Q: These must be good times to be in your job compared to 10 years ago, when the construction industry was depressed?

A: "It's happy days. Ten years (ago) ... construction jobs were leaving the state in droves. We went from 10,000 members to less than 4,000 after the economy tanked (following the bust in Japanese investment in Hawai'i). Now we have the inverse problem where (we) have too many jobs and not enough guys to do the jobs. ... We anticipate needing 180 new carpenters every year for the next six years.

"We're trying to create opportunities for local kids for really positive long-term outlook for the industry where you can have a generation of carpenters working for the next 20 or 30 years. One of the things we're working on with the DOE and the community colleges is the construction academy ... a pilot project involving eight high schools in the DOE for about $1.7 million for new curriculum in areas of carpentry, electricity, safety, blueprint reading, all that kind of good stuff.

"The industry found that the DOE schools were still teaching things like creating wooden doorstops or a wooden birdbath, things that employers don't necessarily need anymore. It was more of a hobby shop for bad boys than being a rigorous hands-on curriculum. So the grant went to create new curriculum. Part of that went for teacher training. So for the eight public high schools — all of their teachers for the last two summers have been going to (Honolulu Community College) for two weeks to train on the new curriculum. We're looking at doing more of that."

Q: Why aren't more local kids turning to construction? Most of the other jobs they can get aren't going to pay them what they earn in construction.

A: "If you compare wages between the service sector economy/tourism, their average wages are about $18 an hour. Whereas the construction wage is about $36 an hour and that's just the wage, not the total package."

Q: So why is the construction industry still struggling to find enough workers?

A: "There's always been a stigma attached with a career in the trades. And not enough has been done to promote the benefits of being in the trades. Hawai'i, behind Nevada, is the fastest growing state in terms of personal income for construction workers. Two, it is hard work. It's not an easy job to be in the hot sun working with your hands. ... I also think that our schools have fallen short in terms of promoting the trades as a viable opportunity. When we got this grant, we went to Kealakehe High School (in Kona) on the Big Island to make a presentation. Because it's a new high school they have state-of-the art shops for carpentry, automotive. It's so clean you could eat off the floor. They have equipment that would rival the community college but they were having study hall in the shops because their principal couldn't hire a qualified teacher to teach the trades. ... One of the problems we're dealing with is that you can have a 20-year master journeyman who is not qualified to teach in the DOE because they don't have the appropriate teacher standards."

Q: Who is being targeted for the next generation of Hawai'i construction workers? Are they the kids that probably aren't going to go to college or have no ambition to go to college? Or is that a stereotype?

A: "Not necessarily. It's not just the carpenters who are needed by the industry. There's a shortage of engineers. There's a shortage of architects. There's a shortage of construction managers. Estimators. Safety."

Q: How do you attract that group?

A: "We think that if we have courses in the DOE that are actually interesting and exciting and hands-on then more kids are going to be interested."

Q: Which islands are having the biggest construction labor shortages?

A: "There's definitely a huge shortage in Kona. Every week it seems like another billion-dollar project is being announced. There's just enough people to do the work. To me, the next ticking time bomb is going to be on Kaua'i, where they also have a lot of major projects coming on line but there's a much smaller population to do the work."

Q: What's the construction outlook for 2006?

A: "Federal government spending, in addition to the military housing projects, is pumping out hundreds of millions of dollars to support the Stryker Brigade and C-17s. ... That's where we're seeing a lot of the new growth ... ."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.