Industry leaders gathered this morning for a panel discussion on the state of construction in and around Saratoga County.
Top executives from some of the largest construction companies in the region spoke to a packed lecture hall on the Wilton campus of SUNY Adirondack.
It was the first “Industry Influencers” event of 2025 put on by the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce and Saratoga Economic Development Corporation.
Munter Enterprises Vice President Mike Munter said there’s a lot of uncertainty this year, but he’s hopeful industry will start attracting much-needed new talent.
“Optimistically I believe that our pipeline of labor, you know, from all levels is sort of—we’re recognizing that all of these young people might have other options than school thanks to people like Doug Ford of the Northeast Construction Trades. The BOCES programs are stepping up and getting more involved. You’ve got CTE Works career jams and things like that that are really helping us create a pipeline now to show young adults that there is a world out there other than university,” said Munter.
David Collins is the President of DA Collins Companies, which works primarily on civil construction projects like the Twin Bridges that connect Albany and Saratoga Counties. He’s also focused on workforce development.
“Historically in our industry, you recruited farm kids. I mean that was one of the greatest channels for—because they grew up, they know how to fix equipment they know how to operate equipment, they know how to work long, hard hours.
Now, those farms aren’t around like they used to be. The farmer with 12 kids isn’t really a thing anymore. So, it’s a difficult recruiting perspective. It’s not that the attitudes aren’t there, it’s just that raw skillset coming in isn’t as transferrable. Where before you picked up a lot of people before that had a lot of experiences now you’re getting someone who was a line cook at Chili’s yesterday wants to be a bridge carpenter tomorrow,” said Collins.
Collins said he’s happy to recruit from any background, but there’s a lot more competition as well as additional burdens of liability laid on contractors.
“And as the minimum wage creeps up, and not necessarily having the prevailing wage that we pay keep pace with that, the delta has shifted a little pit, it’s gotten a little bit compact. So, it’s Welcome to Walmart pays x and travelling and killing yourself in the construction industry pays not much more than x or y, it gets a little harder to motivate people to do that. And plus, I think you’re taking a look at even higher ed is facing an enrollment cliff. The amount of people, younger people, is just smaller, the generation is getting smaller,” said Collins.
Kylie Holland is the Executive Vice President of Curtis Lumber. She’s focused on rising operation costs.
“Whether it's trying to keep a pulse on some of the tariffs, right? That’s one of the big, scary words out there and not understanding how that’s going to be handled. So, it’s a little too early to tell the impact of that but it’s something that could potentially trickle down through our level through 2025. Cost of everything is up, right? So, the cost of running our business is higher, the cost of hiring labor is higher, our customer’s cost to doing their business is higher, so everything is still running on this inflation—so we’re hoping that comes down a little bit.
Interest rates contribute to that as well, knowing there is some optimism there for ’25 that those are going to come creeping down,” said Holland.
The next Industry Influencers panel in April will center around the region’s tourism outlook.