Construction and Career Lessons: Harding High Students Explore Skilled Trades

WARREN, Ohio – When the public gets its first look at the new band shell during the first Warren G. Harding Raiders football game this August, they will see a familiar sight: a decorative “W” at the center top of the shell.

“We’re actually reusing the original ‘W,’” said Rob Wilt, superintendent with DeSalvo Construction.

The idea came about, Wilt explained, because Kim Phillips of Phillips Sekanick Architects, the architect for the project, is the son of the architect who designed the original ‘W.’”

“So he had to dig back through his dad’s old drawings to see how to incorporate as much as he could,” Wilt said.

Wilt relayed the story to 13 students in one of the six shop classes at Warren G. Harding High School. The students took a break from their regular curriculum to participate in a different kind of class inside the DeSalvo Construction trailer, learning about the construction of the band shell.

“They can kind of watch it from the very beginning because it’s something that’s going to start and finish at a rapid pace,” Wilt said.

The class also gave Wilt a chance to discuss job opportunities in the skilled trades.

“All those people you see working live a good life. They make good money, and that’s an option for you,” Wilt told the students, gesturing to the workers visible outside the window.

“When I got in, there wasn’t a need for tradespeople like there is now. There is a really great need. We don’t have enough workers,” he said.

Wilt told the students the latest estimates he’s heard are that the state of Ohio is short 2,000 workers for jobs already on the books.

“Do you have to do an interview, or do you just get accepted?” Matt Mortimer, a junior at Warren G. Harding High School, asked about the apprenticeship programs at the local unions.

After the class, Mortimer said he found the prospect of good pay and job security appealing.

“Stable job and a good chance to get in,” he said.

Mortimer is also considering going to college for engineering. Either way, he thinks construction will be a part of his future.

Harding is one of more than a dozen high schools in the Mahoning Valley that offer pre-apprenticeship programs to students. The program was jointly launched in 2021 by the trade unions, The Builders and the ESC of Eastern Ohio.

“At the end of the program, they get a certificate that says they completed a pre-apprentice program,” said Josh Earls, industrial tech instructor at Harding.

“Then they can walk in and they’re pretty much accepted into the program,” he said.

During the class, students looked over the schematics of the band shell and asked questions about the process.

The shell is part of a much larger, $36 million project that will see the new Student Recreation and Wellness Center also open this August.

“Why is it going in the corner?” asked one student of the shell.

Wilt explained that the center, which is situated between the school and the football field and adjacent to the shell, must be aligned squarely with the school on the south end and with the field on the north end.

The problem is that the school and the field are not aligned squarely with each other.

“So we had to be square to the school, but when we got to the locker room, we had to have the whole building turn to be square with the football field,” Wilt said.

They accomplished the task by creating two storage rooms that are 20 feet wide at one end and taper down to almost nothing at the opposite end.

“What happens if you go over your deadline?” another student asked.

“We don’t go over deadline,” Wilt said.

To illustrate why, he told the students about a project he worked on that had a particularly strict deadline.

“I believe it was a $64,000 a day fine for every day you weren’t done on time,” Wilt said.

When work began to fall behind schedule, Wilt said they went to two, and then three shifts to get construction back on track.

“Why don’t you always do that? Can’t you get done earlier if you do that?” a student inquired.

Wilt explained that different shifts earn different wages; the later the shift, the higher the wage, and while increasing shifts is always an option, it’s never a good option.

“When you’re bidding a job, you don’t include a lot of extra money if you get into a problem. If you did that, you wouldn’t have the job,” he said.

Pictured at top: Students, teachers and DeSalvo Construction superintendents at the site of the new Student Recreation and Wellness Center, which is under constuction.

DeSalvo Construction Sponsors Constructing a Legacy Series
Watch how DeSalvo Construction and its subcontractors are assembling the $36 million Student Recreation and Wellness Center for Warren City Schools that will serve many generations to come.

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