolved. The legacy I am now privileged to live – and continue to build – through the Construction Center of Excellence.
There is another legacy for us to consider today on International Workers Day. People around the world that keep us all connected, our cities growing and resilient, our supply chain globally linked. As the construction workforce continues to grow and change, part of the legacy we must build is that of access and opportunity for all persons in our state to join the trades as their calling and occupational journey. This will require us all to work diligently to remove historical oppressions and biases within a system that was not built for a majority of today’s workforce to navigate. Marginalized communities – BIPOC, women, and LGBTQIA+ - have survived in the construction industry for decades – navigating biases, hatred, and violence to be part of what the construction industry is at its very core - a place where every hand contributes to a legacy for all peoples.
When you think of legacy…what do you personally want to build for your trade, union, employer, brothers and sisters, community, and your family?
You'll see a lot of legacy-building changes-in-action at the Construction Center of Excellence as we learn from the current and future workforce: what is needed in the industry, education, access, equity, and inclusion. Taking time and listening for your feedback regarding what we're building, why we're building it, and who we're building it for. We recently completed a brand narrative exploration with the incredible creative marketing agency Route586. We’ll be rolling out our revised overview, market position, purpose, mission, vision, values, and audience focus statements later this month.
At the Construction Center of Excellence, we hope to collaborate with our industry partners and build legacy through training, online learning opportunities, podcasts, resources, toolbox talks updates, website overhaul, communities of practice, connections with major systems such as K-12 and postsecondary education, government, and more that we have not yet even realized.
Access while eliminating barriers to the trades is a starting point…diversity is key to industry evolution…inclusion and equity will build a stronger and more powerful construction workforce than has even been witnessed. I’ll be writing in the weeks to come about eliminating barriers to apprenticeship. This comes from my work experiences learning the crafts from my Pops at home, in the pulp and paper industry that paid for me to attend college, my time in income-restricted residential construction, creating the foundation of the Palmer Pathways Pre-Apprenticeship, learning opportunities presented from multiple partner organizations, apprenticeships, unions, and from some incredible mentors who have advised and guided my career journey.
Every lesson is priceless and contributes to multiple legacies. I’m grateful for my Pops who taught me to “breathe life into my craft” daily and to never stop learning and refining my own trade. My Pops taught me that the trades are everywhere around us, every day, in everything we do. Construction work is the living legacy and history of our world. I still find that lesson as magical as I did the first time my Pops explained it to me all those years ago.
Looking forward to learning from and working with you so we can “lift as we build” legacy together for future generations.
In community with gratitude,
Christina Rupp, MA Ed.
Director, Washington State Construction Center of Excellence.
