Underground Construction - February 2020 - 25

ters' children started coming of age, many
of them started working for the company. I
have two sons and eight nephews working
for Hallen, so we have 10 in our second
generation with the company.
UC: It sounds like you don't have
as much trouble attracting young
workers to your company as many
other DCA member companies
have had.
Hickey: I know from talking with other
members that it's a serious issue, but we're
fortunate in that respect because our operations are very regional. One of the biggest
challenges for many contractors with retaining young talent is that they operate over
wide areas, and their employees spend long
stretches away from home. We're only in
New York City tri-state area, which means
that all of our people go home at night.
UC: What are some of the biggest
changes you've seen in the industry
from the time you started to the
time your sons and nephews joined
the company?
Hickey: I actually think the industry is
heading in the right direction and it has
been for quite a few years. I was cutting off
gas services in my first week in the field.
With no experience whatsoever. I was out
there in sneakers and shorts and a T-shirt.
We used garbage pails as barricades. But the
safety and the qualifications and training
have improved. It's much safer and its more
of a profession now than it was when I first
started. It used to be just a job and now
it's a career. I guess that's why we have so
many college graduates that can't get jobs
are coming into our field, because we have
dozens and dozens of college graduates who
just couldn't get jobs in other fields.

New and experienced mix
UC: How has it worked out for
you at Hallen, mixing these young
college graduates with your more
experienced and traditional workers?
Hickey: It's worked out well because we
have a blend of some of the old timers
like me that know how to physically do
the work, and then you blend them in

with the young and hungry kids coming in,
and they teach each other.
A lot of the young people coming in
now grew up with video games and video
technology, where a lot of us didn't have
any of that obviously - it didn't exist.
When I first became a super in 1984, I
had a beeper that just beeped and then
you'd have to run find a payphone to call
the dispatcher who would relay a message
from the field. It was a big day when we got
beepers that could actually tell you which
number to call, it saved a lot of quarters.
As technology has come into the
industry also, you have the old timers that
are teaching the proper ways to do the
jobs, teaching the techniques of doing the
jobs. Plus, the young people coming in and
bringing the technology into it and being
able to handle all of the training and testing, and everything else that didn't exist
back when we all started in the industry.

Hickey: I had been in the industry
almost 20 years when they came out
with the first federal DOT operating
qualification recommendations. It wasn't
regulations in the beginning - just recommendations. At that time, you'd just
take a written test, and that was it. Now
the testing portion of the qualifications
is maybe 5 percent of the whole qualification program. It's the final piece. But
the training courses and the on-the-job
training, and all of the tracking that goes
on prior to passing that test are more
critical than going into a classroom and

UC: Training and operating
procedures have also changed
a lot since you started work
in your shorts and sneakers.

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Underground Construction - February 2020

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