JAY – The issue the construction industry is facing is an aging work force, Kathleen Newman, president of Associated Builders and Contractors in Maine, said.

“The average age of a construction worker is 48,” she said.

Construction jobs offer greater wages, great benefits, she said.

The average wage in the construction industry in Maine is $15 to $16, she said, and there are 40,526 people employed in the industry.

The Maine Department of Labor predicted there would be 951 new construction jobs in Maine this year, she said, either through job openings or new jobs.

The Associated Builders and Contractors in Maine is trying to entice younger workers to come into the field, she said.

Plumbing program information available

National Center for Construction Education Research curriculum for a trainee plumber during the first year at Livermore Falls High School will include basic safety, introductions to construction math, hand tools, power tools, blue prints, and basic rigging.

It also includes introduction to plumbing trade, tools, math and drawings, and pipe fittings.

Plumbing level two taught in the second year, includes intermediate math, reading commercial drawings, installing drains, valves and water heaters.

Parents and interested students wanting to take the trainee plumbing course from SAD 36 and Jay in September may contact respective high school guidance offices, 897-3428 at Livermore Falls and 897-4336 at Jay. Those from the Foster Regional Applied Technology Center in Farmington may contract center Director Glenn Kapiloff at 778-3562.

LIVERMORE FALLS – Tradesmen are reaching out to a younger generation to get them interested in construction craft trades early on in their school careers.

Businesses find that with young people not entering the trades, the work force is aging and not being replaced by younger workers.

To start, Ranor Inc. of Jay, Associated Builders and Contractors of Maine and SAD 36, Jay School Department and Foster Regional Applied Technology Center in Farmington are partnering to provide a trainee plumber course at Livermore Falls High School. Hands-on work will be offered during two periods of 80 minutes each, both in the classroom and at Ranor’s prefabrication shop in North Jay throughout the school year.

Business and school officials have talked for years about getting a program going for students and now they’ve decided to move forward.

“This is a crawl before a step,” Livermore Falls High School Principal Shawn Lambert said Thursday. “It’s a great thing to be able to offer that resource to our students.”

They will work out the challenges as they get the program going.

“It’s sort of like putting wheels on a car as it’s going down the road,” he said.

Some students have already been identified as participants, he said.

Ranor, a mechanical contractor specializing in plumbing, heating and air condition systems, is providing master plumber Michael Lowe to instruct the course beginning in mid-to-late September.

Lowe has been through the National Center for Construction Education Research’s train the trainer program, Tim Madden, human resource manager in charge of training, safety and loss control at Ranor, said Wednesday.

“Ranor is entering this training agreement because of the lack of qualified craftspeople in our area that we have to hire,” Madden said. “We’re just not seeing the young people coming into the trade to replace these older workers because pretty much a lot of potential workers are being steered into the service-related type occupations. There is a lot of need for that out there but we need plumbers, sheet rockers and carpenters, too.”

Students need to be age 16 or older to participate in the course and will be signed up as trainee plumbers with the state of Maine so they may accumulate hours toward their license while they’re training, Madden said.

You need 4,000 hours to get a journeyman license, he said, which is a plumber who can do work on his or her own that a master plumber checks.

Madden said because of the age restriction, they’re thinking the course will be offered to juniors and seniors.

Eventually, Madden said, they’re hoping to get the state to drop the age to 14 to get more students involved, and to offer an overview of a sprinkling of construction trades at the middle school level so the decision-making process happens earlier in high school.

The high school course will follow the National Center for Construction Education Research’s Contren Learning Series curriculum with students being taught core curriculum and Plumbing Level One the first year and Plumbing Level Two the second year, Madden said.

Once the program is up and running, Madden said, they hope to get an articulation agreement with Washington County Community College, which has a plumbing program Ranor has hired from.

The college would review the curriculum and program to decide whether it is acceptable for students to receive college credit for courses they are completing in high school.

“They would do two levels at high school and they would do two levels up there to complete the four level program,” he said. “Part of this articulation agreement is if we provide enough academic rigor, they are going to give these kids credit for high school credits towards an associate’s degree, if kids choose to go that way,” Madden said.

Plumbing is just the beginning of the programs that could be offered in craft trades. “We want to see a carpentry program going somewhere, an electrical program going somewhere and all the other construction crafts,” he said.

This is a good opportunity for potential mechanical engineers who take this program in high school. The practical training and experience students would receive in high school would put them far ahead of other students entering college seeking to be engineers, Madden said.

There are 18 schools in the state – high school or regional technical centers – using the National Center for Construction Education Research’s curriculum to teach craft construction trades, he said.