Looking For a Good Job? Give Construction a Shot! (From the Publisher).

• Author: McCorkle, Vern C.
• Position: Brief Article

"Beer bellies and butt cracks" is a phrase that was often used to describe construction workers-in the old days, that is.

Not any more though, because almost all jobs in the building trades have been impacted by technology, even for the men in the footing trenches. For example, some concrete workers now operate laser screeders and lay on-grade pads half the size of a football field in a single run. That's how Roger Hickel Contracting of Anchorage poured the new Home Depot store in Fairbanks this summer. In any man's book, that's pretty exciting stuff. When the Anchorage store was built just a couple of years ago, its slab took two weeks to pour.

For young men and women who get a thrill out of building things and to which they could go back years later to show their kids that they had a hand in creating, construction might be just the ticket. It's good pay and good benefits, and now the work is often year-round, just like your car payments, house payments and credit...