I earn more than $200k in an industry with a bad reputation

EVER since RaShawn Austin was a kid and watched buildings being torn apart, he has been fascinated with construction. 

The now 50-year-old grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, and would watch wrecking balls demolish buildings from the age of four.

“I would always just stop and just stare at how these balls would demolish the buildings, and then I would come back and see what was going to be put up there and who was doing it,” RaShawn told The U.S. Sun.

The dad-of-two added that “dump trucks, tractor trailers have always fascinated me.”

With a family also involved in construction, RaShawn’s future path was almost already laid out, but it all changed at 13 years old when his cousin Lorenzo Johnson’s car broke down.

Lorenzo, who owns Parquet Floor Service in Hoboken, had the job of restoring the power in a church that their family frequently went to in their community in New Jersey. 

RaShawn’s cousin had no one to work with so he phoned RaShawn for some help – and he accepted.

They wound up taking the bus over to the church and restoring the fuse to get the power back.

“I was 13 years old, he gave me $300 and I thought I was rich,” RaShawn said. 

“I was like I’m Mr. Contractor from there on. And that was that was like really what got me into construction. 

“The satisfaction of finishing the job. And then the money that I got doing the job.”

And while construction gets a bad reputation for the dangers and tolling physical labor, RaShawn noted he enjoyed getting dirty after hard work in addition to the pay.

THE BASKETBALL PLAYER

That day at age 13 got things started for Rashawn – but that wasn’t his main focus early on in his life.

RaShawn noted that he was “gifted” with basketball talent.

In fact, his skills were so exceptional that he was able to score a four-year scholarship at La Salle Academy, a Catholic all-boys school in Manhattan, New York.

For college, he decided to move to the Sunshine State and attended Florida College in Temple Terrance in 1994 on a one-year scholarship. 

There, RaShawn continued to play basketball and majored in business.  

However, things changed after he met his girlfriend, whom he didn’t name, in college.

“That was kind of the end of my basketball aspirations,” RaShawn said.

Not only did he want to start a family – but he also admitted he lost “interest in the game” and no longer wanted to make a career out of it.

After his girlfriend graduated, she moved back with RaShawn to his hometown state in New Jersey in 1996.

RaShawn then transferred to the College of Mt St Vincent for another two and a half years.

Also, RaShawn went through multiple job changes over the next several years.

First, he went on to coach basketball. However, that only lasted a year because it didn’t help him pay the bills. 

That led him to go back to work with his cousin’s construction business and then take a job with Blue Shield as a warehouse clerk. 

Even though he moved up the ranking as a senior member service coordinator with Blue Shield, his love for construction took him back to the industry.  

In the early 2000s, RaShawn then took on a carpenter role with mobile office site trailer firm William Scotsman.

During that time, his uncle Randolph Austin, who was a licensed New York City site safety manager, introduced him to the role in the industry.

That’s when RaShawn started to take the next step in his career. 

“I took some courses and became an Asbestos Project Monitor for a Construction Safety Firm. 

“I fell in love with the business and Construction Site Safety became my new passion.” 

But the job that stood out the most to him and made a huge difference was his work at Site Safety, LLC when he first started as an apprentice in 2005.

Apprentices in the industry learn a skill on the job to master from experienced employees.  

At Site Safety LLC, RaShawn learned how to manage superstructures.

“These buildings were 40-50 stories,” RaShawn said.

“The footprints were humongous. And it was a lot of different activity, a lot of things to cover.”

RaShawn said that he learned a “world of knowledge” from the gig.

TOUGH DAY LEADS TO NEW GIG

One day in 2008, RaShawn then got a call from one of the bosses at Site Safety, LLC when he was working on a project in Coney Island, Brooklyn. 

He was informed he was being laid off because the work was “slow.”

However, he got a recommendation on the call to contact a company called Tap Electric, an electrical contractor, which serves all five New York City boroughs today.

He didn’t know much about Tap Electric at the time, but he phoned them and was able to land a job after interviewing with them.

But the real shock came for RaShawn when he needed to come in and sign union papers so he could get started on the job.  

Having a union job is important because it helps with the overall working conditions. 

This includes making sure wages are fair and that there isn’t workplace discrimination.    

“I was blown away in my my mind, I’m screaming union I had no idea,” RaShawn said.

“No one just walks into a union job; I got really lucky with that.”

At first, when he started at Tap Electric, he was a safety representative.

He was also quickly trained into an executive health and safety director at the company.

RaShawn said his role now involves dealing with safety matters of more than 19 multi-million-dollar sites.

“I have 25 company safety professionals reporting to me directly, while I am responsible for the submission of job-related plans and documents to be approved by the client, meeting the wants and needs of different clients and project managers, and attending to meetings both on- and off-site,” he said.

For the past 15 years, RaShawn has been with Tap Electric. He earns between $165,000 and $215,000 a year.

He’s also grown his family to two biological kids – Mina, 26, and Justis, 22, as well as three stepkids with his fiancée Maria, RJ, 25, Gloryvee, 23, and Ruben, 18.

The family’s connections to construction are continuing too, with RJ in training to become a site safety manager and Justis working as a safety coordinator at Forte Construction.  

“The [kids] are an integral part of our lives, and I cherish our time together as a blended family,” he said.

GETTING STARTED IN CONSTRUCTION

RaShawn never graduated college and you don’t need a degree to follow a similar career path. 

But make sure to properly research the industry and find out what might be available to you.

You may also be required to have at least a high school diploma or a General Educational Development (GED) title. 

But to get started it may of course help to get a connection in the field. 

Then to get started, you’ll want to reach out to local construction companies and see what they have to offer and what their hiring process is. 

If you are looking to get Site Safety work in construction, this may require some fieldwork. 

For example, New York requires a minimum of 40 hours of Site Safety training before getting started.

“I recommend this job for anyone who feels they want to make a difference in life they work with,” RaShawn said of his Site Safety role. 

“It’s not an easy job – but it’s a very rewarding job.

“The amount you learn not only in the process of working but also the safest means of how to complete those tasks.” 

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