Career and Leadership Development Academy, Cohort One, Real Estate, Architecture, Construction and Engineering Day

Career and Leadership Development Academy Cohort One, Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Real Estate Day Blog

Written by the 7th grade team at Williston

Throughout the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce’s Career and Leadership Development Academy ten month program, each of the eight middle schools are assigned a day to write about their experiences. 51 students from across all eight New Hanover County middle schools participated in the fifth industry exploration day in Cohort One, Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Real Estate, on January 3 at Novant Health Scott’s Hill Medical Center with Rodgers Builders. In addition to learning about the careers in the industry, they had the opportunity to hear from others in interior design, engineering, and architecture. Below is the fifth blog write up from Cohort One of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce’s Career and Leadership Academy experience.

For the monthly CLDA field trip, Williston Middle School has been given the blog assignment. Before we tell you about our day, let us introduce ourselves. We are Cohort 1 for Williston Middle School. The members of our cohort include: Mackenzie, Aileen, Madisyn, Alejah, Alexander, Kellum, and Robert. Today, we went to Scotts Hill Novant Medical Center Construction Site to learn about architecture, engineering, construction and real estate. There, we talked to many interesting people from a few different companies including Rodgers Construction Company, Novant Health, WSP, LS3P, Cavik Insurance, Intracoastal Realty, and Salt Air Heating and Cooling.Throughout the day we did multiple activities which went with what we learned while listening to the lectures the companies gave us. Let us tell you about who spoke today and what we did!

This is when Corey Douglas was speaking to us 

Let us introduce who spoke to us! Richard Broadway is the senior vice president of the Wilmington regional office for Rodgers Construction Company. A few minutes further into the presentation Hank Thornlow spoke to us. He is a general contractor and superintendent for Rodgers. Next, Corey Douglas, who is a Project Manager for Rodgers. Next we heard from Walter. He went to Unc Charlotte.Walter is a Virtual Designer and coordinator for Rodgers Construction Company. Next, Laurie Whalin. She Went to Campbell University College of Pharmaceuticals & Health Sciences and Duke University. Laurie is the chief Operating officer of Novant Health and the future president of Scotts Hill Medical Center of Novant Health. Mark Miller was another speaker we heard from. He went to Penn State and he is an architectural engineer for WSP.  The next person who spoke to us was Ken Willamson.  He went to Penn State and he is a Project Manager of Novant Health construction. After Ken we took a lunch break. After the break, Angela Douglas spoke to us. She went to Clemson University and Bowling Green State University. She is an architect for the company LS3P. We also talked to Emily Patterson who is an interior designer  for LS3P and got her BS of Interior Design from Endicott College in Massachusetts. Next, Alexandra Lysik from Cavik Insurance spoke to us. She taught us that we can become an insurance agent right out of highschool with a highschool diploma. She is a double-graduate of UNCW, with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a master’s degree in Public Administration. The last speaker we heard from was Heather Evans, who was with Salt Air Heating, Cooling, and Electrical. She taught us about different jobs that Salt Air offers such as an HVAC technician, electrician, project manager, and accounting or bookkeeper. On the tour that we took of the MOB, we talked to Allen Hunt who took us to the radiation treatment chamber. He told us that since radiation is very harmful in large amounts, they have to make the walls out of very thick concrete. The concrete that they used to make the chamber was almost 6 feet thick on the walls.

This is Blair from Novant speaking to us

       
    The first thing we did today was a construction questionnaire that told us what the best career option in construction was for us. Then, we got to take a tour of the future Medical Offices Building while it was under construction. We saw the radiation chamber in the MOB where they will eventually use radiation therapy to treat cancer patients. After we walked through the building we walked over to a mock-up of one of the walls. They use mock-ups so that they know what the building will look like when they are finished. After that we went back to our meeting place and we listened to more speakers and had a wonderful lunch donated by Rodgers from Mission BBQ. After lunch we had the opportunity to take a sin on a CAT excavator or bulldozer simulator. We then learned the basics of who to drive these heavy machines. When everybody finished lunch, we did a relay race. We were put into lines and we had to run down and put on all the safety equipment, take it off, and then run back. Once we finished the relay race, we went back to the meeting place and we listened to the last speakers of the day. After they were done speaking, we finished up with a small career fair where we got to ask all of the speaker's questions that we had and we had to fill out a sheet with the questions we asked and what their responses were. We then packed up and headed back to school.

This was before we went in to the radiation chamber with Allen Hunt

    Today we learned many important lessons from various different speakers. One of the lessons we learned from Ken Williamson, the operations manager for the Novant Construction Site was that the more effort and passion you put into something, will be what you get out of it. This is important because this teaches us that in order to get something good out of what you do, you have to put in effort and passion to really make it count. One lesson that we kept coming back to throughout the day was that in construction, there isn’t only one option in Construction. Being a field worker is not the only job for building. Construction is a team effort. It is a process that offers many different types of careers such as architects, various types of engineers, project managers, interior designers, field workers, sub-contractors such as plumbers, electricians, and heating and cooling technicians. Another lesson that we learned was that not all jobs require prior education. There are many jobs that you can start right out of highschool without going to college. For example, you can become an insurance agent from a highschool diploma and a 40 hour learning program that concludes with a final exam. One lesson that really stood out to us today was to not turn down any opportunities. Multiple of the speakers who we heard from today got to the position they are in today by not turning down any opportunities that came up. This stuck out to us because we know the importance of not turning any learning opportunities down. They help us grow and they help us to develop many leadership qualities that we need for the future. 

This was the first speaker, Richard Broadway

We would like to take a moment to take notice of a few people’s favorite part of the day…..

 Maddie- I’d say that my favorite presentation out of that day would be Hank’s, because he gave a great speech about how you don't have to go to college to find a good job and no matter what you shouldn't turn down any opportunities because you never know how they'll turn out to be….

Aileen- Id say that my favorite part is when we got to tour the construction site. It was really cool to hear the field workers talking about their jobs and seeing how proud they are of it. It was also cool to see the hospital before it was done and it was just the structure. 

Mackenzie- I would say that my favorite part of the day was when I got to go on the CAT bulldozer simulator. I liked it because I love learning how to work heavy machinery and I liked how it felt like you were actually driving a bulldozer. Another part that I liked about the day was the end when we got to go through the miniature career fair and we got to ask the different companies questions about what they do and what it would look like working for them.

Alejah- I would personally say that my favorite part of this field trip was the relay race though it was short it was still fun it mixed hand eye coordination skills and teamwork.Another highlight of my time at the NOVANT construction site was the room that was packed from the ceiling to the floor with straight cement there was 800 football fields worth of cement in that room which really fascinated me.Overall this field trip was amazing and helped me learn and expand my knowledge of the construction industry and see the love \ construction everyone who works there has!(the food was AMAZING btw)  

Kellum- My favorite part of this field trip was going outside of the MOB building and seeing the gigantic crane move. Going inside the MOB was fun as well. The food was very good and filling (Shoutout to Mission BBQ). I just wish that I got to do the simulator. 

Robert-My favorite part of the field trip was going inside the MOB building and going inside of the room in which they will have a machine that fights and kills cancer. It was cool to hear that the walls were almost 6 feet of solid concrete.

In conclusion, today was a very exciting and fun learning experience for all of us. We learned the importance of effort, passion, perseverance as well as many more leadership qualities. We would say that the results of the many different speeches from all the wonderful speakers gave and made a wonderful impact towards our future. We want to thank all of the wonderful speakers who took time today to talk to us and teach us everything that we learned!

This was right before we started the tour of the site. This is a picture with the superintendent, Dr. Charles Foust