Morrisville students frame confidence and skill set
They’re also building more than foundations in professor’s masonry and foundations class
SUNY Morrisville student Kristin Dominic has an interest in building tiny homes. Reed Lucas wants to augment his nursery business, and Nick Geswaldo has a desire to learn more about hardscaping.
They’re all getting a breadth of experience to help craft their careers through a Masonry & Foundations class taught by Michael Gridley, ’04, assistant professor of residential construction.
Photos courtesy Franci Valenzano, assistant director of communications and marketing
In Gridley’s lab, real-world assignments immerse students in hands-on projects, including those in local communities building decks, remodeling houses and laying bricks for foundations.
Recently, his class poured a concrete slab for a radiant heated floor system at an alumna’s residence in Waterville. Students installed the blocks and footers, backfilled the site and poured the pad.
“Everything I am doing is giving me a well-rounded background and is setting me up so nicely for my future,” Dominic said. “I have so many opportunities for jobs.”
A residential construction student from Plattsburgh, Dominic changed her career path from photography to follow her curiosity about construction and tiny homes. The tiny-house is an architectural and social movement that advocates living simply in small homes. A residential structure under 500 square feet is generally considered a tiny home.
“I wanted to know how I could make one (tiny home) for myself and also see how I can get into the market for building and selling,” she said. “I will have all of the background knowledge and experience. I have learned so much about masonry and heating systems. I even learned how to draw blueprints.”
Her future plans also include project management.
In addition to physically constructing, students are framing their self-confidence and expanding their abilities.
Helping them are professors, like Gridley, who bring real-world experience to the table. The 2004 SUNY Morrisville graduate has made a career of building and fixing things, taking what he learned in the college’s residential construction program to open his own business, Gridley Construction, in Madison, not long after he graduated.
Teaching offers him an additional outlet to share his passion.
“I bring my knowledge back to the class to give them the experience that I have,” Gridley said. “They build foundations like this and come back to see that it is here 20 years later. That’s pretty rewarding.”
“The most helpful part of his teaching style is that he is so knowledgeable and hands-on,” Geswaldo said.
“This is stuff you do every day on the job site and you are doing the work rather than just learning about it in class,” said residential construction student Joseph Piedigrossi.
Gridley’s class attracts students of all majors who want to add to their skill set or learn something new.
Lucas, a horticulture student from Cazenovia, took the class to build his nursery, Lucas Garden & Landscape, where he grows annuals and perennials in raised beds.
“I took this to broaden my skills and I want to do more hardscaping,” he said. “This class is offering me multiple ways to do that.”
Geswaldo is a residential construction student from LaFayette who wants to implement hardscaping – adding artistic design through wood, block, stone and brick – in his current job at Watson Farms, in LaFayette.
It’s a skill that requires stylistic considerations, as well as structural and construction elements.
“I have learned everything you would possibly need to know about owning a house — mechanical structures and construction in general,” said Geswaldo, who currently owns two houses and has plans to get into developing and selling houses.
In addition to construction-related classes, students in SUNY Morrisville’s residential construction program focus on key business aspects through coursework in business law, accounting, employee supervision, public speaking, estimating and blueprint reading.
Their experiences are setting the stage for careers which include starting their own business in residential building, woodworking, retail sales of building materials, insurance claims adjusting and codes enforcement.
Rounding out their experiences are state-of-the-art facilities, including a 6,000-square-foot residential construction laboratory with framing, plumbing and heating, masonry and electrification labs. Students also have access to a variety of finish-carpentry facilities and a computer lab with AutoCAD and LandCADD software.