Chuck the Contractor: Ryan Forrestel
March 1, 2008
Forrestel
Name: Ryan Forrestel
Where you reside: Akron, New York
Positions/Companies: Engineer, Cold Spring Construction
Responsibilities: “I do all of our digital modeling and manage all of our GPS and survey infrastructure. I also help manage all of our other equipment infrastructure. And I help with estimating and manage some of our earthworks operations in the field. It’s an overwhelming amount of work but provides me with an incredible opportunity to learn a huge amount about the construction business.”
How you started in construction: “My history is a little bit different from the norm. My great-grandfather started Cold Spring Construction in 1911, so I grew up around construction with it being a family business. I worked during the summers in college as a laborer and hated it and said I’d never do it. So I got my undergraduate degree in biology and went on to graduate school. But then I started working some construction on the side and decided I liked it better. In 2002 I came back into the business full-time, and in 2003 I went back to school again to get my master’s in civil engineering at Penn State. I’m working toward getting my PE—I took the first half and am waiting to get enough years of experience to apply for the second half.”
What you like best about construction: “It’s exciting. And there’s a lot of science to it in the engineering and the planning and so forth. It’s a very scientific process, but at the same time you get a lot more variety than you do in a more traditional research setting.”
What challenges you: “One of the hardest things for me is the challenge of working in a family business. It’s not so much a challenge in terms of personalities, but in a business that’s almost 100 years old there’s a lot of pressure to perform and a high standard to live up to. I’ve only been able to observe my grandfather and my father, and they’re both very good and well-regarded in the industry. That’s what I aspire to, but it’s not always easy to do.”
What keeps you going in your job: “The accomplishment. To be able to look back at the end of a day, or at the end of a specific task, or at the end of a project, and see what you did. Quite often those things are pretty remarkable.”
Weirdest/craziest thing you’ve seen on a jobsite: “The sight of my own company pickup after I backed over it with a D6 bulldozer.”
Personal philosophy: “To work as hard as I can but at the same time to always work as smart as I’m working hard.”
Favorite/coolest equipment you use in your job: “Excavators. Big excavators.”
Why it’s your favorite: “They’re a tool that’s really changed a lot of construction operations. They’ve made a lot of things more efficient because they’re so function-specific.”
Advice for contractors new to the business: “Keep an open mind to new ideas. Plan on working harder than you ever thought you could because it’s a tough business.”
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