PRESQUE ISLE – Aroostook County will soon be home to the Northern Maine Construction Hall of Fame, as faculty in the construction trade programs at Northern Maine Community College make final plans for the official opening and induction of the first five honorees Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 5 p.m. at a ceremony in the Mailman Trades Building at NMCC.
The Hall of Fame reception is planned as part of the College’s celebration of National Careers in Construction Week, which this year falls Oct. 15-19. Gov. John E. Baldacci and his counterparts in more than 30 states across the nation have signed official proclamations designating the week as one to raise public awareness of the work of our nation’s craft professionals and to emphasize the role construction industry partners play in helping youths and adults achieve career success.
“We wanted to create more than just an event to celebrate the designated week, but rather something that would recognize, on an ongoing and consistent basis, the invaluable and immeasurable contributions of professionals in the construction trades here in northern Maine and across the state,” said Brian McDougal, chair of the trade and technical occupations department at NMCC. “The concept of creating a ‘Hall of Fame’ to recognize key individuals who have contributed both to the profession and as mentors to others entering the profession, provides an ideal opportunity to honor the legacy of these individuals and is reflective of the teaching and learning that happens in our programs and across the NMCC campus each and every day.”
The Northern Maine Construction Hall of Fame will be located inside the main entrance of the Mailman Trades Building in the long corridor that students, faculty, staff and visitors use to enter and exit the building daily.
According to McDougal, the space is ideal, because of the fact that students and prospective students of the college will regularly have the opportunity to see the faces and learn the stories of some of the “legends” in the construction trades, and in turn better understand that similar career success is possible for them.
The department chair and five construction trade program instructors – Dennis Albert (welding and metal fabrication), Roger Crouse (computer-aided drafting), Guy Jackson (residential construction), Charles Kelley (electrical construction and maintenance), and Alan St. Peter (plumbing and heating) – served as the selection panel for the inaugural inductees.
As a group, they decided to honor one individual representing each of the related trades for this first year. In years to come, plans are to induct between one and three outstanding construction workers to the Hall of Fame in a ceremony held annually during Careers in Construction Week.
The first five inductees represent prominent construction business owners and industry leaders, as well as alumni and retired faculty of NMCC and its forerunner Northern Maine Vocational Technical Institute:
• Stanley “Bub” Anderson of New Sweden is a 1974 graduate of NMVTI. Anderson is the co-founder and an owner of County Electric, an Aroostook County-based electrical contracting firm which has employed as many as 15 people at a time, including many NMCC graduates, since it was established in 1978. Anderson has been active on the NMCC electrical construction and maintenance program advisory committee for two decades and is also involved in various civic and community activities.
• Hollis Burgess, a former long-time instructor in the residential construction program at NMCC, will be honored posthumously. Burgess, who taught at NMVTI from 1965 until his retirement from the College in 1987, is credited as the driving force behind the Sinawik Project, a now three-decade old initiative established collaboratively by NMCC and the Presque Isle Kiwanis Club, which engages students and faculty in all of the construction programs at the College in the building of a home for an Aroostook County family each year. A native of Vinalhaven, Burgess passed away in January 2001.
• Tim Doak of Caribou is co-owner and president of B.R. Smith Associates, Inc. Surveying and Engineering in Presque Isle. He is a graduate of two NMCC associate degree programs. In 1986, he completed the automotive technology program, and in 1988, he finished the then drafting technology program at NMVTI. Doak recently obtained his professional engineer’s license and is currently a bachelor of university studies candidate at the University of Maine at Orono, majoring in surveying engineering with an emphasis in boundary law. His firm has hired a number of NMCC graduates, and he is an active member of the College’s computer-aided drafting technology advisory committee. He is also active in a number of civic groups in Presque Isle and Caribou.
• Rick St. Peter of Caribou is the owner of Patrick St. Peter and Sons, a Caribou-based family business specializing in plumbing, heating and cooling contracting. St. Peter is both a 1975 NMVTI graduate of the plumbing and heating program, as well as a former instructor. He taught first part-time, then full-time in the program from 1977 through 1988, when he resigned to take over the family business. His two sons, Ryan and Adam, followed in their father’s footsteps and graduated from the plumbing and heating program at NMCC in 1999 and 2001, respectively. The two became partners in Patrick St. Peter and Sons in 2003.
• Richard “Dick” West of Holden was first a sheet metal (present-day welding and metal fabrications) faculty member and then department chairperson for the trade and technical occupations department at NMCC. He is the longest-serving chair of the department, having assumed his responsibilities as leader in 1973 and continuing through his retirement in 2001. West is credited with providing strong leadership to the department during the transition from NMVTI to Northern Maine Technical College in the late 1980s and laying the initial foundation for the transition to NMCC in the earlier part of this decade.
Anderson, Burgess, Doak, St. Peter and West will be honored through tributes prepared by the current construction trade faculty at the Oct. 16 reception. Photos of each inductee will be unveiled following their individual recognition.
Family members and friends of the inductees, College and community friends, and members of the advisory committees of all the trade and technical occupations department have been invited to participate in the official opening and first induction ceremony for the Northern Maine Construction Hall of Fame.
In addition to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, the College is hosting two community presentations to mark Careers in Construction Week.
The first will take place Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 3 p.m. in the College residential construction lab prior to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
At that event, Parker Hadlock of Cianbro, one of the largest construction and construction services companies on the East Coast, will speak about the current state of the industry and future outlook in Maine and beyond. Hadlock will also speak to more than 80 members of the various trade and technical occupation program advisory committees at an annual meeting later in the evening.
On Thursday, Oct. 18 at 1 p.m. in the NMCC residential construction lab, Mark Goodin and Rodney MacDougal of N.H. Bragg will conduct an afternoon seminar on fall protection and personal protective equipment. In addition to College students, members of the trade and technical occupations faculty are opening the session up to local contractors and their employees.
Careers in Construction Week is coordinated countrywide by the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER). This year marks the third anniversary of the celebration nationally, and the first year NMCC officially joins in the festivities by hosting local events.
For more information on NMCC Careers in Construction Week events, contact the college relations office at 768-2809.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
FOLLOWING LAST WEEK’S workplace campaign kickoff breakfast for the United Way of Aroostook, business representatives received posters, brochures and other fund-raising materials to take back to their place of employment to share with co-workers.
