Category Archives: Building Trades

By Jill Nagy

Area businesses are taking different approaches to deal with a shortage of skilled workers in the building trades.

Jim Curran Electric in Saratoga Springs is a situation where the owner was rescued by a son who, seeing his father “overwhelmed,” relocated from Virginia to join the company.

Mr. Electric of Queensbury runs ads year round on several online help wanted sites. Eastern Heating and Cooling has a well-established apprenticeship program in order to “grow our own.”

Electricians are busy. “There is an avalanche of work,” according to Fred Giardinelli of Eastern Heating and Cooling. “Nine out of ten companies will give you the same answer: it’s “almost impossible” to find qualified people.

Curran reported that he is “too busy to train somebody in the proper way.”  Mr. Electric also is “extremely busy.”

Curran, for his part, has soured on the idea of trying to hire and train new people.

“I used to try to hire people,” he said, “but they were not skilled enough.”

People hired as apprentices often did not show up. At the other end of the spectrum, “if they get too trained, they go out on their own.”

By Christine Graf

Queensbury native Ashley Cirelli was working in the restaurant industry before joining the apprentice program at UA Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 773 in 2015. She is one of more than 450 members of the Queensbury-based union.

“I was working in the restaurant business, but there was no stability. You can make great money, but there’s no retirement or health insurance unless you get it on your own,” said Cirelli whose family has  owned several local restaurants including Cirelli’s Jam ‘n Eggs in South Glens Falls.

After learning about the excellent pay and benefit packages available to union apprentices, she decided to apply to the electrician apprentice program at UA Local 236 in Albany. Her plans changed after a chance meeting with Larry Bulman, director of legislative and political affairs for the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters, that took place at her parents’ restaurant.

After he told her about the career opportunities available to her as an apprentice at Local 773, she applied and was accepted into the program. In August 2015, she started working at GlobalFoundries as a union apprentice. For her, the job was a perfect fit.

“I’ve been very hands-on my entire life. I helped my dad fix cars when I was young, and I used to build computers” she said. “I always wanted to do something in the trades and almost got into the military. But in high school, I was always told you need to go to college no matter what.”

Cirelli did attend college for 18 months after graduating from high school in 2007. She took business management and marketing classes at SUNY Adirondack but never completed her degree.

by Andrea Palmer
People in the building trades and conctruction industry continue to say there is a shortage of skilled labor.
Kevin Maynard, owner of Kevin Maynard Construction in Fort Ann, said older skilled workers are aging out of the industry and there are not enough younger workers to replace them.

By Jill Nagy
In the late 1990s, when acquisitions fever was high, a group of venture capitalists made an offer to Fred Giardinelli, owner of Eastern Heating and Cooling, a thriving company that does work throughout the Capital District, including the Glens Falls and Saratoga areas: They would buy his company, but he would continue to operate it.
He accepted the offer, as did enough other business owners, to form a 12-company conglomerate that is now Comfort Systems USA, a national company listed on the New York Stock Exchange that has some $2.1 billion in annual revenues.

By Maureen Werther

Whether it is high-end luxury homes or older homes in need of renovations or additions, most residential builders and remodelers in Saratoga County are doing well in 2017, with no signs of slowing down.

Jim Sasko, owner of Teakwood Builders, has been in business for 21 years and he has seen his company grow from hands-on carpentry—dismantling and restoring historic homes—to building high-end luxury homes.

Sasko said he learned a lot about how older homes are built during his first few years as a small operation. He also learned that there were better craftsmen out there than he was when it came to historic restoration. So, he began to hire those highly skilled people as his business progressed.

Today, Sasko has a team of 10 carpenters, an interior designer, estimators, administrative staff and a client coordinator, which he says is a key position in the company.

The coordinator “keeps order in all aspects” of a construction project, said Sasko. She is responsible for ensuring open lines of communication between the homeowner and the construction team.