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Whitestone Contracting is more than just roads and potholes.
That was the message Waitaki school students heard at the company’s open day last Friday.
More than 70 students from East Otago High School, St Kevin’s College, Waitaki Boys’ and Girls’ High Schools took part alongside members of the Mayor’s Task Force for Jobs and Workbridge.
They got to try their hand at planting native flora, using small excavators, testing out surveying equipment with a pipe challenge and even using the stop/go paddles for traffic management.
Whitestone Contracting general manager of operations Cameron Bullin hoped the day would “enlighten people as to what the civil industry is”.
“It’s more than just roads and potholes and cones.
“It’s an industry where there’s a huge amount of career options, a huge amount of specialist trades here and I think it’s an industry [that is] not going anywhere.”
The company provided an opportunity to build a career without the need to leave the district, he said.
“Often if you want to go away and study, you’ve got to leave Waitaki so it’s about opening people’s eyes that you don’t have to leave.
“There’s cool careers and it doesn’t have to be through [university] to have a successful and rewarding career.”
Among the day’s activities was also a tyre-stacking competition where the students got to operate small excavators.
“They’ve beat half the management team, they’re going really well,” Mr Bullin said.
The open day was partly organised in response to the industry needing new workers.
“A lot of the people in this industry have been in it for a long time and they’ll retire at some point.
“We’ve got to have people coming through.
“The national pipeline of infrastructure work has some quite interesting forecasts of just how far we are behind having enough people to keep up.
“If we don’t start talking about it, it’s not going to fix itself.”
Mr Bullin hoped open days would become an annual event for the company.
nic.duff@oamarumail.co.nz