America just blew out the candles on its 250th birthday — a moment to celebrate the freedoms and ideals that define us. But behind those ideals stands something more tangible: infrastructure. The hardware of civilization that made the American dream real, livable, and lasting.
Since its founding, our nation’s capacity to build at scale has made the United States a world power. The railroads and highways that moved people and goods. The refineries, pipelines, nuclear plants, and LNG terminals that fueled our growth. The defense systems that kept us safe. America wouldn’t be America without them.
None of it built itself. Our most critical infrastructure was raised over generations — designed and engineered, then constructed by carpenters, masons, laborers, ironworkers, operators, teamsters, pipefitters, welders, and electricians. They built the facilities that made America the world’s largest producer of both oil and natural gas.
We need to marshal that workforce again. Demand for AI data centers, reshored manufacturing, and new energy is surging all at once — against a backdrop of aging grids, roads, and ports. Few generations have had the chance to build so much, so fast, with so much riding on the outcome.
Whether we rise to the occasion won’t be decided by money, technology, or political will alone. It will be decided by how well we, as a nation, can develop and motivate skilled craft professionals. Unlike almost any other career, this work is stubbornly — and satisfyingly — physical. It happens on site, in specific places, done by people whose expertise takes years to earn. Every shift, every day, the country grows because of these builders. They are the unsung heroes of American industrial might.
That makes the future of America’s skilled trades the challenge of the moment. For too long, many treated a career in the trades as a consolation prize — what young people did if college wasn’t in the cards. For a generation, the pipeline of new craft professionals hasn’t kept pace with demand.
Now the math is catching up with us. The main bottleneck to America’s AI ambitions won’t be a shortage of computer scientists. It will be a shortage of skilled labor. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates the U.S. will need 140,000 more electricians, HVAC technicians, pipefitters, heavy-equipment operators, welders, and construction laborers by 2030 — to build the infrastructure for AI alone.
Our industry, our schools, and our leaders have to change that story. These aren’t fallback jobs. They’re careers where Americans can earn a good living, support a family, and build rare skill at the intersection of craftsmanship and advanced technology. The numbers prove it: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects skilled-trades employment will grow about 5% from 2024 to 2034 — roughly 70% faster than the national average — and these jobs pay above the median American wage.
They’re also noble, patriotic, and full of purpose. Build a power plant, and you keep the lights on for millions. Build an LNG terminal, and you help allies secure their energy independence. Build a factory, and you bring jobs and dignity back to a region that lost them.
America is beginning to rediscover this. Communities are investing in apprenticeships, states are rebuilding vocational training, and private and philanthropic capital is flowing into workforce development. Like our democratic republic itself, these efforts are decentralized — local, pragmatic, and responsive to what communities actually need.
Our company, Bechtel, has been in the engineering and construction business for 128 years — more than half the life of the country. We’ve seen what’s possible when the nation and industry invest in people. Time and again, we’ve met the labor demands of megaprojects by partnering with schools, unions, training organizations, and local communities to open pathways into craft careers.
At any moment, tens of thousands of Bechtel craft professionals are deployed across some of America’s most complex projects. A few years ago, we mobilized more than 9,000 in Georgia to rescue and deliver the first large-scale nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in three decades. Today, roughly 17,000 are at work across the five major LNG projects we’re building along the Gulf Coast. And we anticipate over 4,500 construction jobs to build America’s largest semiconductor facility in New York.
The lesson in all of it: the surest way to build the future is to build the people who will build it. At Bechtel, we believe our greatest legacy isn’t any single project. It’s the generations of builders, craftspeople, and leaders we’ve helped develop along the way. That’s why we’re proud to be a builder of builders.
But there’s always more to do. We need to reach young people weighing their options, veterans leaving military service, and mid-career workers looking to grow — and show them a clear career outlook: real advancement, tangible training, a future worth choosing. Apprenticeships, community college partnerships, and industry-led training need room to grow.
One of the underappreciated rewards of this work is knowing it will serve communities for decades. Infrastructure is how we leave our mark and set the next generation up to succeed.
At 250 years young, we have the chance to call a new generation to this heroic work. If we invest in people the way past generations invested in us, the next great chapter of American progress won’t just be dreamed. It will be built.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
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