MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – High school students are getting a chance to find their career path in the trades, at the Construction Council’s Building Trades Summer Camp. 29 Highschool students are actively earning while they learn and gaining interest and experience in a field that they can call a career for the rest of their lives.
Pictued below is a spider crane, one of the machines these students are working with and Career and Outreach Coordinator John Hartwell commented that utilizing hands-on learning will give these students more tools to take the next step in their career.
“So on the Spider crane today we actually started with them and went through crane set up and safety, hand signaling to make sure we can get the load where it’s going,” said Hartwell. 14 to 17-year-old students will spend the next five weeks working on jobs focusing on excavating, framing, and carpentry all wrapped into one program. Some of the finished projects will be farmers’ market stands that will be going to the city of Negaunee.
“They’ll actually be able to drive by and see what they’ve constructed just like a regular construction worker and say hey I built that,” commented UPCC Executive Director Michael Smith.
“These students could come through this piece and step right into a DOL-registered apprenticeship program and get started in the trades,” continued Hartwell. Each student is making $12/hour for a 4-hour shift and split up into groups to work on one task. By the next day they’ll switch to a different trade.
Just finishing her freshman year, Building Trades Student Isabelle Niemi knows this field all too well from her father working in the trades and commented that even though college is an existing opportunity, the trades is always a good skill to develop in the back pocket.
“When my mom was looking on Facebook and saw this opportunity and she called me straight away and was like this is awesome and I was like yes it is,” said Niemi. She’s learning everything from the foundation to the completed project and commented that sometimes these opportunities may be hidden but she’s definitely not one to shy away. “We did everything we used this to move it around so we could pick up those bars and we also switched so then I could also hook up those to that,” continued Niemi.
Click here for more details on the Upper Peninsula Construction Council Building Trades Summer Camp.
