TRAFALGAR, Ind. -- It's more than watching paint dry. This week more than 160 high school students will watch a parking lot get paved in Trafalgar with their eyes focused on future careers.
The purpose of this project is not only to pave the parking lot of the FFA Leadership center in Johnson County, a not-for-profit organization serving future farmers across our community. The lot itself hasn't seen a fresh coat of asphalt in nearly 20 years. But the Asphalt Pavement Association of Indiana is doing this paving for no cost in partnership with the FFA for #Ag2Asphalt Day in Indiana.
They hope this demonstration and career fair at the site will attract a new generation Hoosiers to the growing construction industry in the Crossroads of America.
"With all of the attention on the need to fix our roads and the added funds from the gas tax increase, our contractors need good workers," says Kirsten Pauley with APAI. "With baby boomer retirements, we’re projecting to loose 10% of our workers in the next 5-7 years."
She says the association, which includes the largest asphalt contractors in the state (including Milestone, E&B, and Rieth-Riley in Indianapolis), recognized the need to recruit teenagers to our industry.
"Construction offers great paying jobs with opportunity for advancement, and many jobs don’t require a college degree," says Pauley.
And that's why the APAI is teaming up with Indiana FFA for this career fair of May 2nd in Trafalgar, to raise awareness among in the FFA's nearly 12,500 members about the need for these workers.
William Knopf is the Executive Director of APAI and posted about the career fair and parking lot paving project on Linkedin.
He writes,"We anticipate between 10-15 information booths, ranging from asphalt mix designer, to quality control technician, to project manager, to estimating, to laborer, operator, safety manager, diesel mechanic, truck driver, equipment manager, accountant, IT specialist, and others."
Of course with any major construction project, they also need engineers. APAI has scholarship programs in place at several Indiana colleges and universities, and representatives from those institutions will also be on site to meet with interested students.
Knopf writes that FFA members both locally and nationally would be perfect individuals to fill these positions, if they choose to do so in the future.
"Members of FFA, both in Indiana as well as the nearly 700,000 members nationally, grow up running and maintaining heavy equipment similar to what our members use to build our state's highway infrastructure," says Knopf. "FFA members learn the value of hard work and long hours, and are used to working outside at times in adverse weather conditions on a seasonal basis."
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