Bricklayers flock to Las Vegas to compete in Super Bowl of their industry — VIDEO
The 50 competitors lined up Wednesday in the Las Vegas sun alongside their stack of sand-colored, three-holed bricks and put their baseball caps over their hearts as a live rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” rang out.
Two announcers on a platform discussed the competitors and their chances to win as a big screen TV showed the contestants poised to begin.
The announcer began the countdown “5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1.”
The masons, trowels in hand, sprinted to begin constructing a 26-foot-8-inch, double-width brick wall as high and neatly as possible within 60 minutes.
Welcome to the Spec Mix Bricklayer 500 World Championship — the Super Bowl of the masonry industry.
This year’s winner, Matt Cash, from Monroe, North Carolina, claimed cash and prizes including a Ford Super Duty F-250 XLT Truck.
The event is held each year in Las Vegas at the World of Concrete, a four-day industry trade show that draws about 60,000 professionals. The competition is purposely filled with the trappings of professional sports — the national anthem, announcers, TV camera and interviews — to create excitement around skilled professions that the construction industry feels is often ignored by the nation’s school system.
“This event is so important in getting the word out to young people that haven’t yet decided what they want to do,” said Dan Belcher, director of workforce development at Florida-based National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER). Belcher had a stand near the competition to promote the nonprofits curriculum building programs.
And the industry has 1.5 million reasons to get the word out. That is the size of the expected shortage of construction industry laborers in the U.S. by 2019. Welders and carpenters are the industry professions most in demand while masons are lower down the list.
“The jobs are there, now we have to figure out how to get the value of a craft back into the limelight,” Belcher said. “You need really good recruitment programs.”
One of NCCER’s recruitment programs also makes a sports connection much like the bricklayer championship. It consists of creating baseball-like trading cards with skilled construction workers pictured on one side and their salaries, education and skill set on the other side.
A mason earns an average salary of $54,860, according to one card picturing a young man in a white construction hat and a soiled blue shirt. “Brickmasons, blockmasons and stonemasons use bricks, concrete blocks and natural stones to build attractive, durable surfaces and structures,” reads the card, which is aimed at high school students.
Small-business owners in the construction industry said the labor shortage crimps their profit by limiting the tenders they can bid for. It is also affecting their bottom line from the cost side.
“We’re raising wages high to draw people in ’cause there ain’t none,” said Rod Butler, who owns Metro Masonry Construction Inc. in Plano, Texas. Butler pays his masons as much as $28 an hour, he said.
Chuck Scroggs, who runs Southwest Scaffolding, agreed on the labor shortage, adding he has to work his men overtime. Like others owners, he felt the education system was letting them down in promoting higher education as the only path.
“There is nothing disgraceful about being a bricklayer,” Scroggs said. “Many will set up their own business down the road, which can generate six-figure salaries as high as $500,000.”
Though not everyone is cut out for college neither is everyone cut out for laying bricks and lifting cement.
“It is skilled labor, but it is hard and younger people don’t want to participate,” said Rusty Haile from Acme Brick Co. in Huston, Texas.
Contact Todd Prince at 702 383-0386 or tprince@reviewjournal.com. Follow @toddprincetv on Twitter.