Aaron Witt grew up in Scottsdale, an affluent white-collar town in Arizona studded with pristine green golf courses. With a father working in law, Witt had no knowledge or know-how when it came to construction. But an underground storm drain project kicking off in his neighborhood would change that — and shape the course of his career and life.
“I didn't grow up considering construction as a career because I just didn't know it existed,” Witt said sitting down with us for an interview. He now has years of construction under his belt and runs BuildWitt, a media company highlighting the “dirt world” — a term coined by Witt referring to all-things critical infrastructure.
But before ever discovering the dirt world, a 17-year-old Witt was unsure of what direction he wanted to take his life. Luckily, that storm drain project mesmerized him with the massive machines and crew putting them to work.
“I was just absolutely enamored with what the heck was going on,” he recalled. Eagerly, he cold called the company asking to speak with the owner, where he was connected with Richard Pierson. Witt asked him for career advice in the field of construction — and a job.
At the time, Witt was too young to be legally hired, but after graduating high school and turning 18, he persisted — calling again and landing his first job as a laborer on the pipe crew in his neighborhood.
“I fell in love with the industry pretty quick,” he said. “It's spectacular in a lot of ways. You're working with big equipment. You get to see the progress every day. You're working with other hard-working people. So, I loved the industry. From that point I said: hey, this is the place for me."
Then, it was just a matter of finding out exactly where in the industry he wanted to be. In that process, Witt leaned on Pierson’s initial advice: explore.
“Construction is a big place... You can do anything in this world," Witt noted. "And it's important to find the place in this world that you resonate with, that you enjoy most.”
Bigger dirt-world toys
While Witt always knew heavy equipment to be the focal point of his fascination, there was still the matter of trying on different-sized companies to understand how the work environments and scale of projects varied.
“It was cool because I got to see a bunch of different ways of doing similar work," he said. “The big contractors do the cool stuff, but you've got to travel. Mid-sized contractors do the medium-cool stuff, and you might have to travel with them, or you might be home. Small contractors do the smaller work, but you're home every night.”
Bigger dirt-world toys and bigger projects were Witt’s interest, but he also didn’t want to get “pigeonholed” into massive outstretching builds. His Goldilocks’ zone ultimately lead him to a mid-sized civil contractor.
“No matter where I was, no matter what I was building, who I was working with, I just loved the people more and more,” he said.
Workdays could sometimes stretch to 12+ hours, and at the end of those days, there was always visible progress of what they’d accomplished.
"It sounds silly, but it was, to me, so gratifying to see immediate results of my hard work,” he said.
That daily hands-on exertion yields not only job satisfaction, but also a deeper pride for its function and purpose in the communities they’re working in. Within the dirt world, you’re contributing to something that impacts daily life, be it building a bridge or working on a storm drain.
In recent decades, broadband internet has become a part of that world, Witt contended. “Connectivity, as a society, is essential to our day-to-day life, to our overall survival. As a country, we need to keep that infrastructure growing."
"I think people — especially when it comes to computers, the internet, etc. — we are fooled into thinking that it's just bits. But the bits don't work without the atoms, and broadband is the atom. So, without that part, none of it works. It's all still physical infrastructure.”
That underlying reliance on physical equipment, and furthermore, actual people to keep the digital world afloat is often overlooked.
“At the end of the day, it's all physical infrastructure that needs to be put there, needs to be maintained, needs to be upgraded,” he continued. “And we need people to do that now and forever, as far as I'm concerned.”
Building BuildWitt: finding the perfect fit in the industry
While studying engineering, Witt worked with several different contractors across the industry — from building bridges in California to blasting in Washington. While he shopped around for different possible employers, after graduating, he landed on a road construction contractor in Texas.
At that time, he'd begun sharing photos and stories of his industry and work under the BuildWitt name. Witt reflected on the online presence as a means to appeal to more employers, or at the very least, a "silly” way to share what he was learning every day.
But at the time, storytelling in the construction industry was scarce, to say the least. “I just applied dynamic storytelling to a world that was very dynamic but hadn't had dynamic storytelling. I didn't have to make it dynamic; I just needed to capture it in a more high-quality manner.”
Because that was new to the dirt world, people noticed. And it started gaining a real traction — enough so that Witt’s original plans to become a contractor began to pivot.
“It got to a point where I said, why don't I try to do storytelling for the construction industry full time and see how it goes? So, I quit my job, moved back in with my parents, and started BuildWitt officially as a media company focused on the dirt world,” he explained.
Six-and-a-half years later, BuildWitt has 60 full-time employees and a strong following — allowing Witt to travel around the world to highlight projects and people of critical infrastructure industries. On top of the media business, they now offer training and development content to aid anyone from industry newcomers to people pushing for leadership positions.
“Now, the only difference [from when BuildWitt started] is — I still love it just as much — we just go to bigger places and further far off lands, and I reach, now, instead of hundreds and thousands of people, tens of millions of people, which is pretty cool,” reflected Witt.
Inherently human work
Having made his home in the dirt world — with all its perks and pitfalls — Witt perhaps treasures most the humility of the people, and that the work, at its core, is intrinsically human.
“There's this humility with hard-working people that's hard to find elsewhere in society that I really fell in love with,” said Witt. “We developed as human beings working alongside other human beings, working hard, solving problems, building things to enhance our survival. And that hasn't gone away. We still need to do that."
Witt emphasized that it is physically hard work that really fosters this fulfillment and self-effacement in the people that do it.
“I don’t think we should mislead people about the fact that it is hard work, but that's also why the people that do it are so proud,” he asserted. “Because they know it's not for everybody, and they know not everybody can do it, but we need those people. Without those people, society stops.”
That need has only grown as many trades are in great need of workers.“I still think there’s a long way to go,” he said. “The trades need millions of hard-working people to keep our country going in all different ways, whether its broadband, roads or HVAC.”
A possible silver lining may glimmer in future generations as they are more curious about these opportunities — especially when they present financial stability that is harder to find in an era of exponential technological change. The challenge is reaching them, Witt reasons.
“I lived in a neighborhood, in a city, in a very comfortable world, and so I always had infrastructure. I didn't have to think about where our internet came from, [where] power came from, how the roads got there. It wasn't ever a consideration in my mind. I just took it for granted because it was a constant,” he detailed. “But now I know that's not at all the case.”
For Witt, discovering just how much that wasn’t the case molded a career of travel, job satisfaction and camaraderie.
When approaching the working world, younger up-and-coming generations have been “sold a false bill of goods” by corporations and higher education institutions, according to Witt, and they're taking notice. The COVID-19 crisis and disruption to everyday work only exacerbated these issues, prompting “people to evaluate their lives” and see what was out there.
“I think the trades have what corporate America doesn't, and that is a fantastic camaraderie that's nonstop problem solving, that's the ability to see the result of your hard work every day, and it's inherently human,” he said.
For folks who feel the dirt world might be for them, Witt says to dive in determined and it will reward you — he did, and it opened up his entire world.
“If you're willing to put in that work, you will become one of those people that helps keep society moving and gives your family, your neighborhood, your city, a shot at whatever the future is. It's a really big deal,” voiced Witt. "I am as optimistic as it gets, because I think the trades have what a lot of that next generation is looking for.”
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