The month of October in the home building industry is known as Careers in Construction Month. In celebration of that, we wanted to create a blog post highlighting the insight given to us by current W.B. team members for those seeking opportunities in the industry. We have many different team members in several departments, who have been involved with the business for many years and have an encyclopedia sized wealth of knowledge along with it. We’ve asked a few of those team members (amassing a total of 50 years with W.B. homes alone!) for their thoughts on the construction industry today. We cover topics such as career advice, misconceptions within the industry, and the ways they’ve broken into the industry. What better way to learn about careers in construction than reading about it from our experienced team of professionals? Today, we’ll be hearing from Chris Canavan, President of W.B. Homes; Lauren Malatestinic, Director of Strategic Initiatives / Chief of Staff; and Brad Raley, Project Manager.
How did we get here?
Chris’ career began when he started in municipal government, as a Township Manager. Once he got his feet wet, he transitioned over to the construction industry where he dove into the land approval and development side of the business. With W.B. Homes, he truly built his career, learning more every year about all facets of the land development and home building industry. Everyone’s journey is a little different from what you’ll come to learn, much like Lauren’s. “After 6 years as a buyer in corporate retail apparel, I joined W.B. Homes as an assistant Project Manager. There are a lot of shared competencies between the two roles: identifying your customer, anticipating what they want to purchase and for how much, and organizing a diverse team of industry partners to turn raw materials into quality products. Over the past 7 years my career has transitioned to focus on operations, creating and implementing processes that ensure we can tackle the next milestone on the critical path for each community.” Lastly, Brad found his way into the industry more traditionally. Brad attended a trade school for building & construction, where he developed a strong foundation in the technical skills and knowledge necessary for success in the field. His 25+ year journey to project management has equipped him with a deep understanding of construction processes and a commitment to quality workmanship.
As we stated earlier, there’s more than one way to break into the industry, as represented by Chris, Lauren, and Brad’s path. They’ve been here for a long time and have experienced more than the average person in the industry.
My Favorite thing is…
Chris finds that it is a very dynamic industry that is constantly facing new challenges from the marketplace, within the regulatory environment and economic cycles. The ability to consistently be challenged to continue to meet the needs of our buyers for one our biggest needs is truly rewarding. In Lauren’s words, “Every day I get to work with people who are experts in their field, from land acquisition, approval and development, to purchasing, to permitting, to construction, to sales, to conveyancing, and customer service. These individuals are passionate and relentless in their pursuit of excellence in their sphere of influence. I love being surrounded by that energy.” Like Lauren, Brad likes working as a team for a singular common goal, problem solving with creative solutions and the impact on the community.
The construction industry only works if everyone around you works as well. Collaboration and communication are what help this industry thrive. At W.B., we are extremely grateful to have such talented individuals, as Brad said, working towards a singular common goal: creating beautiful homes and providing excellent customer service, from start to finish. To recap what we’ve covered so far, we’ve looked at their journeys and favorite parts about the industry. What’s next?
Realities of the Construction World
There are many misconceptions about this industry that we may not be able to cover in a singular blog post. Like the last two topics, we’ll begin with Chris and Brad, who share a similar opinion about the matter. Chris finds that a lot of people think that “The biggest misconception is that you have to work with tools to work in this business. We have a great need for all the trades in our industry, but there are plenty of other opportunities outside the trades to support this industry as well.” To add, Brad said “The biggest misconception in my opinion is that it’s just manual labor. The industry requires roles such as project management, design, engineering, and technology.” To take W.B. for example, there is much more to this company than the construction team, and all our vendors. We need people to take care of the accounting books, we need people to acquire land and receive permits on the land which we build from, customer care coordinators, sales teams, marketing teams, and the list goes on. It’s not entirely picking up a hammer or a drill and getting to work, it takes a whole team. Lauren’s perspective is a little different. In her experience, she finds that the biggest misconception is, “that construction is an industry for men! Every day I work with women in all aspects of construction in both field and office roles who are pursuing exciting careers in homebuilding.”
It doesn’t matter what gender you are, in this industry there is an opportunity for everyone, it is not an industry exclusive to men. All these misconceptions need to be heard by everyone hesitant to pursue a career in the industry. It’s an ever-growing market and it will never go out of style, opportunities pop up left and right every day, you just have to take it.
A Word of Advice…
To cap this blog post off, we’ll go over some career advice that Chris, Lauren, and Brad have. To list off some commonalities with their responses, networking with people in the industry is mega important. Learning from professionals who already work in construction is important. At W.B., we have plenty of team members who have landed great roles just by simply networking with people from the team! Chris and Lauren both made great points when they gave their responses to me, they both mentioned self-assessment. To find an opportunity in construction, it’s important to understand what that person’s skillset is, what they enjoy, and most importantly, if this is something that person wants to stick with long term. The possibilities in construction are quite honestly, endless. If you like designing floorplans, the architecture, managing people, actually selling homes, or even the manual labor aspect of homebuilding, there’s a route and opportunity for everyone.
The point of this month is to promote and raise awareness about career opportunities in construction and recruit the next generation of craftspeople. We want to help open the doors to people who may never have considered construction as a career path. As this generation of seasoned veterans begin to retire, it’s important we become advocates for industry growth. Happy Career in Construction Month!