(HARLINGEN, Texas) – Students in the Building Construction Technology program at Texas State Technical College’s Harlingen campus were recently given a tour of the Joeris General Contractors headquarters in San Antonio.
Joeris, a commercial construction company with additional locations in Austin, Dallas and Houston, welcomed the 22 students, along with their instructors, to interact directly with its company leaders and construction professionals and learn about its operations, career pathways and work culture.
“We discussed the types of roles such as carpenters, superintendents, project managers and our trade partners,” said Travis Bone, a human resources director at Joeris. “Students learned about the carpenter roles and the path to a foreman, assistant superintendent, superintendent and beyond.”
Students observed demonstrations of the company’s job processes, equipment and technologies, and asked questions of the staff.
Hector Rosa, team lead for TSTC’s Building Construction Technology and Plumbing and Pipefitting Technology programs at the Harlingen campus, said the tour was worthwhile.
“Our students were impressed by their hospitality and how they cared about their employees,” he said.
Among the students were Steven Bultes, of Harlingen, and Victoria Garcia, of Primera. Both are studying for Associate of Applied Science degrees in Building Construction Technology.
“I was impressed by how they use technology in their daily work,” Bultes said. “They use drones to take pictures of the perimeter of a job to get measurements.”
“I enjoyed how real the tour was overall,” Garcia said. “The company is very organized, and that’s a great quality.”
First-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers in Texas can earn an average annual salary of $67,650, according to onetonline.org. The website projected that the number of these positions would grow by 23% in the state from 2020 to 2030.
TSTC offers an Associate of Applied Science degree in Building Construction Technology and a certificate of completion in Building Construction – Craftsman at its Harlingen and Waco campuses.
For more information about TSTC, visit tstc.edu.
