Underground Construction - June 2019 - 28

2019 HDD Roundtable
Jeff Awalt | Executive Editor

HDD Contractors Share Successful
Approaches to Modern Workforce Challenges
The North American horizontal directional
drilling market is booming, and opportunities for growth appear limited only by the
size of the industry's workforce. But while
the challenge of attracting and developing
employees remains a serious issue industrywide, some leading HDD contractors are
proving that smart workforce strategies
can make a positive difference by aligning
goals, motivating employees and building
long-term commitment.
At an HDD contractors' roundtable
sponsored by Underground Construction
magazine at the Underground
Construction Technology International
Conference & Exhibition (UCT), a panel
of industry experts discussed some of the
most common workforce challenges faced
by contractors today and shared their
successful approaches to address them.

The panel was moderated by Ron
Halderman, director of special projects for
Mears Group and included panelists: Jim
Brotherton, president and CEO of Oregonbased Brotherton Pipeline Inc., a 30-year
veteran of underground construction
industry; Cory Baker, who oversees major
projects from bid to completion as division
manager at San Antonio-based Hard Rock
Drilling; and Jason Kottelenberg, vice
president of Avertex Utility Solutions, an
Ontario, Canada-based firm with emphasis
on telecom projects

Jason Kottelenberg, Avertex Utility Solutions

Jim Brotherton, Brotherton Pipeline

Cory Baker, Hard Rock Directional Drilling

28

JUNE 2019 | UConOnline.com

Underground Construction: Finding
and keeping good employees appears
to be a universal issue for contractors
in the current environment. Are there
any industry-specific issues that
make this difficult?

Ron Halderman, Mears Group

Baker: We want all our employees to have
an opportunity to retire at Hard Rock,
and we're very successful with the guys we
have. The challenge we have faced is finding
new help, and it seems like the generation
coming up doesn't want to travel. It's not
that they don't want to work. They all want
to work, but they don't want to travel and
be away from home, and as we all know,
that's a sacrifice that you have to make
in this industry. It's a tough road, and we
struggle with hiring and recruiting every
day. The industry is booming so much right
now, we could probably put five more rigs
to work, but we just don't have the people.
Brotherton: We're kind of unique
because we're based in a small town (Gold
Hill, Ore.), so most of our guys come to us
in that small town out of high school. It
comes down to travel for us, too, but later.
We usually have a real good crew for about
three or 4 years, and then all of a sudden
they get girlfriends; pretty soon they get
married, then they get babies-and then
we start losing them. So far, we've lost
about four great drillers because they
have families now and didn't want to
spend time away. We have to go back and
regroup, and it takes a couple of years to
get a crew back to normal again, but we're
going to lose them again-that's just the
way it is-so we just have to take a deep
breath and start training.
For new hires, one of the problems we
have now in Oregon and in California
is the demand for pickers on marijuana
farms. The growers will pick you up at
home, feed you, take you back home and
pay $20 an hour, tax-free. We see a lot of
kids that are falling out of the workplace.
It's already hit Colorado, and it's going to
get worse in California.
UC: Have you come up with any
realistic solutions to the travel problem?
Obviously, this is going to be a bigger
issue for some contractors than others.


http://www.UConOnline.com

Underground Construction - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Underground Construction - June 2019

Contents
Underground Construction - June 2019 - FC
Underground Construction - June 2019 - IFC
Underground Construction - June 2019 - Contents
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 4
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 5
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 6
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 7
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 8
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 9
Underground Construction - June 2019 - 10
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