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By Pam Hunter
(see InDemand Magazine for this and other articles)

Next time you are outside, take a look around. All of the buildings that we work, live and play in were built by construction industry professionals.

They also built the factories that make our cars, the refineries that produce the gas to fuel them and the roads and bridges we drive on. Ditto for airports, train stations, cell-phone towers, power plants, and schools. There is very little in our world that is not affected in some way by construction.

Construction is the second-largest industry in the nation, employing about 7 million workers. It contributes about 5% of all domestic U.S. economic activity and accounts for nearly 10% of all businesses-mostly small, privately owned firms.

Construction has been a part of people's lives since they first crawled out of caves many thousands of years ago. They needed shelters and structures to shield themselves from the elements and slowly developed the tools and the techniques to build what was needed.

The industry has grown and changed tremendously over time. Today, construction is not just about bricks and mortar and hammers and nails. Contractors use high-tech tools and machinery to build highly sophisticated facilities such as hospitals, industrial plants or research laboratories.

The construction industry can build big, like the Empire State Building or Hoover Dam. It also can build small, like a house in your neighborhood. But large or small, construction projects make a difference in the lives of people around them.

New Ball Game

Take, for example, the new sports arena for the Charlotte Bobcats in Charlotte, N.C. The 780,000-sq-ft arena, completed this fall, is home to the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats and the WNBA's Charlotte Sting. But buildings like this offer more. People can see basketball games in the arena-it seats more than 20,000-but it also offers a stage large enough for acts such as Cold Play, Tim McGraw, local high school basketball games and ice-skating performances.

Such projects can transform entire neighborhoods. San Diegos' PETCO Park, home to the Padres, has generated a construction boom in a neighborhood that previously had deteriorating buildings, warehouses, empty parking lots and little else. It now is full of life, with new restaurants, nightclubs, theaters and condominiums. Similar activity is taking place in other neighborhoods across the nation.

Even works of art are constructed. The new World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., is visited each year by thousands of veterans and tourists from around the world to learn about the war, remember the sacrifices and reflect on the consequences.

And where there are such projects, there is a need for bright, talented people to fill the jobs at architecture and engineering firms and construction companies. The future is bright. Government statistics show that construction is the only goods-producing industry that can expect to see employment growth in coming years.

To be able to walk through your town, city or state and be able to say, "I built that," is a rewarding and even awe-inspiring experience. So the next time you take a walk, look around. Without much effort, you will see the results of a lot of hard work, dedication and inspiration from the construction industry.