Tool Time at Tri County
TCTC Teaches Skills Everyone Needs to Know

By Trevor Persaud
Xpress Correspondent
Photos By Deanna Evans
Reprinted Courtesy of The Bartlesville Examiner

Washington County is getting bigger.

“There’s a lot of construction around here,” says Johnnie Parks, Construction Technology teacher at Tri County Technology Center. “And they project a lot more building in Bartlesville. … South of here, there’s quite a lot of building going on between here and Tulsa. … There’s a demand for more and more houses.”

Whether you prefer to call it a boom or a bubble, the current explosion of the real estate market means construction-related trades can be a great place to find a job.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the construction industry is going to need 100,000 new jobs every year for the next seven years; and with Bartlesville and its neighbors taking part in the escalation, area contractors are interested in teens and young adults who might want to enter the trades.

So after talking with local building firms, as well as Oklahoma’s Association of General Contractors, Tri County Tech has started a program to teach area students the fundamentals of a number of construction-related fields. “What [the AGC] wanted us to do, and what the local [contractors] wanted at this meeting, was to have a variety of training,” says Parks. “They’re trying to get construction workers that have a little bit of background in all of these particular areas.” The two-year program, which students can choose to take in the morning or afternoon, offers a basic grounding in four disciplines: “We train for Carpentry Level 1, Plumbing Level 1, Residential Electricity Level 1, and Heating and Air Conditioning Level 1,” Parks says. “Each one of these is a semester long. The students [who] come in 11th grade will have all four of these courses.” Parks, a former plumber in Broken Arrow and a national board-certified teacher, spent 10 years teaching similar courses in various penitentiaries.

Johnnie Parks, Construction Technology teacher with student Michael Moyer.

“We had an academy where we taught the students in these four areas, and then the second year they got to pick one,” Parks says.  That second year, the students would concentrate solely in that area.

“But in this case, we have only one instructor. …,” he says. “If we have a big enough enrollment, hopefully one of these days we’ll hire another teacher, and then we can expand in some of these areas.”

The Apprentices

This semester, eight juniors and seniors from Bartlesville High School have spent their weekday afternoons studying currents and conductors, switches and splices, voltage and variables.

Michael Moyer, 16, got into the program when a Tri County Tech recruiter came to the Mid-High last year. “They got to telling us about this one program, Construction Tech,” says Moyer. “I love shop class, so I decided to get into this class.” A career in the field, he says, is “one of my main choices.”

Justin Miller, 18, is in his second year at Tri County Tech, but his first with the Construction program. “I switched classes,” says Miller.Construction, he says, is “more what I’m into… I’m into building stuff, putting stuff together.”

They’ve also been hitting the books pretty heavily. Parks says about 60 percent of the curriculum involves classroom time. “They started with a lot of math,” says Parks. “They thought, ‘Man, I’m in CareerTech. What am I doing in here doing math?’” But it turns out that math can be useful for an electrician.

“I have a couple equations for finding the voltage of the circuit,” says Michael Moyer, 16. “The voltage, the current, the resistance and then the wattage.” And it’s not terribly hard: “It’s just plugging in the numbers.”

They have written tests, though, and “some of them are pretty difficult.” They spent a little time learning some basic building skills useful for electricians to know: “We’ve done a little bit of carpentry,” says Moyer.  “We’ve done a little bit of pipe-threading.”

Then it was time to get down to business.

“We studied how to wire it up,” says senior Andy Lewis, “and came out here and just started wiring.”

Their first major electrical project was to build a circuit board which connected receptacles, light bulbs and switches. One circuit would have a basic on-off switch. They also built three- and four-way switches. In those circuits, “You can turn it off at different sides of the room,” Miller explains.

Those more advanced setups aren’t that hard, students say.  “Once you get done with the first switch,” says Lewis, “it’s just kinda basic.”

Everyone got a 100 on this assignment, says Moyer, though the project wasn’t free of mishaps.

“One of the dudes … he kinda accidentally cut the insulation of the wire,” Moyer says. “Turned it on, it was touching the box, it blew up a little bit. It wasn’t that bad, though: A flash of light and he jumped back about 5 feet.”

“It didn’t really explode,” says Miller. “It popped.”

And Parks says nobody was in any danger. “Everybody had their safety glasses on,” he says. “The instructor was right there to make sure no one got shocked. So everyone was all right, and probably the one that jumped the most was the instructor.”

Their next project was to build a wall wired with switches, lights and receptacles. The class split into groups to do different parts of the setup. “I have one partner right now,” says Miller.

The project has evolved into a competition.“I bet we could get that built before they did, so it’s them three against us right now. We’re a little bit ahead of them,” he says.

When they’re finished, Parks will flip on the power and see what they’ve learned. “Now, their next set, on these boards … they’ll have to run conduits,” says Parks.

Their first two projects were for residential buildings. For the third project, the students will use the pipe-threading skills they’ve learned in class to run wires the way they’re supposed to work in a commercial building.

Next semester, many of the Electricity I guys will be in the Heating/Air Conditioning class. Whichever trade they may settle on, Parks thinks the other three classes will give them helpful knowledge for their career.

“These guys will know a little about each trade,” he says, “so if they get ready to drill a hole for a receptacle, they’ll know, ‘well, I’m gonna be getting in the way of the plumbers, so I don’t wanna put it there.’”

“I’d like to do some plumbing,” says Moyer. “It seems kinda fun. Just one rule: Keep your mouth shut.”

You’re Hired

At the end of each semester, they take competency tests in each one of these areas, says Parks. When they’re finished, they can go out and immediately start working as an apprentice.

For some of them, though, the education won’t be over. Construction doesn’t require a license, Parks says, but “plumbing, electric, and heating and air — you have to be licensed for three and sometimes even four years as an apprentice before you can go ahead and get your journeyman’s license,” says Parks.

“One guy in here is going to probably work for his dad,” says Parks. “They have a construction company here in Bartlesville.”

Parks has promised students that when they’re ready to take the journeyman’s test, “I’ll review with them.”

Graduates of the TCTC program can also take additional classes at Okmulgee Tech: “I’ve already taken part of the class down to visit with them,” Parks says. “They cover all the areas of construction, and those guys go to work as foremen — or whatever — for large companies.”

The education they get at Tri County Tech may also help the students out in other careers.

“You don’t need to have a license to work in Lowe’s,” says Parks. “Their personnel manager has sent word that they wanna visit with us.”

The Electricity I class, Parks says, can lay the foundation for a college degree in electrical engineering. Parks says his son Jeffrey is an architect in Oklahoma City, with a hands-on knowledge of the inner workings of a building that gives him an edge in his profession.

Miller plans to enlist in the Air Force military police: “I took this class ‘cause it’s something that I think every guy needs to know for around the house,” he says.

“You know, kinda, what to look for if anything happens,” says Lewis.  They’ll also know what they can’t pull off as amateurs, which Parks says can be just as important.

“My plumbing company always made more money from husbands who tried to do it,” says Parks. “I could make more money from what they tore up than I could from fixing a little bit to start with.”

And of course, it isn’t just the guys who could benefit from learning this stuff.

“I’d like to see women in the program,” says Parks. He’s taught courses in women’s prisons before: “Those girls really are capable of outperforming the guys in a lot of areas.”

And whatever Parks’ students end up doing, they may discover the mental benefits of learning how to do something new.

“They feel good about themselves,” Parks says. “You can’t take that skill away from ‘em.”