It’s always interesting when an engineering company visits campus to share their story with students—even more so when that company is hiring. Executives from Ledcor Construction were at CSULB this week to announce summer internship openings that could possibly lead to future full-time work.
“This is one of those opportunities where if you snooze, you lose,” said Emmitt Clark, Director of Professional Development and Internships for the College of Engineering, who arranged the visit.
Brian Chartrand, vice president of construction for Los Angeles and Orange counties, said Ledcor puts effort into mentoring interns and providing them with experience in the three civil engineering career paths: becoming an estimator, a project manager, or a superintendent. “Our interns are not people we put in a cubicle and forget about,” he said.
Ledcor got its start in Canada, said Chartrand, when founder William Lede bought a bulldozer with a $5,000 handshake loan in 1947 and went to work. He repaid the loan several weeks later and a company was born.
Based in Vancouver, Canada, the company has grown to 30 offices in the U.S. and Canada and 6,800 employees. Operating in the U.S. for 18 years, the company is 100-percent employee owned. It is active in forestry, mining, transportation, oil and gas, sustainability, and special projects. In both 2011 and 2014, Ledcor was named to Canada’s 10 “most admired corporate cultures” list.
Ledcor constructed the first fiber-optic cable in Canada and the first underground fiber-optic cable in the U.S. One recent project is Apple’s new flagship store in San Francisco. The 30-foot-tall jewel-shaped structure is being created within an existing building. The company was also a founding member of the Canada Green Building Council.
The company’s mission stresses safety, quality, integrity, sustainability, and success. “We like to think projects are more than girders and steel,” said Rani El-Djounde, director of preconstruction services. “It’s not just about building the building and walking away from it.”
Chartrand and El-Djounde invited interested students to submit their resumes at http://jobs.ledcor.com/intern-jobs.aspx. They plan on conducting interviews for the summer internships on Wednesday, May 4, beginning at 9 a.m.