But the scope of job opportunities in Hawai'i's exploding construction industry truly hit Forrest when he met a woman with a degree in Hawaiian studies from the University of Hawai'i who worked for an engineering and planning company.

Her job is to provide a "Hawaiian sense of place" for her company's design plans.

"There are all kinds of opportunities," said Forrest, who spent July visiting job sites and meeting construction leaders all over the Islands. "We met people with medical backgrounds, people from the liberal arts, people in sales, payroll, providing technology support."

Aumua and Forrest were among four veteran high school teachers from Kahuku and Campbell high schools who spent a month taking a closer look at Hawai'i's construction industry through a pilot internship program organized by the Department of Education and Pacific Resource Partnership, an advocacy group for union contractors.

The program re-educated and re-energized each of the four teachers and gave them real-life experiences to share with their students just as they begin the new school year.

Bruce Coppa, director of Pacific Resource Partnership, emphasized that the teachers will not be asked to recruit construction workers from their high schools.

But Coppa pushed for the program because he guessed that Hawai'i's teachers have the same stereotypes of construction workers as most people.

And Coppa was right.

"I was shocked to find out how much they didn't know about our industry," Coppa said. "They though it was slamming hammers and pouring concrete. They didn't realize how many other things are connected."

The teachers — Aumua and Forrest from Kahuku and Robert Samson and Wendell Tashiro of Campbell — were stunned by how many jobs exist for office workers, college-educated employees and others with little interest in pounding nails and twisting pipe.

And they discovered that the jobs pay pretty well.

Campbell High School instructor Robert Samson helps student David Kim, 17, with a project.

The one-month experience helped spark the enthusiasm for all of the teachers, including Samson, a Campbell teacher with 30 years' experience.

"I definitely got a boost," Samson said. "Just right now, I can open the school year and tell my students things that will grab their attention right away. But the message can't just come from the career and technical-ed teachers. It has to come from the English teacher. It has to come from the math teacher. It has to come from the science teacher. All of the other academic areas have to understand that the construction industry affects everybody."

The Department of Education will look at how the teachers incorporate their July experiences into their classrooms this year before deciding whether to continue the program next summer.

Christina Shioi, an educational specialist with the DOE, hopes it will continue and expects to see at least eight teachers involved next year. "We're already planning for next summer," Shioi said. "It's going to grow."

The goal of the program was to debunk the stereotype that construction jobs are only for students with no college futures, Shioi said.

For those who do want to join the industry right out of high school, Aumua and Tashiro have a new message this year:

The best workers with the best work ethics will have plenty of work for years to come.

"Every single company we went to focused on the same things: work ethic, positive attitude, competence, knowledge and skills," said Aumua, who teaches drafting, woodworking and building and construction classes at Kahuku.

It was the same lesson that Tashiro learned, one that he plans on reinforcing in his electronics and drafting classes at Campbell.

"What took me by surprise was the stability of employment for good workers," Tashiro said. "So I want to stress to my students that they need to have a good, positive attitude, be willing to come to class and work hard."