While North Idaho construction firms are in high gear with work, a key cog remains broken from the Great Recession.

Skilled workers to help build companies back up are hard to find, so T. LaRiviere Equipment and Excavation has taken steps such as on-the-job training and school incentives to buck that trend.

The Garwood company has partnered with the Association of General Contractors on an apprenticeship program to attract employees.

"They find young people who are interested in our industry, and we'll bring them in under our wing and train them," said Tommy LaRiviere Jr., the company's president and CEO.

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"With a little bit of luck, they'll want to stay on and we can keep them."

Further, if someone attends a trade school and is hired by LaRiviere, the company will help pay for school debt if the employee sticks around for at least two years.

"We started doing that about two years ago," LaRiviere said. "We believe we have an obligation to help them through the process as long as they stay in the industry."

Many skilled workers left the industry during the recession and didn't come back, LaRiviere said.

"When the economy started to come back, they were so fearful because they had lost their homes, cars and retirements, so they didn't want anything to do with the industry," he said. "They moved on to other industries that may not even pay as well, but they were leery about the volatility.

"We lost a lot of good people during the downturn, and we're still losing people today."

The ripple effect, LaRiviere said, has been a loss of experience and knowledge in the industry as a whole.

"We lost a major cornerstone of knowledge that is irreplaceable," he said. "The want and desire to be a part of the industry is missing."

LaRiviere said there’s now a stigma that construction is a "backup" industry in the working world.

His company pays between $18 and $20 for entry-level employees and the mid- to high-$30 range for experienced operators and journeymen.

"Even at that, we have a hard time attracting people," LaRiviere said, adding that his associates in other sectors such as manufacturing have expressed similar concerns.

LaRiviere said some young workers of today believe they’re entitled to high wages and titles right out of college.

"I interviewed a young man who was in construction backup mode and very smart, and I asked him what he thinks he should make," LaRiviere said. "He said $75,000 because that is what he was told when he went to college."

Demi Sanders, LaRiviere's director of building relationships, added: "One difficulty remains constant: Workers who do not have a work ethic. Contractors are looking for employees who arrive on time, are prepared mentally and physically to work, have a cooperative attitude and are consistent in their attendance."

LaRiviere's past and present

LaRiviere employs 175 — a healthy number, but a far cry from 400 during the construction boom years more than a decade ago.

The company is purchasing another well-known firm in the area, Contractors Northwest Inc. (CNI)

LaRiviere said the addition of CNI's structural concrete and wastewater services will make his firm more well-rounded, especially since his company has performed primarily heavy civil construction.

"It will help us become more well-defined," he said. "It gives us a really solid platform to work on. What we want to be is a self-performing general contractor — from the dirt work to utilities, concrete and vertical (above ground) construction with our own hands and a limited amount of subcontractors. A lot of my colleagues have gotten away from that, but I was taught old school."

LaRiviere Equipment was started in 1953 by LaRiviere's grandfather, Tommy. LaRiviere's father, Tommy Sr., is still active in the company at 63 and is managing the Seltice Way revitalization project on the west side of Coeur d'Alene.

LaRiviere said the CNI purchase also helped his firm find workers.

"There were quality people there, and I didn't want them to go anywhere else," he said.

An industry trend that LaRiviere has tapped into is drone technology for grading and building layouts, surveying, schedule updates and understanding pre-existing conditions.

"Drones can fly over piles of materials and take photos based on pre-known targets," LaRiviere said. "It saves time, cuts project costs and is extremely accurate. You can capture everything with a bird’s-eye view."

Company projects

The $4.8 million Seltice Way revitalization project with the City of Coeur d'Alene remains on schedule, with completion targeted for November, LaRiviere said.

The project includes road improvements, pedestrian pathways on both sides and roundabout intersections at Grand Mill and Atlas.

"It's been a smooth project and the public has been receptive to it," LaRiviere said. "It's been a great partnership — more than anything — with the city and Welch Comer Engineers."

Other ongoing LaRiviere projects include the Kootenai County jail expansion; Woodbridge South, a 41-lot single family subdivision in Post Falls; bridges on Mount Spokane Road and Howard Street in Spokane; the ice complex in Spokane's Riverfront Park; and a remodel of the Wiggett's Antique Marketplace building in downtown Coeur d'Alene.

Recent projects include the Boys and Girls Club in Coeur d'Alene and the Hagadone Marine expansion, McEuen Park and the Big R expansion in Coeur d'Alene.

The busy schedule is reflective of the industry as a whole, Sanders said.

"These are times full of optimism and great activity," she said. "Public and private entities are putting one job after another out to bid."