March 6, 2025 5:28 pm Published by Jeff Handy |

Utah’s construction landscape is undergoing significant transformation, fueled by major projects and a surge in high-tech industries. Babcock Scott & Babcock, P.C., was proud to host a recent industry forum roundtable to discuss the future of construction in the state over the next ten years. From addressing the labor shortage and power constraints to managing supply chain challenges and fostering better collaboration between stakeholders, participants delve into the issues shaping the industry’s trajectory in Utah and offer insights into successfully navigating the decade ahead.

The roundtable was moderated by Bob Babcock and Cody Wilson. They were joined by the following:

• Rick Papworth, General Manager, JT Steel
• Jerry Taylor, President, JT Steel
• Greg Fix, Manager, Forge Contractors
• Eric Stratford, Marketing Director, R&O Construction
• Jeff Cochran, Vice President, WW Clyde
• Donavon Minnis, Owner,Engage Contracting
• Bob Babcock, Attorney, Babcock Scott & Babcock, P.C.
• Scott DeGraffenried, Vice President,Jacobsen Construction
• Tim Conde, Director of Legal Affairs,Okland Construction
• Cody Wilson, Attorney, Babcock Scott & Babcock P.C.
• Ryan Godfrey, Senior Vice President, Sure Steel
• Brett Nielsen, President, Whitaker Construction

Portions of the industry forum roundtable were published in the Engineering News-Record March magazine. A complete transcript of the roundtable is provided below.

CODY WILSON: We are hearing a lot about several large projects that continue to transform Utah. These projects include: The Point in Draper, Smith Entertainment Group’s plans at the Delta Center, and plans for the Major League Baseball stadium. From this group’s point of view, what does the future of construction look like in Utah in the next ten years?

JERRY TAYLOR: It’s wide open. I’ve been in meetings with our Governor, and they see a lot of high-tech jobs coming in with a lot of construction needed. And it’s slated for The Point in Draper and into Utah County.

TIM CONDE: The projects coming too are big projects. We laugh in our office that a $100 million job used to be a big deal, but now they’re a dime a dozen. We’re seeing a lot of big projects coming our way. These projects bring more complexity and more demands. The Utah market is changing and we’re becoming more attractive to a lot of bigger developers.

JEFF COCHRAN: At a seminar, the UTA was discussing the upcoming Olympics. The UTA’s discussion was less about what are we doing to prepare for the Olympics and more about what we are doing to be prepared generally. It was about what we’re going to do to build our industry and our economy as opposed to building for an upcoming event.

TIM CONDE: Utah is a hub for innovation and technology. In addition to the commercial development that’s going on, especially around downtown, these technology industries could bring datacenter or semiconductor mega projects. These mega projects bring different risks and labor force needs that we need to be preparing for. Or else these projects will go to people outside of Utah. And we want to keep everybody here busy.

ERIC STRATFORD: During my career I have never been so comfortable with the future. With these large projects, it’s easy to say, in the next ten years, there’s going to be a lot of work. There’s maybe not even enough labor force to perform all of that work.

CODY WILSON: What are the challenges with all of the work coming in the next ten years? You mentioned risk. You mentioned labor force. Are there challenges other than risk and labor force? And then let’s talk about how we deal with those challenges.

RYAN GODFREY: Power needs, especially in the technology sector. Specifically, whether these technology companies can get the power that they need to support their operations. We’ve seen projects put on hold because of power constraints.

TIM CONDE: We’ve seen the same power concerns. People who want to create a technology hub, whether it’s a datacenter or something else, get down the road and Rocky Mountain Power says, “There’s not enough power.”

BOB BABCOCK: Are we making headway with our high schoolers?

BRETT NIELSEN: We’re making small progress. For the longest time construction was looked at as just swinging a hammer. Now when you look at our businesses there is an ac-counting, engineering, legal field, and many other fields within the construction industry. This takes care of the professional side of construction. The craft side of construction is where there’s still a struggle. There’s a little bit of movement towards trade schools versus traditional four-year colleges. And hopefully that’s going to start bringing more craft workers into our field.

JERRY TAYLOR: We have a lot of older welders. Now, we need the younger generation that can run the technology, that can run the machines. There are automatic welders that the older welders don’t pick up on as much. That’s why we need the younger generation to come along.

RYAN GODFREY: Leveraging the technology side of construction is going to help attract people to the industry. From an iron worker’s perspective, it’s tough work. It requires long hours, fast schedules, and a tough work-life balance. That becomes a challenge for people wanting to enter the industry. Comparing it to other industries, such as technology, construction isn’t as sexy. That’s a challenge we have to face.

TIM CONDE: This State is doing a better job at encouraging districts to have programs. Many of us are involved in getting high school students on projects and showing them the different aspects of construction. They’re swinging hammers and welding steel, which is important. We have to bring those potential people up through the ranks. But there’s also the management side of construction that people just don’t understand. This generation hungers for career development. They want to see the path. And if they can buy into the path, then they can buy into the profession. It’s up to us to create that career development and then give them the tools and the resources to take each of those steps.

ERIC STRATFORD: Every one of us at some point was introduced to something in construction that enticed us to stay in it. I liked swinging a hammer and I liked learning how to do things. I didn’t understand that there were so many different opportunities in construction. Somehow, we’ve got to, one, help the youth have that ah-ha moment with construction. And then, two, show them what is available to them.

TIM CONDE: That ah-ha moment is brilliant. We’ve all had those. We must create those for the next generation.

ERIC STRATFORD: I sat on an advisory panel for the state CTE program. Our State and educators care so much about that. They need some advice from us and they need our participation in those programs. They need resources and people, like us, with real world knowledge to come in and be guest speakers and teach them.

CODY WILSON: Let’s talk about supply issues. There’s been talk of large tariffs now with the new administration coming in. What are some of the challenges that you guys are forecasting for availability of materials to build these large projects coming up considering material shortages or tariffs or other challenges that you’re seeing?

GREG FIX: Electrical gear and equipment is a challenge right now to have supplied in a timely fashion. Other materials in the duration of a given project, especially the mega projects, haven’t been as difficult. Proper planning and having owners, developers, and the architectural side understanding the nature of their project and some of those long-lead procurement items can help. Either the owner needs to bring on the contractors earlier so that they can help in the procurement of those materials or they need to procure them themselves. Having that thought process ahead of time and proper planning on the front side sure makes that project go easier on the backside.

JEFF COCHRAN: There’re some Buy America clauses that can definitely impact the delivery method, where it is manufactured, and delivery times. We’ve definitely seen that electrical components are a challenge.

RYAN GODFREY: What we’ve seen from some of our clients, in regards to electrical equipment and other mechanical equipment coming from overseas to the United States, is that they are buying the equipment way in advance. They’re trying to get ahead, to make sure that they’ve got the electrical equipment or the mechanical equipment to support their builds. It is important though that we make sure that we’re looking at tariffs, the trucking, the port issues or whatever it is so that we can deliver on the commitments that we’ve made.

JERRY TAYLOR: We have a tendency now to jump on and order the steel immediately once we get a project. Then we have to turn around and store it sometimes for several months which if the job goes on hold, it hurts us.

BRETT NIELSEN: The big impact that the industry is going to see because of tariffs are cost escalations. The risk right now is with our current contracts that we may not have bought materials for which could increase in prices . It’s going to take a little bit of time to get through that transitionary period. Moving forward you’re going to see the cost of construction going up as those are starting to be incorporated into our estimates.

TIM CONDE: One thing about Utah is that people give each other the benefit of the doubt. There’s been decades of trust built up, that you can cash that chip in a COVID scenario or in an unexpected tariff or escalation scenario, where the owner also says, “I get it. Let’s work together. I don’t want to be taken advantage of, but I don’t want to take advantage of you either. Let’s figure it out.” If we can maintain that level of trust and transparency with each other, we can get through it. It’s a unique market in that regard.

BRETT NIELSEN: Some of the long-term relationships are that way. As the market is grow-ing, we are seeing new players. We’re seeing new developers, new owners, people that may not have those relationships and the trust that’s built there. There’s risk there.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: There is a long and storied trust here in Utah. But, we do have a lot of new players coming in. And even within our own company, we’re having to change paradigms and how we interact. At many levels we’ve had to up our game and sharpen our tools as these new developers come into town and we’re contracting and working through problems with them. I like the challenge because it makes us all better. We can mitigate a lot of these risks with properly constructed contracts and also managing those relation-ships at the same time.

GREG FIX: There’s integrity in what we do. It’s such a small community of networked people that have worked together and know each other, that that idea of the back east mentality of bid shopping doesn’t work here. And it won’t work here. It’s not well received.

DONAVON MINNIS: As far as contracts are concerned, I think we all suddenly realized what all that jargon in the contract meant when COVID happened and how we had to utilize it. Not only that, but then we had the conversation with our clients as to why certain language is in the contract. It is important to forward think when drafting our contracts and ask, “What do we need to have in here in order to protect ourselves?” And not only protecting ourselves but educating our owners on what these protections mean now and what they could mean. It always goes over easier when it’s not a surprise and you already had that conversation. For me I’m trying to educate the owners on the projects on the front side. Ex-plaining what could be coming and how we’re going to mitigate our risk.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: I’d used the phrase “force majeure” for many years prior to COVID. But then, I had to figure out what it actually meant when it all came to fruition. And then, what are escalation clauses? And how do these play out? One thing I learned through that whole process is the importance of properly and narrowly constructed clauses. Obviously, I’m speaking from a general contractor bias but, if some of those clauses are too broadly constructed, an escalation clause could be viewed as an open checkbook. Owners obviously don’t view it as an open checkbook. A broadly constructed escalation clause can create contention.

RYAN GODFREY: As a subcontractor, that all gets passed down to us. We don’t have a lot of wiggle room. For us, being able to work with contractors that are paying attention to those details, and helping mitigate that on the sub’s behalf, is so important to us. We’re put in a very difficult position, especially buying steel. If the contractors aren’t forward thinking it becomes a problem for all of the subcontractors. We appreciate those contractors that are out there having those difficult conversations with the owners to make sure that everybody beneath the contractor has some sort of protection to be able to help ensure that we all don’t get stuck with something that was foreseeable.

CODY WILSON: Do you foresee some challenges, though, with that given the influx of new development — or new groups, new owners coming into the state?

JEFF COCHRAN: We can’t specifically deal with it. Each business has the opportunity to function how they will. We, as an organization, are not going to change how we function and do that. And hopefully our clients and owners that we work with see the value in that. But I can’t speak for everyone.

GREG FIX: As an owner coming from out of state goes from one contractor to another, hearing the same tune, they’re going to either force a contractor to change or they’re going to have to realize they need to change. It’s a factor of how we, as the contractors, carry out our business.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: We have an obligation to make ourselves better. We have to be more and more astute as these new players come into the market. For example, I was recently negotiating an insurance program with a — I’ll say a back east-based developer. They sent over their OCIP manual to me. It was riddled with new contractual provisions that were not present in the contract that we had just finished negotiating. I marked it all up and I said, “Hey, you can’t slip all this in by way of your OCIP manual because that’s going to be part of the contract document package and everybody’s going to be relying upon that.” And I got this gentleman from back east yelling at me, saying, “Well, nobody ever looks at these things. Nobody ever edits these things. Why are you making a big deal of this?” I responded, “Well, I have to make a big deal of this.” Don’t be afraid of those difficult conversations. A lot of people shy away from those conversations because they don’t want to deal with the is-sues. But, on the back end of it, if you get it wrong, it’s a bigger price to pay. In the end, I do think they respect you more if you meet them on the field of battle in a very respectful sense.

JEFF COCHRAN: And no one ever looks at the contract until it is time to look at the contract. And then you’re splitting hairs. If you’re going to have a difficult conversation, up front is the very best time to have the difficult conversation.

BOB BABCOCK: I never had a contentious contract negotiation where in the end we didn’t shake hands and walk away. It’s best to have those conversations up front.

JERRY TAYLOR: As a subcontractor, you can call Okland or their attorney or Jacobsen or whoever and negotiate through the contract so that you both understand it.

BRETT NIELSEN: We all have the right to say no to do business with either an owner or a subcontractor. In fact, you can usually tell during the negotiation of the contract if it’s going to be a bad working relationship. We actually have said no but not everybody can afford to say no. They may need the work. But, at the end of the day, I don’t like paying for the privilege of building a project. The goal is to make money on it. And oftentimes those negotiations do set a tone for how the project will go.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: We should all be risk managers. That’s definitionally what a con-tract is. It’s risk shifting. I’m entrenched in my position when it comes to these things, but I’ve had to learn to become sympathetic at some level to a lot of these developers. These are pro forma driven projects and these guys are putting a lot on the line. We can try manage that risk as best we can but, we have to tolerate some of it. And that’s been difficult for me to accept. But, there is always risk in business. We have to put ourselves in their shoes to a certain degree to understand where they’re coming from. Because without these projects, none of us have jobs. So, it’s that balancing act.

ERIC STRATFORD: But that’s what’s so great about Utah. We have the ability to put our-selves in other people’s shoes. You can’t just shift risk away the entire time because you have to have some sort of appetite. We get to determine what that appetite is. The front end of negotiations is when you have to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes and see it from their perspective. That’s how you get deals done.

RYAN GODFREY: I think from a sub’s perspective we have comments during the contract negotiations, typically with the contractors. We’ve found that some contractors don’t want to have conversations about understanding the provisions that they’re giving to us. Just like you’re collaborative with the owners or developers, the subs are expecting a similar type of relationship where we can actually sit down and have a conversation about the provisions. Some people view that as contentious. But, we’re clarifying all this so that we can make sure that we’re living up to the expectations that you, as the contractor, are putting on us. I’m curious on how you as contractors view that?

JEFF COCHRAN: Something we can do, and you can do on your end, is having a conversation about terms that change the price ahead of time. Having these conversations during the bidding process, through some type of scope and discussion, seems to help mitigate that challenge in a more significant way.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: I very much appreciate it when a subcontractor wants to have a very sophisticated conversation on the subcontract. I’ve had that opportunity many times and built some good relationships. It helps the parties get a sense of both parties’ philosophies and attitudes. It’s a beneficial process personally.

RYAN GODFREY: Setting expectations is so important for us, as subs, to make sure we know what is expected. We don’t like surprises just as much as the owners don’t like surprises. Just making sure we’re all on the same page is so important.

GREG FIX: An issue that we’re dealing with as general contractors, is when owners and developers are holding off on starting a project, and then the market shifts or changes and they decide they got to go. They get the architect on board. Push them to complete a six, seven, eight-month design in four months. And then have the contractor put together esti-mates based off of incomplete documents. Then there’s problems during the course of construction, and the owner is wondering, “Why are we having this problem? Why didn’t you catch that, Mr. Contractor?” How do we make a shift in the mentality of the owners to give the proper time needed for good design?

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: From a contractor’s perspective, get in as early as possible to help find the flaws.

JERRY TAYLOR: How many times, when you’ve sat down with the architect and engineer, have you heard the comment “Well, that’s not what I had in mind.” Well, what did you have in mind? It’s a real concern as a subcontractor. The job would be faster and way less expensive if the architect had adequate time to put into their drawings.

CODY WILSON: So, I’ll flip the question then, Greg, what is Forge doing to try to mitigate that problem?

GREG FIX: I always try and encourage the owners, even before I started at Forge, to give proper time to the architects. Let’s give them one more month. If you give them one more month, that will allow us to have better details, better coordinated drawings. The architects focus so much on what they’re doing that coordination among their consultants is lacking. What I think the owners don’t quite understand is that a little extra time will save them money in the long run. It might cost them a month or two upfront, but with those details in the design the subcontractors don’t have to make assumptions and guesses and inflate their price to cover themselves for potential problems down the road.

ERIC STRATFORD: It’s a big financial risk for developers if they don’t push us to go quicker. So, from their standpoint, those change orders down the road are less of a risk than going to market. I would agree wholeheartedly that we are sometimes not giving our architectural community partners enough time to do a good doublecheck.

DONAVON MINNIS: Of all the people in our industry, architects are the best at saying, “No. I am tapped out. We can’t take on another project.” They’re delegating more design off onto the contractor, who then pushes it off onto the sub to shop drawings and design it on the fly because they don’t have time to put it together. These projects are moving so fast that it’s just a chain reaction. There is not enough time and resources out there on even the design side to take on the amount of work that we’re doing right now. Inherently, change orders happen because our estimators are estimating — we’re only getting two in ten projects that we’re bidding. So, the estimators are just ripping through them, they’re not evaluating or catching every little detail. It’s just this chain reaction of work.

JEFF COCHRAN: Depending on the project, something that you could do is begin working on a part of a project while also allowing time for the rest of the design to be completed. We have found a lot of success in that. Allowing work to start in a meaningful way yet allowing other components of the design to be finished.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: As the general contractor, you’re right in the middle of the rela-tionship between the owner and the architect. When there are deficiencies in design, the contractor unfortunately ends up bearing a lot of the brunt of those design discrepancies. You don’t want to create conflict with your owner by saying, “Your architect is not keeping up.” As a contractor, it’s learning how to foster that relationship to where you don’t have to atone for all of those sins, so to speak, but still maintain that relationship and allow both parties to carry out their roles. It’s a real challenge.

BOB BABCOCK: I’ve been talking to design professionals for 40 years about pushing back and saying, “We should be paid more so we can do more a comprehensive design. The extra percent you pay us is going to save you so much more in design costs and project time and all kinds of things that can be done if they are able to do a better design.”

GREG FIX: But what happens with that is that risk has now shifted over onto the contractor’s plate. And we’ve just taken it on.

BOB BABCOCK: My point is you guys can be an advocate for them as well, give them more time, pay them more money. We want a better design. Because it’s going to translate into savings in construction dollars a ton if you do.

ERIC STRATFORD: On the one hand I’m a little grateful because it’s made us really good in pre-construction services. On the other hand, I feel like we’re taking on design risk that we don’t need to. I want to be careful how I phrase this, but it’s almost given the architectural community a way out.

BOB BABCOCK: I know. To say, “Let’s design it. Oh, we don’t have time to do it. We’ll delegate to the contractor and the sub. They can sort it out. They can figure it out.” And that may or may not be a good decision for the project. I know that’s a growing trend, so I’m curious as to what you guys see in delegated design in this marketplace.

TIM CONDE: Delegated design and design-build, those are both approaches that are trend-ing up. Utah doesn’t have as much design-build. But I suspect it will go more that way. Our design partners figured out more discipline to say, “We can’t do it,” but their liability caps are very different from what we all have. They’ve figured out a way to be very strong with owners and cap their liability at their fee. It’s unusual to be able to do that. We are taking on more liability without the benefit of those caps.

ERIC STRATFORD: We’re looking at additional professional liability insurance because we’re becoming architects essentially.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: One thing I wanted to bring up is the design-build delivery system versus the delegated design. I like the design-build because you’re going into it very intentionally. You understand the risk you’re assuming. Oftentimes those can be very fruitful projects. The delegated design aspect of it, where oftentimes it’s not even realized until it’s slipped in, is a bit more problematic because people start pointing fingers and scrambling.

GREG FIX: For years fire sprinklers were a designated design. And the exterior metal wall assemblies are a delegated design with the engineering on the exterior wall. And I’ve always wondered, why does the structural engineer not cover that? But, that’s now a delegated de-sign.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: One thing on the design side, switching topics a little bit, but I’m seeing a lot of national architects slipping stringent contractual provisions into the specifications. I don’t know if any of you are seeing any of that, but it seemingly is becoming more and more prevalent and can be problematic.

CODY WILSON: It’s definitely more prevalent. And the problem with that is you have an estimating department that’s cranking through these and they’re not catching those things and those spec provisions or those clouded drawings or just different things where those things are slipped in. And then it’s coming back later and that’s a real problem.

BOB BABCOCK: I’ve sometimes told contractors “Do you want us to go do a quality control on the design before we do this?” We’ll charge you a fee to go through all the design and look for all the inconsistencies and point them out. We’re going to find them all, but you’re going to pay us for spending time doing it. Or, you can have your designer do it, who should have been doing it in the first place, because they’ve been working on it for many months. It’s a provision that’s not a very good risk.

GREG FIX: I don’t think the design side problem is the architects. I think it’s on the owners that are inflicting pressures on them to get the design done faster. Because yes, pro formas are on the line, their profitability, they want to hit it at a time when the market is just right for the project to open up. I think they should have started three months before and they aren’t.

BRETT NIELSEN: I don’t know a lot of how the general contracting community handles alternative delivery. But, from a civil contractor’s perspective, those are some of our most successful projects, when you’re able to come together and collaborate. Alternative delivery such as CM/GC, design-build, and the different methods that they’re coming up with. And we’ve been fortunate to be on a number of those projects. And we continue to educate our owners of those contracting methods to be able to help them have better, successful, collaborative projects. I don’t understand how it fully works within general contracting. But, for civil contracting, alternative delivery really does help with a lot of those issues that we’re talking about.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: Most of our work is CM/GC. Definitely our preferred approach. Or design-build. You can control and mitigate a lot of these issues that we’re talking about here through that process.

JEFF COCHRAN: In the heavy civil industry, that has not been the standard in the past. It’s been hard bid for just decades and we’re seeing that change. That’s our preferred way to do business—when you can sit down and collaborate with an owner.

ERIC STRATFORD: While these delivery methods are super advantageous for many pro-jects, we’ve almost seen the pendulum swing so far on some projects that don’t warrant it. I’m talking about the smaller projects that we do. The best thing that our ownership can do is understand the different delivery methods and the pros and cons of each and choose the one that is best suited for the project.

CODY WILSON: So, what can the industry do better in the next ten years? It sounds like working collaboratively will help a lot of different parts of the projects. But, what else can we do to make the industry better?

ERIC STRATFORD: The top one is skilled labor. We need a labor force that can sustain all of the work that’s coming. When I say, ‘skilled labor’, I’m really looking at largely the subcontracting community and having the labor to man the projects that we’re doing and to get them done in a timely manner.

RYAN GODFREY: Leveraging technology is something that’s going to continue to be very important. We’re starting to see technology that’s going to help us be better from our shops to the field. Leveraging that technology in ways to overcome some of the labor shortages is going to be very important.

CODY WILSON: Do you think that’s a way to get more of the younger generation into construction-to help them understand that they don’t have to be involved in making video games if they want to be in tech, but they can do construction still. They can make good money doing construction tech type stuff.

RYAN GODFREY: Yeah. I think that’s going to be huge.

GREG FIX: The AI world is going to be interesting to see how that works within our construction world. We have estimating tools right now where it will scan the documents and do takeoffs for you. It’s a matter of that leading edge versus the cutting edge in how to utilize that technology for the best use for us.

BOB BABCOCK: How about pre-assembled things? I’m curious what the future looks like for the pre-assembly, modular, or different types of construction to speed up things.

TIM CONDE: Look at the prison. Those cell units were built in Northern Utah, put on trucks, and brought down and craned into place like Legos. From a safety and efficiency perspective, it makes a whole lot of sense. It’s just a matter of finding the right way to apply those things.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: At a presentation on new modular construction there were 15-story buildings being built out of shipping containers. These units come basically fully furnished and were stacked into place like Legos. Speed to market was off the charts when it came to some of these innovations. Technology is key.

CODY WILSON: Posing another question. I’ve sat in many of these roundtables or other things where we’ve talked about labor issues for five, six, seven years. Are we just talking about it or is it getting better? Are the things we’re trying to do helping with the labor pool? Or has it been just talk, and there’s some things we really need to change and do better?

TIM CONDE: One thing that our industry has done better over the last seven, eight years is getting women into the industry. From Okland’s perspective, that’s been a priority. Our per-centages have gone up and up and we’ve grown as a company in positive ways because of it. But that’s a huge untapped resource—getting women into trades and into project management. We just hired our first woman executive. Jacobsen is doing a great job in that regard, too. We can do better getting women into the industry. I do think that’s where needles have moved in certain regards. It has to continue to be a priority.

SCOTT DeGRAFFENRIED: As these projects become more demanding from a time component and bigger and more complex, we owe it to our trade partners and our employees to be as safe as possible. There are technologies out there that are advancing the cause of safe-ty. We’re looking at new philosophies of ‘nothing hits the ground.’ You can suspend all your cords overhead now. I’m sure all of you have been on jobs where there are so many cords on the ground it’s just a hazard waiting to happen. We’re working with a joint venture partner back east. They have a ladder last philosophy. You don’t use a ladder unless there’s no other means of accessing something. I think as we become more innovative from a safety perspective and can demonstrate that to those we’re trying to entice to come in our industry, it will have positive effects as well.

GREG FIX: And that’s the importance of training and communication. We can get better within our industry of communicating within our own ranks by training and helping educate others to understand the importance of safety. And then communication to our trade partners and how we can work together to accomplish more. The old mentality of a boot-in-your-butt general contractor coming down on the subcontractor just doesn’t work. It’s not the right approach. It’s a team, joint effort, collaboration that really gets a project completed. Another concern that I have is, have we conditioned our children to think that menial labor is beneath them? That entitlement feeling of our youth is real. Have we not properly taught them how to work?

BOB BABCOCK: We have a very challenging philosophy. We want the trade guys but not our kids. But, the industry has changed in ways, especially in terms of technology and the things that can be done. So many more things can be done by robots and you need sophisticated people to operate all those things. There’s a lot of great opportunities. It’ll take us awhile to get there. I hope that our people will be a voice of reason and not be quiet. There are too many loud voices that are looking for unreasonable solutions. They don’t under-stand the economic reality and what it all means.

CODY WILSON: We had a good discussion. I appreciate all of you participating and being willing to come and sit down and have these conversations. I think they’re important. I think it helps the industry as a whole to have those. I think it’s good that we have you all here as leaders of that industry to put those points out there in front of everybody else. So, appreciate it.

JERRY TAYLOR: Our industry has great jobs, great opportunities for young and old alike. And if people want a future, get involved. Come help us build America. Come help us build Utah.