Thousands of Arizona students join in construction career event

About 2,500 high school kids across Arizona visited Papago Park Military Reservation in Phoenix this week to play with construction tools and equipment.

BY CORBIN CARSON

Nov 3, 2017, 4:45 AM Updated: 9:40 am

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(Photo: KTAR News/Corbin Carson)

PHOENIX — About 2,500 high school kids across Arizona visited Papago Park Military Reservation in Phoenix this week to play with construction tools and equipment.

“It’s the largest construction event in the state promoting careers in construction,” said RoseAnn Canizales, president of the Association for Construction Career Development.

The 15th-annual Arizona Construction Career Days has had more than 18,000 kids attend the event over the years.

“Everything is hands-on,” she said. “From bending pipe, electrical conduit, heavy equipment, pushing dirt, [etc].”

Canizales said there is even a huge diving tank that showcased underwater welding.

“Since the [Great Recession], the economy has come back, so we have construction companies and apprenticeships looking to fill that pipeline,” Canizales said.

“There’s a huge need for kids to go into the construction field, especially with the baby boomers retiring.”

Students were able to build tool boxes, run nails into roofing shingles, and even use heavy equipment.

Grant Palmer from Flagstaff High School said he got to try an excavator bucket and was ecstatic.

“I loved it, I thought it was so cool,” he said. “Just the technology that we have today and that we’re able to come out here as high school and operate and see what it’s like.”

Far from just digging ditches, many of the construction science jobs offer high-paying careers in the $80,000 per year range.

Some of the schools traveled as far as 300 miles to attend the event and learn about a career in construction.