Scholarship dollars for construction students are at a six-year high, which has allowed the Del E. Webb School of Construction at ASU to recruit better and produce smarter students who are being hired faster, officials said.
"Do you hire the talent by giving them more money? Do you bring in smarter students when there are more scholarships?" asked William Badger, director of the Del E. Webb School of Construction. "My feeling is, 'Yes, you do.'"
The impact of the growth in scholarships can be seen in the recent winner of the school's outstanding alumnus award: Daniel Withers, owner and president of D. L. Withers Construction.
Withers, a 1974 construction school graduate, established his company in 1981. In 2002, the company contracts exceeded $185 million, according to the Engineering News Review, an industry publication.
Badger said that Withers is part of a group that has helped the ASU construction school stand out.
"We're very unusual," he said. "Twenty percent of my alumni wind up owning their own construction companies, through the older alumni, that's a higher number."
Badger said Withers is a prime example of the type of students who the construction school can produce to meet the growing construction demand in Arizona.
"In the next 30 years, we will build more things on this Earth than we have built in the last 2,000," Badger said. "Look at Phoenix. We're sitting at [a population of] 3 million; do you know in 30 years what the size of Phoenix will be? Eight million.
"There's got to be buildings and houses and sewer plants ... so construction is where the action is," he added.
The need for construction companies is growing, but the industry already has a firm hold on the Arizona economy.
"Construction is the No. 1 employer of people in our state," Badger said. "Every time I see a crane, I say, 'Boy, that's money.'"
Another graduate of the school, Steve Padilla, who received the alumnus award in 2002, graduated in 1972 with a degree in construction engineering. He now serves as president of Hunter Contracting Company.
Padilla said many companies seek to hire ASU students from the construction school because of the education they receive.
"There's a big demand for the graduate students, and they are able to make a lot of decisions of who they want to go to work for," he said.
He said the large number of scholarships awarded have further enhanced the quality of the school.
"The big benefit is that it attracts more students to the construction industry by generating interest in the Del E. Webb School of Construc-tion," he said.
Tony Rojas graduated from the university in 1976 with a degree in construction engineering and has since helped increase scholarship dollars for the school's students.
Rojas, engineering and construction services manager for the Salt River Project, has several other graduates working for him and has hired two within the past five years.
Through the project, Rojas has helped endow ASU, NAU and UA with funds for a Navajo Scrubber Project scholarship.
Students are considered for the scholarship based on several criteria, he said.
"They're looking at not only their involvement with the program, but also what are they doing in the community, what efforts are they making toward applying the curriculum they are learning," Rojas said.
Reach the reporter at michael.miklofsky@asu.edu.
