The Alaska Contractor - Summer 2008
The Alaska Contractor - Summer 2008
The Alaska Contractor - Summer 2008
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Gravel. <strong>The</strong>y were discussing a recent<br />
cable television program that looked<br />
at a company’s worst nightmare – a<br />
truck full of hardened concrete. No way<br />
around it, Norton said. You’ve got to put<br />
some elbow grease into it.<br />
“I’ve chipped out numerous trucks.<br />
But hey, you get paid by the hour,” he<br />
joked with Dauphin.<br />
Norton put students on the hot seat,<br />
asking them what kind of truck he was<br />
standing next to. No, he would say again<br />
and again, it’s not a cement truck. Cement<br />
is to concrete what flour is to bread,<br />
and that, he said, is a concrete truck.<br />
Like many of the tradespeople at the<br />
event, Norton seemed to have a natural<br />
way with the young people. But he’s an<br />
old hand. For years he has been teaching<br />
sixth-graders in the Anchorage School<br />
District through a business partnership.<br />
He seems to enjoy a back-and-forth camaraderie<br />
with students, but he also has<br />
ulterior motives.<br />
“We are having a really difficult time<br />
forming our crews,” Norton said. <strong>The</strong> average<br />
age of a construction worker is 47,<br />
he said, and, by middle school, young<br />
people are already eliminating construction<br />
trades from their lists of possibilities.<br />
“I tell them, some of you might not<br />
be destined for construction, and that’s<br />
all right,” he said. But for at least a few, it<br />
is a perfect fit.<br />
“We all shine in a different light,”<br />
he said.<br />
Colony High student Ashley Placzek<br />
seemed to shine in that light. She handled<br />
a cutting torch with ease outside<br />
Raven Hall and said she wants to go<br />
on to be an aviation mechanic. She and<br />
the other students who came through<br />
the station impressed Michael Yewell, a<br />
first-year apprentice who was instructing<br />
the torch cutting. He said the teenagers<br />
were eager and paying attention<br />
even while they were standing in the<br />
long line waiting their turn.<br />
And a few of the students went above<br />
and beyond in taking advantage of the<br />
opportunities the career day offered.<br />
“I got three jobs lined up today,” said<br />
Palmer High senior David Needham,<br />
who hopes to someday be a plumber<br />
or do mechanical work on the North<br />
Slope. He said a series of family and<br />
friend connections, combined with the<br />
trade representatives at the fair, allowed<br />
him to get three apprenticeship possi-