Human Side of Construction

David MacDonald, Division Manager at Dewar Industrial Services, joins Angelo to talk about the one trait he hires for above everything else: telling the truth. From a Red Seal carpenter who nearly went bankrupt in 2008 to building a new ICI division inside a nuclear contractor, David shares why honesty gets you help, why schedule lies are really trust failures, and why the people on the tools are the most important people on any project. The conversation closes on mentorship, mental wellness, his daughter’s electrical apprenticeship, and what it will take to get more women onto Canadian job sites.

Key topics

• Why “we’re on schedule” so often turns into “we’re not hitting it” the week before

• Pay now or pay later: difficult conversations versus nuclear explosions

• How accountability rolls downhill until it reaches the trades, who can’t push risk anywhere

• David’s sweatpants interview and the leader who hired him to build teams, not to know HVAC

• Hiring for honesty, respect for the customer and being a good human

• Mentorship as letting people fail with calculated risk

• Process-heavy nuclear work versus ICI, and why sector experience isn’t interchangeable

• Shielding your people’s time off and sitting with them when things are hard

• Women in the trades: the image problem, the messaging problem, and what actually moves the number

• Why promoting your best installer to foreman can backfire

Guest

David MacDonald is Division Manager at Dewar Industrial Services, building the company’s ICI division. A Red Seal carpenter and former owner of The Alcon Group, he spent nearly nine years at Black & MacDonald as a project manager and operations manager. He is in his fourth discipline within construction and plans to keep learning.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

ENR’s 2026 Top 600 Specialty Contractors report shows $275 billion in revenue driven by the AI data centre boom, and a craft worker shortage that keeps getting worse. In this solo episode, Angelo argues the boom isn’t a recruiting problem. It’s a stress test of whether construction leaders can develop people, carry risk and protect basic dignity at speed. He closes with one thing every leader can do on site this week.

Key topics

• Why the boom is sorting firms rather than lifting all of them

• The shift from finding workers to developing them, and why foremen are the real bottleneck

• How risk pushed down the contract chain lands on crews and erodes psychological safety

• The “bathroom clause”: meals, clean washrooms and paved walkways as recruiting strategy

• The Canadian picture: BuildForce hiring needs and data centres in the GTA and Alberta

• A one-week site walk and the one question to ask your foreman

Mentioned in this episode

• ENR, “ENR Top 600: AI Boom Tests Talent Pipelines” (Oct 21, 2026): https://www.enr.com/articles/64024-enr-top-600-ai-boom-tests-talent-pipelines

• BuildForce Canada, Construction and Maintenance Looking Forward 2026–2035

• Associated Builders and Contractors, 2026 workforce shortage model: https://www.abc.org/wfshortage

• HSOC Episode 10, Health & Safety 2.0

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Red Seal master electrician Anna Lary joins Angelo to answer the question she asked at a panel that left the room silent: how does the way we resource a job site affect the mental health of the people working on it? They cover silica behind caution tape, washrooms that drift out of reach, why fewer than half of apprentices in Canada’s largest trades finish, why generic EDI training backfires, and what owners, contractors and foremen can do about it. Anna also shares how the ConnectHER Hub at BCIT grew from one message into a funded program that has connected more than 2,000 people.

Key topics

• Site logistics as a message about worth: dust, washrooms, access, debris

• Apprenticeship completion in Canada: 47% of men, 34% of women in the 15 largest Red Seal trades (2021)

• Why apprentices leave: starting wages, the first employer, apprentice EI, training backlogs, condensed technical training

• Generational change in how apprentices are trained and spoken to

• Why foremen need training to intervene, and the social-connection problem

• EDI training built for construction, and calling men into it

• Bystander intervention and calling people in rather than out

• Owner and policy levers, minimum standards and ‘where practicable’

• Invested workers speak up; resentful workers stay silent

• The ConnectHER Hub, Equity in Electrical and Equity in Contracting

Guest

Anna Lary, Red Seal and BC master electrician, M.Ed. Former BCIT electrical apprenticeship instructor. Project Lead, ConnectHER Hub at BCIT.

Mentioned in this episode

• ConnectHER Hub, BCIT: https://www.bcit.ca/construction-environment/welcome-to-the-connectherhub/

• Equity in Electrical and Equity in Contracting events (Anna Lary)

• Leaders in Trades training, BC Centre for Women in Trades

• Future of Work panel, Pitt Meadows Plumbing, April 2026

• Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, apprenticeship completion analysis (2023 and 2024 reports)

• Anna Lary on LinkedIn

Support resources

This episode discusses workplace harassment and sexual assault. If any of it is your story: Ending Violence Canada directory at endingviolencecanada.org; RAINN at 1-800-656-4673 (US); Assaulted Women’s Helpline at 1-866-863-0511 (Ontario, 24/7); call or text 988 in a crisis (Canada and US).

Work with Angelo: angelo@hsoc.one

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Content note

This episode discusses sexual harassment and assault. If that is heavy for you right now, take care of yourself. Support resources are below.

Episode summary

A woman who built a career she loves in construction wrote to Angelo and a few other men with industry platforms with one request: tell the men to check whether the women they work with feel safe. In this solo episode Angelo reads her letter, with her permission and with identifying details removed. He then speaks to the men in the industry about the hidden hazard assessment women run every day, why so many reporting processes end in the woman leaving, and five concrete things men and leaders can do starting this week.

Key topics

• The field-level risk assessment women run on top of the actual job

• Why news like the Cornell case reopens old experiences for women on job sites

• A listener’s letter on harassment, close calls and leaving the industry

• Survey data from Ontario, Nova Scotia and the US on harassment, reporting and retention

• Reporting systems versus exit systems

• Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act and workplace sexual harassment

• Why “as a father of daughters” misses the point

• Psychological safety for everyone, not a team with an asterisk

• Five ways to check in and act without making it worse

Support resources

• US: RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline, 1-800-656-4673, 24/7 (rainn.org)

• Ontario: Assaulted Women’s Helpline, 1-866-863-0511, 24/7 (GTA 416-863-0511, #SAFE (#7233) on Bell, Rogers, Fido and Telus mobiles)

• Canada: directory of sexual assault centres and crisis lines, endingviolencecanada.org

• In crisis anywhere in the US or Canada: call or text 988

Sources and links mentioned

• Ontario Building and Construction Tradeswomen (OBCT), survey of 342 women, released at the 2025 Ontario Building Trades convention

• YWCA Halifax, survey of 101 women and gender-diverse skilled tradespeople, released March 2024

• Institute for Women’s Policy Research, A Future Worth Building: What Tradeswomen Say (2021 survey, 2,635 respondents)

• Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act, workplace harassment provisions (Bill 132, in force 2016)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Hammad Chaudhry, VP of Innovation and Digital Construction at Pomerleau, joins Angelo to talk about the human side of construction technology. Hammad explains why AI adoption stalls when companies don’t understand their own business processes, why field “resistance” is usually a rational response to risk, and why the most valuable tools rarely look revolutionary. The conversation turns to the workforce gap, procurement incentives, and why investing in mental health and change management is part of any serious technology strategy.

Key topics

• From architecture and BIM coordination to leading innovation at Canada’s largest builders

• Why tech companies misread construction as one monolithic industry

• There’s no holy grail: understanding your business process before you buy AI

• Data strategy as table stakes, and clients asking contractors for their AI strategy

• The timing problem: investing too early vs waiting until your back is against the wall

• Resistance as risk management, and changing a tire on the Gardiner

• Conway’s Law, silos, and a workforce with no time left to learn

• Startups vs contractors: hero syndrome and the unflashy wins

• Will AI replace people? The labour gap and growing demand

• Incentives, procurement and contracts as the real barrier to tech’s potential

• Pomerleau’s investment in mental health and change management

• ROI, insurance, and why the human case is the business case

• The doorman lesson: what you lose when you optimize for ROI alone

• Hammad’s advice to executives: start with the business objective

Guest bio

Hammad Chaudhry is VP of Innovation and Digital Construction at Pomerleau and Vice Chair of Building Transformations, a non-profit built for the industry, by the industry. He started on the architecture side in Alberta, moved into construction as a project coordinator and BIM coordinator, and worked through estimating, preconstruction, proposals and special projects (including the conservatory renovation at the Banff Springs Hotel) before leading innovation and technology teams at some of the largest general contractors in Canada. He has also worked directly in the construction tech startup space, including time at Cupix, and is a Top 40 Under 40 in Canadian construction.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Every construction estimate makes assumptions about people: how rested they are, how long they’ll stay, and who’s actually running the job. Nobody writes those assumptions down, so nobody prices them, and ops wears the variance when they don’t hold. Drawing on his years as a Chief Estimator and P&L leader, Angelo breaks down the overtime tax, the churn tax and the trust gap between estimating and operations. He closes with three practical moves any contractor can make on the next bid, no software required.

Key topics

• How a labour number really gets built, and why every factor describes the building, not the people

• Why historical productivity data hides the human variables instead of capturing them

• The overtime tax: MCAA factors for 50- and 60-hour weeks, and the “61 cents” reality

• Fatigue data from the National Safety Council (2018)

• The churn tax: absenteeism, turnover and the value of craft training

• The month-six cost review, and why psychological safety is a margin issue

• Three moves: write down the human assumptions, price acceleration honestly, close the loop

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Anthony Foley went from National Guard infantryman to master electrician to owner of his own veteran-owned shop, and he volunteered five years as an apprenticeship instructor along the way. In this conversation he is unusually honest about what large-scale construction does to people over time, including himself.

We get into the day there was no drinking water on a hot job site and what that silence communicated, the leadership test he gives every apprentice, why he believes teaching is the highest form of mastery, and the moment a former student told him over lunch that he still seemed bitter. He agreed.

Key topics covered

• Why a foundation in standards made the transition from the military to construction easier, and where that turns into rigidity

• The jump from a small shop to a national contractor, and the day he had to admit he might just be a number

• Getting thrown onto large-scale new construction with no mentorship and being told to ask as few questions as possible

• The water story, and what leadership communicates when it brushes something small off

• Take the money off the table: his test for whether a leader is worth following

• Why he gave five years of his own time to teaching apprentices for free

• Teaching as the way men in this trade actually show they care

• Phones, gambling and what he reads as a hope problem in younger apprentices

• The gap between the six figure trades marketing and a first year apprentice’s actual paycheque

• The superintendent who kept working through heat stroke, and what that models for everyone watching

• How harshness gets inherited from one generation of tradespeople to the next

• Why he thinks building steadier men is the precondition for the diversity the industry says it wants

• Becoming the thing you were trying to avoid, and catching it in yourself

• What construction could learn from law enforcement about peer support and stress

• What he would tell an eighteen year old, and the one reason for joining the trades he will not accept

Guest

Anthony Foley, owner and master electrician, AKF Energy Electrical, Dumfries, Virginia. Former National Guard infantryman. Five years as a volunteer apprenticeship instructor.

Mentioned in this episode

• AKF Energy Electrical: akfenergy.com

• Anthony Foley: afoley@akfenergy.com

• Kennesaw State University (where Anthony studied graphic design before enlisting)

• Lightcast, Defining the Skilled Trades: A Data-Driven Blueprint for the Future, August 25, 2026

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

A guy breaks his arm on your site and ninety seconds later three people are moving, there is a form, and there is an incident review by Thursday. A guy tells your foreman he has a plan to end his life, and nothing happens at all. In this solo episode, Angelo takes the mental health and crisis response program Shannon Truax-Wardell built at Preferred Materials, following the loss of a colleague to suicide, and turns it into a five-phase build sequence any construction company can follow. This is not an awareness episode. It is the operator manual: what you do, in what order, and what it costs you when you skip a step.

Topics covered

• Why mental health programs start with a trigger and a person, not a strategy, and why they die when handed to someone without authority

• The ready-mix truck campaign, and the driver education that had to happen before it launched

• Awareness without capability as an exposure, not a kindness

• The eighty percent of your workforce who want to help and do not know how

• Mental health first aid versus crisis response training, and why they are not interchangeable

• Volunteer-based responder rosters, and why letting people quit is the system working

• Why operational leaders, not HR, end up carrying the program

• Roster composition, and who people in trouble actually approach

• The legal line: no diagnosing, no treating, no prescribing, and why training is the protection

• Why terminology matters: died by suicide, not committed suicide

• Retention as the real return, and why promising an ROI number gets your program cancelled

• Attention failure as an under-counted driver of site incidents

• The one sentence from a leader that destroys the whole investment

• What a site lead and an office lead can each do on Monday morning

Links

Episode 026 with Shannon Truax-Wardell

Crisis support: in Canada and the United States, call or text 988 at any time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Shannon Truax-Wardell led a program that put a suicide crisis line on the side of ready-mix drums and drove it through every community her company works in. It won a national award, and a stranger in crisis called the number and later called back to say thank you. In this episode, sponsored by Grand Valley Construction Association and Mark’s Commercial, she walks Angelo through what came after the campaign: crisis response and mental health first aid training built into an operating company since 2021, who volunteered and why, where the legal line sits, and what to say to the executive who wants the ROI first. Angelo shares the story of the manager who asked him the same question five days running until he broke down at his desk. The through line is simple. We train every crew in first aid for the body and almost none of them for the mind, and that is a training gap, not a values problem.

Key topics covered

• How the ready-mix drum crisis line campaign came together in January 2021, and why the drivers were trained before a single truck went out

• Crisis response versus mental health first aid: what each one covers and how long each takes

• Why operational leaders, not just safety and HR, are the right people to train

• Keeping the program voluntary, and why some volunteers backing out was the right outcome

• The legal line between offering a safe place to speak and treating someone

• Language that matters: died by suicide, not committed suicide

• The 80 percent in the middle who want to help and freeze because they do not know what to say

• Why relating your own story back to someone in crisis can push them further away

• Angelo on Tim Peters, five days of the same question, and what a relief valve feels like

• Shannon on losing an hour of her drive while carrying her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis

• The operational case: supported people produce, and stressed people are a risk to themselves and the crew

• Answering the ROI question, and Cal Beyer’s line that the human case is the business case

• The Loyal Crew: where the name came from, the hard hat sticker, and check in on your crew https://theloyalcrew.justadd10.com/

• What a leader can actually do on Monday morning, on site and in the office

• Where mental health programs fall flat, and what associations could be doing instead

About the guest

Shannon Truax-Wardell, CRSP, is Vice President of Safety, Health and Environment at Preferred Materials, and the founder of The Loyal Crew. She started in construction in 2005 in mining and aggregates after a co-op term paving roads for the County of Simcoe, and studied environmental engineering technology. She led the award winning ready-mix drum suicide prevention campaign and built crisis response and mental health first aid training across her organization. She speaks on mental health and psychological safety in construction both on behalf of her company and independently.

About the Sponsors

The Grand Valley Construction Association’s mission is Building Better Community. While their work is rooted in building the spaces and infrastructure that shape our communities, GVCA recognizes that nothing gets built without the people behind it. That’s why they’re committed to raising awareness, education and support around mental health and suicide prevention in construction, because building better community starts with taking care of the people who build it.

Learn more at: https://www.gvca.org/

Mark’s Commercial’s commitment to helping people get home safely extends beyond physical safety to mental health and well-being. That’s why they’re proud to support this podcast and the important conversations that help create safer, healthier workplaces. Because getting home safely means taking care of both body and mind.

Check them out at: https://www.markscommercial.com/en-ca/

If you are struggling, you are not the only one. In Canada and the US, call or text 988 for the Suicide Crisis Helpline.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

64% of US construction workers reported anxiety or depression in the last twelve months, up from 54% the year before. For Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, Angelo brings Josh Vitale of Project BUILT back to the show to talk about the part nobody has gotten to yet: what you actually do once you have admitted there is a problem.

Josh explains why running six thousand people through crisis intervention training was not the answer, what the trainings gave him and what they never gave him, and how that pushed him into building things instead. Family retreats. Recharge rooms already in use in police and fire halls. Rebar, a free anonymous check-in app that keeps a worker’s data on their own phone.

Underneath all of it is a single design principle: the intervention cannot stop when the time clock gets punched. This is a solutions episode, and it ends with a direct answer to the question a lot of wellness committees are sitting on right now, which is what to do with a budget you do not know how to spend.

Key topics covered

• Why awareness fatigue is real, and why awareness is still not finished

• What crisis intervention training gives you, and the one thing it cannot give you

• The 2025 stigma numbers, from both the worker and the executive side

• Doing your own work first, and the hero complex that comes with this territory

• Whole people, not workers: why interventions that stop at the gate do not hold

• Building the family retreat, and the model it was borrowed from

• Recharge rooms: what is in them, what they cost, and where the results come from

• The cost objection, and the cost of inaction

• Rebar, Level Check, and Compass: free tools for the worker and the spouse

• Why peer credibility beats a credential in this industry

• What Josh would do with a $250,000 wellness budget

Guest bio

Josh Vitale is the founder of Project BUILT, a construction wellbeing nonprofit built on the idea that the intervention cannot stop when the time clock gets punched. Project BUILT runs all expenses paid family retreats for construction families, is bringing recharge rooms from police and fire stations onto job sites, and recently launched Rebar, a free anonymous check-in web app for workers and their spouses in English, Spanish and Arabic. Josh is a builder first. He has sat in dozens of suicide interventions, has been through his own recovery, and is now MasTec’s preferred charity partner. He first appeared on the show in Episode 7.

Mentioned in this episode

• Project BUILT and the all expenses paid family retreat in Pagosa Springs, applications open: https://getbuilt.org

• Rebar, free and anonymous, English, Spanish and Arabic: https://rebar.getbuilt.org

• Clayco / Atomik Research 2025 construction mental health survey, the study cited at 13:36

• CAMH: one in two Canadians will have had a mental illness by the age of 40 (Smetanin et al. 2011)

• Project Sanctuary, the military family retreat model Project BUILT was built from

• QPR, Vital Cog and Mental Health First Aid, the training programs discussed

• Ed DeAngelis, EDA Contractors, and the accountability program mentioned at 1:07:45 (HSOC Episode 9)

• Confide, Project BUILT’s peer support partner

• Josh Vitale’s first appearance, HSOC Episode 7

Support

If you are struggling, or worried about someone: call or text 988 in the US and Canada. In the US, 988lifeline.org. In Canada, 988.ca.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Roughly 34,000 superintendent seats sit empty in the US and 63 percent of construction CEOs report trouble finding field managers. The industry’s standard explanation is that the next generation does not want responsibility. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 tells a different story: manager engagement fell from 27 percent to 22 percent in a single year, the steepest drop of any group they measure, and leaders now report more stress, anger, sadness and loneliness than the people they lead. In this solo episode Angelo takes that data into the site trailer and makes the case that the field leadership shortage is a job design problem, not a character problem, and that your AI strategy dies or survives at the same trailer door.

Key topics covered

• Why the engagement premium of being a manager has disappeared, and why field leaders are ground zero

• The superintendent’s day as the most pressurized seat on the org chart

• Why team engagement is an operations metric, not an HR metric

• Span of control: the cost of stretching one super across two jobs

• The trailer door test and why AI investment stalls at the field leader layer

• Pointing technology at administrative burden instead of at the boardroom

• Four moves to redesign the field leadership job

• The quarterly question that works as a leading indicator for turnover, adoption, safety and margin

Data referenced

• Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026: global engagement 20 percent, manager engagement 22 percent (down from 27 percent), roughly 10 trillion dollars in lost productivity, 79 percent manager engagement in best practice organizations, 8.7x and 7.4x AI multipliers with manager support

• NCCER and the Construction Industry Round Table: roughly 34,000 unfilled superintendent positions, 63 percent of CEOs reporting difficulty finding field managers

• MIT research on enterprise AI returns, as cited inside the Gallup report

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Episode summary

Monique Lewis, founder and CEO of Next 2 Native, was six months into a business with no connection to construction when she heard about a fatality on a Charlotte job site where the language barrier was a contributing factor. That conversation rebuilt her company. In this episode she and Angelo get into why a nod and a thumbs up at the end of a toolbox talk are the most dangerous data points on a job site, why translating your safety manual does not mean your crew received it, and why the language barrier that starts an incident almost never appears in the report that follows it. They also cover the numbers that move a skeptical GC, what changes on a site when both sides start trying, and where the shortage conversation and the language conversation collide.

Key topics

• The Charlotte fatality that moved Next 2 Native into construction

• Language as PPE, not as a wellness initiative

• Opening a keynote in Spanish so English speakers feel the gap in their body

• A nod, a thumbs up and silence: the assumptions that hurt people most

• The fall protection training that ended with a rope around a worker’s waist

• Pre-literacy, and why translated documents can still reach nobody

• Why the language barrier is not a citable OSHA violation

• The cost stack: injury, EMR impact on future bids, fatality, reputation

• AI as an accelerant, and why adoption dies at the language barrier

• The air of try, and what two-direction language does to site culture

• The promotion ceiling that language unlocks, and what that means for the shortage

• Site Speak: two-way instruction plus leadership training for multilingual crews

• Bilingual suicide prevention and the Spanish-language 988 gap

• Heart, head and wallet as the three doors into a safety investment

• Building a company around prevention, which nobody can see working

About Monique Lewis

Founder and CEO of Next 2 Native, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, serving construction clients nationwide. Fluent in Spanish, with more than twenty years in language instruction before moving her work into construction. Creator of Site Speak, a two-direction, construction-specific language program paired with leadership training for multilingual teams. Regular keynote speaker at industry conferences and contractor safety days, and producer of bilingual mental health and suicide prevention resources for frontline crews.

About the guest

Monique Lewis is the Founder and CEO of Next 2 Native, Inc., a B2B language risk mitigation company serving the commercial construction industry. A native-level bilingual Spanish speaker with a journalism background, Monique created the SiteSpeak™ program and the Language is PPE™ framework to address the communication gaps that cost the industry lives, time, and money. She is a 2026 CAGC Community Impact Award recipient and a Shining Light Through Media Award honoree from the Construction Mental Health & Wellbeing Conference.

Links:

- http://next2native.com/ (main site)

- http://next2native.com/988 (Spanish-language 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline resource for construction)

- http://next2native.com/language-safety-check (free language risk assessment for contractors)

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monique-lewis-a0aaa3239

Framework names for reference:

- SiteSpeak™: flagship live bilingual training program (Construction Spanish for supervisors + Construction English for crew)

- Language is PPE™: the thesis that language access is personal protective equipment, life saving

This episode discusses workplace fatalities and mental health. In the US and Canada, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Spanish-speaking callers can press 2.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Construction has the highest opioid death rate of any industry in Ontario, more than four times the next sector. A new ODPRN report tracked 1,338 opioid deaths among construction and trades workers between 2018 and 2024, and flags that the true number is likely much higher due to missing occupation data. In this solo episode, Angelo breaks down how the industry’s injury rates, prescribing patterns, and toughness culture combined to produce this crisis, and lays out a concrete, unglamorous list of what leaders can do this week to change it.

Key topics covered

• Ontario’s construction and trades opioid death toll: 1,338 people, 37.9% of deaths with known occupation, 2018–2024

• Why the recorded number is a floor: nearly 8 in 10 deaths in the dataset have no occupation on record

• Where and how these deaths actually happen: 77% alone, 75% in a private residence, only 47% employed at time of death

• The injury-to-prescription-to-fentanyl pipeline, and why 90% of construction firms are too small to manage it alone

• Toughness culture as a psychological safety failure, and its link to elevated suicide rates in the trades

• What’s working: a 28.8% one-year drop in the U.S. construction overdose rate (2023–2024)

• A leader’s practical to-do list: naloxone access, EAP awareness, changing how pain and time off get talked about, staying connected after layoffs

Sources referenced

• ODPRN, Circumstances Surrounding Opioid Toxicity Deaths Across Occupational Sectors in Ontario, 2018–2024

• CDC / National Vital Statistics System, 2020 occupational overdose data

• CPWR (Center for Construction Research and Training) opioid research

If you need support

In Canada or the US, call or text 988 any time. In Ontario, you can also reach the Mental Health and Addictions line at 1-866-531-2600.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Marius Tawembe, Director of Special Projects at Pomerleau, joins Angelo to talk about what it actually takes to build a team, a culture, and a career in the corner of construction most people overlook. From his roots in Cameroon to leading complex live renovations in the GTA, Marius makes the case that humility, trust, and candor are not soft skills but the real engine of performance. Along the way he shares the FIXO model he uses for hard conversations, why he treats letting people go as an act of love, and how a 2008 layoff and a sponsored visa led him to Canada.

Key topics covered

• Building a Special Projects division from zero by “firing yourself” and reverse-engineering the ideal leader

• Humility as the most important leadership trait, and why certainty is dangerous

• Trust given up front: trust is given, mistrust is earned

• The FIXO model for tough conversations: facts, impact, expectation, opportunity

• Releasing people from a role they do not fit as an act of care

• Faith, an Achilles injury, and rediscovering what drives him

• Surviving the 2008 recession, a sponsored visa deadline, and choosing Canada

• Resiliency and the impermanence of good and bad seasons

• Psychological safety, belonging, and their link to retention

• Pomerleau’s national wellbeing committee and what employees actually asked for

• Retaining young talent through purpose and varied experience, not just pay

Guest bio

Marius Tawembe is Director of Special Projects at Pomerleau in the Greater Toronto Area. The son of an architect and structural engineer, he trained in civil engineering and architecture from age 14 and has spent more than two decades in construction across nationals, boutiques, and his own shop, on both estimating and operations. He coaches youth basketball and serves on Pomerleau’s national wellbeing committee.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Buildforce Canada projects 2029 as the peak year for non-residential construction investment — the busiest building stretch in a generation. It arrives in the middle of a retirement wave that removes 139,000 experienced workers, about 20% of the non-residential workforce, by 2035. In this solo episode, Angelo Suntres argues the real crisis isn’t recruiting — it’s retention and knowledge transfer — and lays out four concrete moves leaders can make between now and 2029 to protect both their people and the judgment those people carry.

Key topics covered

• The 2029 collision: peak construction demand meets peak retirement

• The national math — 188,700 workers needed vs. 158,300 expected under 30, and the 30,400-worker gap

• The U.S. parallel: ~349,000 net new workers needed in 2026, mostly to replace retirements

• Why a retirement is a loss of judgment, not just head count

• The Ontario paradox: record apprenticeship intake, projected surplus, and workers still leaving the sector

• Retention as culture measured in exits — and the diversity gaps hiding inside recruitment

• Four leadership moves: map your cliff by name, put retention on the P&L, build the transfer system before the exit interview, and brace for the upside

About the host

Angelo Suntres, P.Eng., is a 20-year mechanical construction leader and two-time Wiley-published author (The Human Side of Construction, Rebuild Construction). He hosts The Human Side of Construction, a podcast about the people side of building — retention, leadership, mental health, and the culture decisions that separate companies that thrive from ones that merely survive.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Angelo sits down with James Boseley, Trades Lead at Pain BC, whose 25+ years in the oil field and heavy equipment work ended with a nine-foot fall that shattered his heel, broke his hip and leg, and herniated his discs. James worked through those injuries for four months, spent six years off work, and rebuilt his life through pain coaching and counseling. Now he leads Pain BC’s outreach to the trades, including the Guideline text support service and the Don’t Be the D*****s campaign. This conversation covers the culture of silence around pain, the path from injury to addiction, and the free resources most trades workers have never heard of.

Key topics covered:

• The rub-some-dirt-in-it culture and how pain stigma gets passed down on site

• James’s nine-foot fall, the system failures that followed, and six years off work

• The acute-to-chronic pain window and why early intervention matters

• Pain, mental health, and addiction as one connected problem, not three separate ones

• The BC numbers: 21% of toxic drug deaths are trades workers; nearly 80% of construction opioid overdose deaths involved a prior pain condition

• Diagnosis as a stepping stone rather than an identity

• Pain BC’s free resources: the Guideline text line, Pain Support Line, 12 free coaching sessions, peer support groups, Empowered Relief, and the Making Sense of Pain course

• Why lived experience connects where clinical language fails

• The one thing leaders can do Monday: sit back and listen

Guest bio:

James Boseley is the Trades Lead at Pain BC, a British Columbia non-profit dedicated to pain education, support, and research. A former oil field and heavy equipment worker, James retrained as a certified pain coach and counselor after a workplace injury ended his field career. He brings lived experience of chronic pain, workers’ compensation battles, and recovery to his work supporting tradespeople across BC.

Pain BC Info:

Text ‘TRADES’ to 1-833-261-PAIN (7246) to access free, confidential support and chronic pain tools designed for BC trades workers. Available Monday to Thursday, 1:00 PM to 8:00 PM PT.

To learn more about the Guideline, please visit painbc.ca/guideline.

Pain BC’s Trades and Pain Program has created a Toolbox Talks facilitator’s guide and videos to help make conversations about pain easier to bring into safety meetings. Register for our free webinar on August 5 or September 9 to learn more about the guide and videos.

* August 5 - register here

* September 9 - register here

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

A new University of Toronto study of Ontario electricians found that apprentices are six times more likely to intend to leave the trade than licensed journeypersons — and that burnout, despite affecting one in three workers, didn’t predict who was planning to go. Job satisfaction did. In this solo episode, Angelo breaks down four findings that upend the industry’s standard retention playbook, explains why trades culture suppresses the psychological warning signs until people simply exit, and lays out different interventions for apprentices versus experienced professionals. He closes with a two-question challenge every construction leader can run this week.

Key Topics Covered

• The 6x finding: apprentice vs. journeyperson intent to leave

• Why burnout (39% personal, 33% work-related) didn’t predict turnover — and job satisfaction did (40–53% decrease in intent to leave per unit of satisfaction)

• Canada’s apprenticeship completion crisis: 100,000+ registrations in 2024 vs. ~34,000 completions

• US workforce gap: 349,000 net new workers needed in 2026, 456,000 in 2027; 41% of the workforce retiring by 2031

• The “tough-it-out tax”: how trades culture normalizes suffering and suppresses the psychological signal

• Why journeypersons and apprentices leave for different reasons — and need different interventions

• The federal government’s $6B skilled trades investment: the financial lever vs. the human lever

• This week’s challenge: two questions to ask an apprentice on your project

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Organizational psychologist and former licensed therapist Melissa Doman joins Angelo to unpack why construction’s mental health efforts are stuck in an awareness phase — and what it actually takes to move past it. They dig into why manager training usually stops at spotting symptoms instead of teaching the conversation itself, why individual ownership has to sit alongside leadership effort, and why this is fundamentally an operational issue, not a wellness initiative. Melissa closes with the one thing she’d want every construction executive to hear, whether they want to hear it or not.

Key Topics Covered

• Melissa’s path from licensed therapist to organizational psychologist

• Why she named her method around moving from awareness into action

• What her two books cover — language, leadership, and power dynamics

• How duty of care around mental health differs across Canada, the UK, Australia, and the US

• Why the “tough it out” archetype fails construction workers, and what peer support programs get right

• The difference between training managers to watch for symptoms and training them to have the conversation

• Why leadership-only effort isn’t enough, and what individual ownership looks like

• What a real organizational rollout looks like, from purpose-setting through upskilling

• Why this should be framed as an operational issue with a measurable ROI, not a wellness initiative

• The one thing Melissa wants every construction executive to hear

About Melissa Doman

Melissa Doman, MA is an Organizational Psychologist, Former Mental Health Therapist, Author of Cornered Office: Why We Need To Talk About Leadership Mental Health and Yes, You Can Talk About Mental Health at Work (Here’s Why And How To Do It Really Well), and Founder of The Workplace Mental Health Method™. Melissa works with companies across industries around the globe – including clients like Google, Progressive, Dow Jones, the Orlando City Soccer Club, Microsoft, Salesforce, Siemens, Estée Lauder, & Janssen. She’s spoken at SXSW, has been featured as a subject matter expert in CNN, Vogue, NPR, Fast Company, the BBC, CNBC, Inc., and in LinkedIn’s 2022 Top 10 Voices on Mental Health. Having lived abroad in South Korea, England, Australia and traveled to nearly 50 countries, Melissa calls upon her global experiences to inform how she works with companies worldwide. She has one core goal: to equip companies, individuals, and leaders to have constructive conversations about mental health, team dynamics, and communication in the workplace. Her work and book aim to accomplish just that. To learn more about Melissa, her work, or her books - please visit http://www.melissadoman.com/.

Business website:

http://www.melissadoman.com/

Books:

Cornered Office: Why We Need To Talk About Leadership Mental Health

Yes, You Can Talk About Mental Health at Work (Here’s Why And How To Do It Really Well)

Social Links:

* LinkedIn:

* Individual page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissadoman1/

* Business page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-workplace-mental-health-method

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewanderingmel/

LinkedIn Learning Courses:

* Navigating the Mental Toll and Stress of Leadership

* Realistic Strategies to Talk about Mental Health at Work

* Talking About Mental Health as a Leader

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

In this solo episode, Angelo takes Daniel Pink’s framework of the six human skills AI will never replace and applies it directly to construction. From asking better questions to building job site judgment, iterating with intent, orchestrating humans and machines, and leading with integrity - this is the leadership map for a construction industry heading into a decade of AI-driven change. The through-line: when the world gets more artificial, construction doesn’t just need to get more human. It needs to get more intentionally human.

Key Topics Covered

• Why 79% of construction has zero or limited AI implementation — and why that isn’t the real problem

• Asking better questions when answers become commodities

• Why judgment (”taste”) is walking out the door with retiring superintendents

• Iteration as leadership, not failure - and where AI genuinely adds value

• Orchestration as the modern PM/superintendent job description

• Integrity in a world where the tool is neutral but the intent is everything

• How individual wellness and team psychological safety operate as a safety system

Data Points Referenced

• 79% of construction organizations have zero or limited AI implementation

• Construction needs roughly 349,000 net new workers in 2026 to meet demand

• Only 27% of AEC professionals currently use AI in operations

• Early adopters reporting 500–1,000 hours saved annually

• 38% of contractors seeing measurable business impact from AI (double year-over-year)

• AI in construction market projected to grow from ~$2.2B (2026) to ~$25B (2035) — 31% CAGR

• Over 1,000 US construction fatalities in 2023, more than any other industry

• Falls, slips, and trips accounted for 39% of construction fatalities

• Some AI safety platforms reporting up to 48% reduction in serious incidents

References

• Daniel Pink — A Whole New Mind

• Daniel Pink — Drive

• Daniel Pink’s framework: The six human skills AI will never replace

Contact

Reach out to Angelo at angelo@hsoc.one to share a construction experience or discuss workforce challenges in your organization.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com

Angelo sits down with Leighann Harrison — Director of HR and part-owner of Core Mechanical, a mechanical contractor in BC — who brought a psychology background, coaching practice, and clinical breathwork into a trades business. They dig into why most construction wellness is performative, how to notice when someone’s struggling and actually say something, and why mental health belongs under an operational lens rather than a feel-good one. Angelo shares the story of the colleague who created space for him during the hardest stretch of his life, and Leighann closes with the one thing she’d change about the industry: more love, and the safety to be vulnerable.

Key Topics Covered

• The unlikely path from psychology and coaching to part-owner of a trades business

• Coming in as an outsider — and why the trades welcome support more than expected

• What HR looks like with a clinical lens vs. accounting-runs-the-paperwork

• Walking the line between coaching and HR

• How to notice when someone’s off, and how to broach it without crossing a line

• Angelo’s story: the colleague who quietly created space

• Resilience vs. suppression — and what suppression actually manifests as

• Giving people language for their nervous system (regulated, dysregulated, flooded)

• Treating mental health as an operational issue: presenteeism, absenteeism, safety

• Leading by example, and two actions any leader can take: deepen check-ins, be vulnerable

• “Support or advice?” and witnessing pain instead of fixing it

• Mental health first aid, the CPR analogy, and the 50% lifetime mental illness stat

• Signposting: you don’t have to be the therapist, you just need to know where to point

• Therapy as “the dentist for your brain,” and dropping the stigma

• The reframe: what’s missing instead of what’s wrong

• The one thing: more love, and psychological safety to be vulnerable

Guest Bio

Leighann Harrison is Director of HR and part-owner of Core Mechanical Ltd., a family-founded mechanical contractor in Langley, BC. She holds a background in psychology and is a certified coach and clinical breathworker. She co-owns the company with her husband Ryan Harrison and leads culture inside a business that partners with major BC general contractors.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit https://humansideofconstruction.substack.com