Carpenters Training Committee
for Northern California’s
Organized Labor
Mar 2009
Instructor Oscar Tarango prepares the students to tear down structures they built in the morning as part of a bridge building class. “The tear down is one of the most dangerous tasks,” he explains. “This is the part that scares me. If someone is going to get hurt, this is where it happens, rather than putting the thing together. We are always talking safety. I can't imagine if one of these guys had to go home and tell their families they got hurt at school. We do everything we can to avoid that.”
Tarango has been a carpenter for 32 years and started teaching two years ago. “I've always enjoyed mentoring people and working with apprentices,” he says. “Instead of being a cop, I let them know their success is vital to the trade. I try to teach them about the critical path technique that superintendents use. At the beginning of the day we set a goal: where we want to be at the end of the day, what our tasks are going to be, and who is going to do what. By the end of the day, they see how productive they can be just by being organized.”