CWU Construction Management program is building up the skilled worker base

ELLENSBURG — Jon Hylback grew up around big equipment. His parents owned a nursery business, and he and his dad shared a love of operating tractors, backhoes, and other machines. His dad called it “diesel therapy.” Halfway into his first year of college, where he’d planned to study pre-law, Hylback had a change of heart. He left school and went to work for several years, first at his parents’ nursery, then to the oil fields of Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay. He was working for a dirt contractor in Washington state when he suddenly realized he was tired of running a shovel. “I walked up to the superintendent on site and said, ‘Hey, how can I do what you do?’” Hylback said. The superintendent told him he’d need to go back to school, so Hylback pursued an associate’s degree at a nearby community college. Then, on the recommendation of a family friend in the construction business, he applied and was accepted to CWU’s Construction Management (CM) program.