A Kansas City, Missouri-based contractor has opened a construction education center in Houston.
Burns & McDonnell announced last week that it had opened its construction academy, which will provide online knowledge assessments and hands-on craft construction training. The academy will seek to educate craft employees in the Houston area on campus and send mobile units out to jobsites around the U.S.
Academy students will then go on to work on Burns & McDonnell projects, Jeff W. Rashall, vice president for the contractor, told Construction Dive.
“The Construction Academy is a bold step forward in our vision to be the premier provider of craft construction labor in the country,” Brett Williams, president of the Construction Group at Burns & McDonnell, said in the release. “Through our combination of knowledge and hands-on assessments, we are equipping our construction professionals with the tools they need to be successful out in the field.”
The 14,000-square-foot recruitment and training facility, located in the Houston suburb of Pearland, Texas, includes classroom space and learning areas for construction professionals to train. A hands-on skills assessment facility that simulates working on a jobsite will be complete in 2026, according to the news release.
The academy will train and hire for its construction projects across craft skills, such as pipefitting, electrical, carpentry, equipment operation, welding, ironworking and rigging.
Rashall said the top industries in which Burns & McDonnell anticipates demand for craft workers include oil and gas, electrical substations, solar power and battery storage, water and aviation fueling.
Dire need for skilled workers
Associated Builders and Contractors estimates that construction needs to attract 439,000 net new workers in 2025 to meet demand for services.
Despite that being a slightly improved labor outlook compared to previous years, “if you’re a builder, particularly a nonresidential builder, what this indicates is that your main challenge in 2025 will continue to be finding workers to do the work,” Anirban Basu, chief economist for ABC, told Construction Dive.
In December, however, construction hiring slowed to “an unprecedented pace,” Basu said. Though indicating a weak demand for labor, it’s possible that a combination of cold weather and slowing activity due to uncertainty around the incoming presidential administration contributed to the softening, he said.
For many sectors — including ones Burns & McDonnell focuses on, such as electrical substations — the need for a skilled workforce remains high.
Basu described training the emerging workforce and equipping new workers with craft skills as “phenomenally important.”
“That’s how we create a larger middle class by exposing these less experienced construction workers to training programs, apprenticeship programs that allow them to develop higher-in-demand skillsets, whether it is for carpentry, electrical work, HVAC, et cetera,” he said.
