Construction Career Advancement – Step-by-step progression from field worker to executive leadership
Construction Leadership Development – Essential skills for transitioning from hands-on work to management
Construction Technology Integration – Innovative workflows and digital tools for modern construction
Mentorship in Construction – Building relationships that accelerate career growth
Generational Leadership in Construction – Bridging gaps between experienced and young construction workers
Construction Management Training – Practical leadership skills for supervisors and project managers
Construction Industry Legacy – Learning from multi-generational construction families and businesses
About the Guest: Nicholas Winn, COO of Rescue Concrete, Inc., represents third-generation construction expertise dating back to 1946. His journey from field laborer to C-suite executive provides a real-world blueprint for construction career advancement.
Why This Matters: The construction industry needs skilled leaders who understand both fieldwork and business management. Learn how to build a sustainable construction career while making a positive impact in your community.
Welcome back to Just a Girl in Construction, the podcast for hardworking construction workers who want to drop the tool belt and build the skills to move into a management position. Our guest today is Nicholas Nguyen from Rescue Concrete, Inc. Nicholas and I are going to talk about the opportunities from site to management, creating your own company from scratch, and finding leadership opportunities in service to your communities through construction. This episode has a lot of insights to unpack, so stick around to find out how you can propel your construction career with real-world experiences.
I really appreciate it. This is one of my first podcasts, which always makes it nice to be able to have a friend to interview. And you’ve been a great inspiration for myself in the construction industry, and you’ve always been extremely helpful in being able to really offer guidance to students. And so it has been a valuable aspect of my education program for them to be able to lean on the experience of people like you.
So let’s just start off by you telling us a little bit about yourself and your path and what brings us here today.
Yeah, my path is, I don’t know, it’s typical, but it’s definitely par for the course when it comes to construction. My family’s been in the construction business since 1946, specifically in the concrete business in Stockton, California. My grandpa started that as just a wheelbarrow and a truck, and he then built that company into owning a ready-mix plant, into owning commercial building development, concrete tilt-ups, taught my dad the business, and my dad then went out and did his thing, and then started some businesses as well, and then taught me the trade as well. So I’ve been with my dad since really six years old, washing concrete, but realistically I’ve been employed fully since 1997. So it really is a true college of hard knocks versus the traditional college path that a lot of people might take.
Yeah, it’s funny you say that, because last week I had the honor and privilege of speaking to students at UC Davis, and everybody in there was like, where do you get your degree? Where do you want to get your degree? Where did you get your degree? I’m like, hard knocks, hard work, showing up, showing up on time, having those soft skills. Those are definitely the degrees that I have, and I’m proud of it.
Well, it is important to be very specific about this, though, and you know me as a college professor; I get a little cringe in me when people start telling everyone that they can be successful in construction without a certification or degree, which I also agree with. My dad was a tremendously successful role model in my life, and he never went to college. But it does take a special person. It does take someone who really understands what kind of work needs to be invested in themselves and how that personal growth is going to be achieved and developed.
So what kind of personal growth opportunities have you taken in order to be able to concurrently continue evolving in your construction education and knowledge?
So every year, I go to a conference called the World of Concrete in Las Vegas, Nevada, which I love every year. And so they have classes, whether it’s construction management, construction estimating, pouring and placing of concrete, or technical, chemical-type classes on the makeup of ready-mix and strengths and different technical things that are super nerdy in-the-weeds-type stuff, but I enjoy it. So to keep me fresh and new in my career, I typically go there. I also go to the off-end conferences that are not typically related to concrete, but maybe facility management or landscaping, to keep me fresh on some of the new technologies or new ways of management. And of course, just random leadership development is huge for me. I enjoy reading books on that or going to classes for that as well. Or being president of the local building industry association or something? Yeah, you know, that’s the other thing, too. You know, I was, for a year, the chair of the board for the North State Building Industry Foundation, which we’ve changed our name. Now it’s the Building Careers Foundation, so BCF, which is a little bit shorter and nicer to be able to say. So the BCF, or Building Careers Foundation, I was able to be really part of that board in the inception of it, and I’ve been with that organization since 2011.
Okay, well, I’m going to let you make a plug because I think it’s an absolutely beautiful thing that you do, but you also build bunk beds for individuals who don’t have anything to sleep in at night.
Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. That’s something I think is like near and dear to my heart right now. We just got done last week supplying 84 beds to children that were sleeping on the floor. And the thing is, it’s like, you know, we’re builders, we’re managers, we’re people that, you know, take complicated situations, and we want to organize them, and that’s what we are as managers. And so in this program, I have a population group of, of course, children that don’t have a bed, and there’s a multitude of reasons, and some of them are very tragic, and we love to help those that are in need, and that’s good. But the other component that is exciting is the youth part of it, that 18- to 24-year-old that has no idea what they’re supposed to do in life. They know they need to do something, but they don’t want to go to college, or they can’t, or whatever the reason, but they’re construction-minded.
And so I took that population group of construction-minded 18- to 24-year-olds and combined them with these children that are sleeping on the floor to assemble beds so that these children have a bed, but also these youth have an opportunity to serve their community, which is awesome, but also to communicate and manage projects of their own with very little training. And they get a lot of in-field experience in building these beds together, because they’re very complicated. If you’ve ever done a KIA or some of the beds that you have to put together, all the little pieces and different stuff, we don’t make it easy. This is not a piece that you’re putting together.
Well, I know there’s always screws left on the floor, but I thought that’s because you guys don’t read the specifications or the instructions. No, I love that part of what you do. Our Savior was a carpenter, and I think that the gift of service and combining that with an opportunity to educate and teach is a tremendous way of being able to implement mentorship for these young adults. And so I love that you do that with your program.
We also, here at Construction Management Online, even have skill builder courses that can accompany work when people are going out and doing the hands-on in order to be able to continue with their personal growth. And so I love that you’re doing that. It’s really in service. And so when you’re building on that, and you’re providing a succession to leadership opportunities in a company that you’ve created, and again, you’ve created multiple companies and have been able to take them from scratch all the way to a C-suite executive level, how do we help those young individuals see a pathway for themselves in developing that vivid master plan goal of going from where they are today to where they might want to be in five or ten years?
I would say rage, anger, and you’re like, what do you mean? So sometimes we get jobs, and we do jobs that we don’t like. We get there, and for whatever reason, you name it, it just doesn’t fit our personality. And you are very either depressed or angry or upset. And what I felt is when I’m in those places, especially in a job I don’t like, is I use that as motivation. I take and I channel that energy, because it is energy, and I channel that into motivating to improve my skill set, to improve my education and my ideas so that I can go to that next job. I always look at my boss and say, I want your job. I’m going to have your job next. I’ve always done that over the years, and that’s always been a pretty good motivating factor, especially if you’re just, I’m done with this.
A quick story aside, I was literally talking to a young man. He’s 19 years old, and he’s in his first trade job. At first, he was all excited, and he was like, okay, that’s great. I’m excited. And then I hit him up about six months later, and I’m like, how are you doing? He goes, it’s all right. I guess I’m okay. And I’m just like, just, you know what, learn what you can learn, do what you can do. And I’m telling you, you’re going to have those skills, and nobody can take those skills away from you once you learn them. Yeah, I love that. No matter what industry they go into, they’ll always be able to build a nice, tough shed, right?
So, you know, in talking about that, I also agree that motivation is a nice trigger, but in understanding in those moments that there are difficult times, but they’re not going to last forever. And so, by being able to look back on our lives and recognizing that there’s always been a shift that has happened that took us out of the darkness and was able to provide us with new tools, that now we can excel and continue to build ourselves forward. And so I appreciate that you’ve used that as a motivational factor to move forward, but, you know, we always talk about construction’s not sexy and that it does have those really long, hard stretches sometimes.
So what do you do to really spark that or pull yourself out of one of those long, dark moments? That’s a good question. I think it’s the mind game. You know, it’s not about the brawn. It’s not about muscle. It’s not about, oh, I’m tired. I mean, we all get tired. You know, we always have, you know, who really want to get up today after maybe a couple days off from Thanksgiving? You know, when the alarm clock goes off, you know, it’s that discipline is huge. And as I get older and I’ve had discipline and I think I was pretty disciplined, but as I’ve gotten older, the more discipline I have, the more successful I am. And that means getting up early. You know, I’m a three thirty in the morning kind of guy. I don’t have to be, you know, some people are night people and I get that. And if you are, God bless you. That’s awesome. But for me, getting up early and getting the job done or getting the day started and having a focus and a goal and a plan and just start thinking through that.
And if your mind starts going negative, catch yourself. You know, that’s the thing. The mind is so powerful and I struggle with negativity. I’ll just be perfectly honest. And so I have to catch myself. And OK, yes, this can go wrong or yes, that is going wrong. And, oh, this is really going wrong. But just to say, you know what? Let’s do small increments of solutions. Let’s try to find small victories that we can attain in this so that we just move the ball forward a little bit. Because we as managers, construction managers, we want to move the ball 50 yards, right? But sometimes we can only move it five yards and that’s OK, you know, at the end of the day.
So, Nicholas, I wasn’t going to go here with this. And if you don’t want to, then that’s fine. But I feel like you might be open to being a little bit vulnerable. Now, I know it’s the new thing for everybody to lay everything out in the open, and I’m not asking you to do that. But we do recognize mental health sometimes as a challenge in the construction industry, preconditions that come into it with either substance abuse or, you know, they are homeless or they have come from the military and not really been able to find a home. And so there’s some other preconditions of why people get into construction that might already preset some of their mental health issues.
And then getting into a very physical job that also is very stressful and has a lot of anxiety associated with large budgets and deadlines and fires happening and construction drama that might be present. And so in those types of environments, what would you say to somebody in order to be able to help them really recognize that power in self-awareness and being able to kind of talk yourself through that situation into a powerful moment or a positive moment that can then really change your mindset?
I think maybe I love the question. That’s really good. And when you were saying it, I couldn’t help but think, and I was literally thinking about this morning, is anytime you make a commitment, whether it be to school, a new program, a new management class, a job, a career, it is going to be tested no matter what. I don’t care who you are, what your belief systems are. It doesn’t matter. You will be tested every day, all day, twice on Sunday. And the thing is, isthat you just have to be ready for the test. And sometimes it’s a pop quiz. And I’m speaking to a professor here, so you know what I’m talking about. And life is a pop quiz. It’s like a day after day pop quiz, like surprise. And yes, you will get down. Yes, you will feel like you are not succeeding. And that’s okay, just kind of, you know, I’ve always just, you know, get hit. We all get hit in life. And that is a struggle sometimes. And you have to be strong enough, whether you need to get what you’re listening to, what you’re reading, who you’re hanging out with. You know, it’s the basic stuff that we went through, you know, with high school or junior high, there’s peer pressure. Just be careful what voices you’re listening to. And if you know that you’re listening to voices that are causing you to have issues, go ahead and change that environment to help you get through the situations that you’re getting through.
Yeah, I love that. I mean, even good music, right, can change your mood just in that moment. And it can happen right on the job site. You could go sit in your truck for five minutes and make a change. If it’s breathing or meditation or being able to listen to that song that’s gonna pull you up or being grateful for even the very smallest things that can happen in your life. And that’s what I found is having a number of things to see gratitude in can really change your mindset.
Could I add one story to that? Just a personal story. You know, I always share this with students. So I always say that there’s no anger management classes if you demo concrete or, you know, remove concrete. Back in the day, I was having a really bad day. My laborers weren’t doing what they’re supposed to do. My laborer was my brother, so you can imagine that dynamic. And he wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do. My other laborer wasn’t, they didn’t have any drive. And I was like, it’s eight o’clock, we gotta get this job done, we gotta demo this garage floor. And I’m mad, and I’m madder than mad. And I took it all out on that concrete and that jackhammer. And that thing got broken out within an hour. It was so quick, we were done. And because of that rage, and I redirected it into that concrete. So yeah, that’s one way you can do it. You don’t have to hit anybody, so it’s great. Yeah, and you didn’t have to pay for it because literally they have bash rooms or something now.
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. The rage rooms, yeah, the rage rooms, which I’ve been kind of, I kind of wanna, I’m thinking about going to one of those. Well, before you go to one, can you just let us understand a little bit in when you were designing or custom designing your path, was it just going where the door was opened and being able to find opportunities that way? Or did you really specifically design and create an accelerated path that was able to streamline your success to where you are? And when you are where you are today, how does someone then look at building themselves even bigger when you’ve already reached the success that you have?
Yeah, that’s great. First of all, I would say if I knew about you and construction management, I would be a completely different person. I would be at another level because when I was growing up, my family, we just, education wasn’t the strongest type. We were just hardworking people and that’s awesome. That’s a good thing. If I knew what I knew now, I would be just another two, three steps higher. And so it’s kind of a regret I have. And I, yeah, it’s another story. But the thing is, the thing is, is that I would, my pathway, I would work summers with my dad and out in the field. And it was great money because I make overtime and different stuff like that. And, but all the guys there are like, hey, are you going to college? I’m like, yeah, I’m going to college. And they’re like, go, don’t come back here. They would literally tell me, don’t go back here. Maybe because I didn’t work so hard. I don’t know. But the thing is, no, I’m kidding. I worked hard, but they said, don’t come back here. Go to college, get out of this place. Don’t be here. So I did, I went to college and I did some things, but I started getting into computer networking and I went through the year and a half course on computer networking and I liked it. But like first day on the job, I wanted to throw one of the computers out the window. It didn’t sound like an anger management class. All right, anyways. So the point is, I was like, I’m over this. I don’t want to deal with this networking thing anymore. It’s a hobby, not a career. And so the only, the opportunity that I had at that time was to wheelbarrow concreteas a laborer. And so I wheelbarrow concrete and was able to find more opportunity and more opportunity, and it was opportunity for leadership and sales. And once I saw those pathways kind of open in front of me, I was like, wow, this is great. This is the pathway I should go. And it turned out to be a good choice.
Yeah. And you know what I really love about that? Again, we’ve talked about the College of Hard Knocks, but that you were able to stay open to the fact that, okay, maybe college really wasn’t for me, but you still tried it. You listened to those people that are out in the field. And I think sometimes that those people that are out on the field are the same ones who end up in my classroom 15 years later also thinking that college should have been the answer for them, but they didn’t do it then. And so now they want to try it.
I also would recognize that we really are all exactly where we’re supposed to be. So we shouldn’t have any regrets in where we’re at, because the lessons that we’ve learned in our lives were created uniquely for our own foundation. And that’s the foundation necessary to be able to serve you where you’re at today. And so I think that you took the right path. I think you were on a perfect path.
So now you talked about computer technology, and I know that sometimes we struggle a little bit in construction with our implementation of technology. But now that I know that you have a background in that as well, how have you seen that evolve over the years? And how do you see it contributing to the success of construction in the future?
Do you have an hour? Because we could talk, because I love that kind of stuff. Though, I’ll try to be brief. Obviously, our society has seen more and more technology infiltrate into the lower levels because it’s been cheaper and easier to get access to.
Cut some highlights. Of course, we’re getting away from plans or blueprints and getting more on iPads and being able to look at the plans. And for our senior-level field crews, they were resistant at first, but they actually like it because they can zoom in and they don’t have to put their readers on. They’re like, I don’t know what this says, but they can actually zoom in and get really in-depth into the plans and look at those details that they need. So that’s been a very positive bonus with it. Not 100% there, but it’s getting there when it comes to the iPads.
Another part is that I love, and the buzzword today is, of course, AI. Really, my job is Chief Estimator of Rescue Concrete, even though my title is COO. But really, I’m just estimating all day long. And so to combat all the bids that come in, I use a program called Attentive. And what it does, it, within about a day, does all my takeoff measurements on my plans and then puts them in an Excel spreadsheet so then that I can put it into our bidding process. And so I love that kind of stuff. And I’m always looking for new technologies and new ways of doing stuff to be more efficient. And that’s helped me as a manager.
The other part of that is job security. You’re like, what do you mean about that? Well, you get a point where you’re in the office, you’re working. Well, the internet just went down or a computer just broke. Who’s going to fix it? Well, the tech guy’s three hours away. Well, I could do it. And so there’s some job security with that, being able to have multiple disciplines to be able to work. And that’s very helpful. So I love technology. I enjoy it when it works. But that’s another story.
Well, no, and then I love that. And I laughed when you said that the older generation, or the seniors, are now really getting into the iPad and understanding the value in that. But do you guys actually take the time to do some specific training to help prepare them for that new anxiety of having to use a technology tool? And are you seeing the older generations that are in the construction industry becoming more adaptable to technology coming into the industry?
Yes and no. We still have some holdouts. It’s not flowers and roses and pink things. There’s a couple of holdouts. Why pink, Nicholas? Why’d you say pink? Because it’s just the girl in construction. That’s why. And so the point is that they struggle sometimes, especially like, for instance, we have a technology that I implemented for digital timekeeping. That’s a really big thing here in California. You want to make sure that, one, you want to pay your employees exactly when they start and exactly when they end. You want to make sure they get paid and they get their breaks. You know, California law is very specific about that. We want to honor that and be right to the law, right? And so we have to make sure that the training that we give the employees, whether it be digital or in person, helps them understand that concept. Sometimes it’s been a struggle on that part of it.
What hasn’t been a struggle and I do love is the tailgate talks. A lot of times, you know, management, we’re not able to get on site. And so what we do is if we have a third-party system that allows us to give a tailgate talk with a survey/test with a video in Spanish and English, so that they’re getting the training plus a little bit of, “Hey, did you understand what you just heard or saw?” And that’s helped us get a little bit more acceptance for some of our tailgate safety training. I love that; that is fantastic. And the dual languages, right? I mean, with your concrete, you do a lot of landscaping scenarios as well. And so that would make sense that you have that diversity in your education, so that’s fantastic.
So I want to go back to succession again, and this is kind of a tough one, right? Because you really literally have worn every hard hat in the field, like from every single level that you could possibly imagine, from secretary all the way to vice president, CEO, and full-time estimator. But for someone who is looking at this construction industry as a management track career opportunity for themselves, what kind of advice could you give them in being able to, I don’t know, possibly shadow a senior project manager or identify some mentorship opportunities that would allow them to really see what an operations manager is versus a contract administrator? Or how would you really redesign your path if you had every opportunity in the world to do so?
Yeah, that’s great. Networking is huge. I was listening to another podcast regarding automobile stuff, nothing related to construction, and one of the regrets this gentleman had, who went to the highest height of a particular media magazine corporation, was that he was so stunned and so focused, myopic on his work, that he did not do any networking. He did not go out and meet people and have that interaction to get that mentorship. And that’s one of his regrets; like he was literally on camera saying, “I regret that. I wish I went out and networked so much because now here I am at the end of my career, and I don’t know as many people as I should.” And it really, he said, it really held him back.
And so I would say, if you can find—and that’s the thing—we have this wonderful thing called the Internet. Whatever your trade is, whatever your specific thing that you’re doing, go to an association meeting, find an association that’s related to your trade, and go to their meetings. Go and plug in; they will have a youth or a young person in construction-type entry pricing for you. You know, get in there relatively inexpensive and just plug in somewhere and learn. Start going to those networking events. It’s hard; I still do it. I make myself go, and it’s challenging, especially if you don’t know anybody there.
Yeah, if you’re an introvert—and I, you know, I struggle with that too sometimes—you’re like, “How do you do that?” You’ve got to make yourself not be an introvert. And the key to that for me is if you’re at a networking event and you don’t know anybody, find somebody else that’s standing alone and just go talk to them because they’re feeling the very same way you are. And that’s helped me out quite a bit. Just say, “Hi, my name’s Nicholas.”
Yeah, no, those are all very good suggestions. I really appreciate that. But I also appreciate your openness always to share with students and youth and even the other individuals in the construction industry. It just is so incredibly valuable because, Nicholas, I know that you feel this: when we have these five generations of people that are working in construction, our workmanship and the quality of our work is beginning to diminish. We’re starting to see people retire, and there just really isn’t the knowledge of the hands-on quality that we expect with some of our construction. A lot of us have been taught to hold that education close to our chest and not be vulnerable and not be open about that, because if we did, we might lose our job. And so it really was about keeping information, you know, close.
So how would you see the industry evolving and changing in a way that maybe our senior generations can come back as mentorship opportunities to be able to support some of these individuals entering the construction industry, but maybe not quite have the hands-on work experience, but still be able to lean on some of that senior experience, but that they don’t want to work that physical, hard five-day-a-week type of job?
Yeah. I’ve seen quite a bit of people that have retired, and in about two years they come back. You know, they sell everything, and this is good for them. They should do that. And they sell everything. They do the trailer, the truck, and they just go off on the open road. And about two years later, they come back, and they’re like, I’m ready to go back to work. And they’re like, I have no ability to do that because I’ve lost all my contacts or whatever.
I think we need to re-look at the word retirement. I think retirement is too black and white. And I think we need to look at a word called really, Oh, gosh, what was it? Top of my head. Sorry. But just an ability to take some time off. Maybe that one year, maybe that two years.
And sabbatical. We call it a sabbatical. Sabbatical. Thank you. I was like, but you’re trying to make my point here. A sabbatical. And yeah, so the sabbatical is something that we don’t celebrate as much as just retirement because we just think, You’re retired and you’re done, and we put you out to pasture. Good luck with all that.
And I think we really need to reconvene what the words mean and what that looks like. Because to give senior-level people with experience and that knowledge that they’re taking with them, that brain drain, as we call it in our industry, we want that back. Give them their break. Give them a year off or two years, but give them that open door. Say, when you want to come back as a consultant, you want to come back as a trainer, or you want to come back as a field trainer, please let’s talk. I’ll do an hourly rate, and you’ll come.
Or my favorite is, if we’re having a tough project, like a challenging project, hey, I need you in here. Can you come in here and help me out for a couple of weeks or so to get it caught up? That’s helpful too. So that black and white retirement is just, I wish we could get done with that and be a little bit more flexible.
I 100% agree. I think this is definitely somewhere where the construction industry, especially with our shortage of workforce as well, needs to be able to look at how we’re going to be able to tap into that. And just recognizing that if you’re in construction, you already know how to work hard. A dead stop in the middle of nowhere for retirement just doesn’t work for most of us. We want to continue working. We want to continue contributing.
And so being able to find a way to fit them in the situation as a consultant or as a mentor is a perfect opportunity for some of our elder workers. And our generational storytelling, the opportunity to be able to shadow them in what it is that they’re doing and really be able to bring their value to the construction project.
Well, fantastic, Nicholas. Thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Before we end, I just want you to, because I’ve seen some of the videos on your websites, I mean, these landscape backyards that you guys are doing are absolutely gorgeous. And I just want you to go ahead and put a feather in your hat there for a little bit about what you guys do.
We have the privilege of working with Toll Brothers, which is a production home builder here. Well, it’s all over the nation but based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but they’re here in Sacramento. I have a division. And they’ve, well, they trust us to build their models. And so we partner up with another company. We work hand in hand with a company called Landscape Development Incorporated, and they handle all the landscaping part of it.
And then we handle all the hardscape, the tile, the pavers, the barbecues, patio covers, fire features, water features, and all the fun stuff that we enjoy to do. And we love doing it. And so we will go through a project. A couple of years back, we had a project called Regency. And as a manager, I always tell people, as a manager, I was here. And after Regency, I was here. It took me up about four steps as a manager, and it was hard. It was not easy. You know, I learned a lot about organizing. was not easy. I learned a lot about organization and about communication and relying on people. And so Regency was definitely a wonderful project in Folsom, California. But it was 13 models, 15 model homes, and we had a very tight timeline. But we got it done. We got it done, and the client was happy, and they were able to open the models on time and get some people in some houses, which was great.
Oh, that’s fantastic. And what’s the website that they can go to to look at some of those? Yeah, you can go to our website, www.rescueconcrete.com. You can also go to:
