The work is good for now for construction workers such as Lewis, 19, of Wai'anae. He's an "Apprentice 40 Percent," which means Lewis makes 40 percent of the $31.55 hourly wage for journeyman carpenters.

But Lewis hopes his fortunes will get even better.

In a couple of years, Lewis hopes to earn top scale on new job sites when construction and renovation begins on $2.2 billion worth of military homes across O'ahu.

"More money, more jobs," Lewis said, just before climbing a ladder to return to his caulking duties. "And a future for me and my wife and my kids."

The work to build and refurbish 7,700 military homes is expected to take 10 years and has officials from Gov. Linda Lingle to the building industry to unions scrambling to train untold numbers of apprentices to fill every job with local workers.

Hawai'i's 30 trade unions are particularly interested because they want to sign agreements with the developers of the separate Army, Navy and Air Force projects to restrict the jobs to union work.

The projects also have given unions reason to re-establish contact with former Hawai'i construction workers on the Mainland who want to return to the Islands.

District Council 50, which represents more than 1,500 painters, dry-wall finishers, glazers and floor layers, lost half of its membership over the past 10 years as construction jobs dried up in Hawai'i.

As news of the military projects has spread, the local has gotten e-mails and phone calls from transplanted laborers from Las Vegas to Oregon.

"We're saying, 'Hold on, hold on,'" said Lynn Kinney, the union's business manager, secretary and treasurer. "We can provide 90 percent, if not 100 percent, of the work with the people we have here. If not, our first step is to call out to the local boys and say, 'OK, it's time to come home.'"

Screening and training

Much of the optimism that jobs can be filled locally comes from recent efforts to recruit and train more union apprentices. Each of the unions screens applicants and sends the qualified ones on to Honolulu Community College for additional training.

"This military work is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will require large numbers of tradesmen," said Ron Taketa, financial secretary and business representative for the Hawaii Carpenters Union Local 745. "I don't want anybody spreading rumors that we will not have enough qualified craftsmen in Hawai'i, because we will."

Nobody expects that Hawai'i's current 26,700 construction workers can fill all of the jobs and still satisfy Hawai'i's red-hot civilian home construction market. But nobody also has an exact idea how many positions will be needed and how many apprentices can be trained in time.

To help find out, Hawai'i's congressional delegation wants to hold a summit by the end of the year that will involve developers, unions, government leaders and industry groups to inventory both the needs and the expected number of workers.

Hawai'i's trade unions already have started cranking up the number of workers it sends to Honolulu Community College for instruction.

Last year, Honolulu Community College had 1,600 apprentices. This semester the number jumped to 2,000. And next semester the program expects to add another 300 apprentices — mostly carpenters and dry-wall finishers.

"They're all preparing for this construction boom," said Wilfred Arakaki, HCC's apprenticeship coordinator.

"We're trying to train as many as we can. We don't turn away anybody."

But state money available at HCC hasn't kept up with rising enrollment, Arakaki. And he's having trouble paying for all of the extra instructors.

"We're stuck," Arakaki said. "We don't have enough money.

"We've got to create new classes. But there's no extra resources. (The apprentices) have already been recruited and we've got to get them ready."

Hawai'i's construction industry now finds itself with enviable problems.

Contrasting decades

In the 1980s, fueled by a Japanese investment boom, construction in Hawai'i represented a $4-billion-a-year industry, second only to tourism. But the start of the Gulf War and the bursting of the Japanese investment bubble sent the industry plummeting to just over $2 billion throughout the 1990s.

"Because of the slowdown in our economy, they pretty much slowed down recruitment of apprenticeship programs over the past seven years," said Karen Nakamura, executive vice president of the Building Industry AssociationiHawai'i.

Recent low interest rates, however, unleashed pent-up demand for new housing. And this year, Hawai'i's construction industry is expected to top $3 billion for the first time in more than a decade.

Hawai'i Carpenters Union Local 745, which has 5,700 carpenters, also wants to build its own training center somewhere in the Kapolei area.

HCC's training site mostly works with apprentices only on Saturdays. The carpenters center would instead run at night and on weekends and other off hours, allowing apprentices to continue logging hours on their job sites.

Taketa declined to specify the cost, size or exact location of the center because several proposals are being considered.

"But we're definitely beefing up our apprenticeship program," Taketa said. "Not just for future need, but for the present need."

For the present need, 27-year-old Daniel Gonzalez of Makakilo was busy at work last week installing the outer walls to three- and four-bedroom under construction in Kunia.

Gonzalez, who is also an Apprentice 40 Percent, got into construction five months ago because of the promise of a future building military homes.

"Plen'y years of work," Gonzalez said. "That's where the jobs are gonna be."