Camp Pin Oak pinning its rebuilding hopes on SFCC students

State Fair Community College students are building skills for future employment as they recreate the lodge at Camp Pin Oak, which was destroyed by fire in September 2010.

A dozen students in SFCC’s Construction Technology program are recreating the lodge at Lake of the Ozarks State Park at the request of Gov. Jay Nixon.

“The governor made a promise when this Camp Pin Oak building burned down that he would rebuild it, and that initiated the whole thing,” said SFCC Project Manager Kevin Haulotte. “Funds are tight, and he understood that State Fair had done a block grant before, so they came to State Fair and asked if the construction trade program would be interested in doing it.”

SFCC jumped at the opportunity. Dr. Michael Ash, executive assistant to the president for resource development and external affairs, applied for and obtained a Community Development Block Grant from the state for the project. He then brought in Melody Sablan as grants and contracts administrator to oversee use of the funding.

“The governor has a big heart in this area, getting jobs back in this area,” Sablan said. “This is just one of those projects that allows students to be trained properly for future jobs.”

Camp Pin Oak and Lake of the Ozarks State Park are within SFCC’s 14-county service area. Scott Holste, Nixon’s press secretary, said via email: “For this project, SFCC had both a great building trades program and a presence in the Lake area, so it was a natural partnership for the state and Missouri Parks.”

Dedicated students

The 12 students work eight hours a day at the site, and are learning how to put in footings and form walls and other building trades skills. The project will build a bridge from student experience to employment, as local construction companies have employees working as instructors on the project, giving them a chance to see the students in action on a real job site.

“We have professionals coming from different trades, from all over the SFCC 14-county area,” Sablan said. “The students are coming from all those areas, too.”

One of those students is Jonathan Salas, 19, a freshman originally from Los Angeles, who moved in with his uncle so he could go to school in Missouri.

“This is a good experience, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Salas said. “I was going to take general education classes, then I heard about this program and decided I would hop in. It’s going pretty well. It requires a lot of sacrifice, but it is worth it.”

That sacrifice includes working through the Christmas break, when other SFCC students were out of class, to ensure that the project remained on schedule. Haulotte said they remain on target for the projected August completion date, despite the start of the work being delayed more than two months due to public inquiries concerning the project’s environmental impact. Sablan said the fact the crew remains on schedule “is nothing short of a miracle,” and she credits the students’ commitment and the unseasonably warm weather.

“They were delayed at the start, but the good weather allowed them to catch up,” she said. “The students are crunching the schedule, and they are getting a lot done.”

For their participation in the project, SFCC is covering the students’ tuition costs. Rebecca Turkovic, 25, a sophomore from Eldon, is one of the students working on the lodge. She said beyond the work experience, the tuition benefit “is pretty good, too. I’m a single parent, so it is nice having it paid for.”

The SFCC team is working with the state’s Department of Natural Resources on the construction planning. Haulotte said they are working from the building’s original plans, with an effort to make the front of the building look as much like the original as possible.

“We want to replicate the look with new materials and methods,” he said. “The building will look like it did, only with new concrete siding instead of oak siding that had to be painted.”

And while the lodge will be a tribute to original, it will include modern upgrades including air conditioning.

“From the outside, it will look like a building from the ’30s, but inside it will have all the modern conveniences,” Haulotte said.

After the original lodge was struck by lightning and burned, two fireplaces were the only things left standing. The goal was to leave them untouched and build them into the new facility, but the foundation was damaged, so it had to be removed. The students and instructors took the fireplaces down to shoulder height, and numbered the stones so the fireplaces could be rebuilt just as they were.

Hoping for more work

The original lodge was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
“Students built the building in the ’30s originally, and now students are rebuilding it,” Haulotte said. “That’s a pretty neat thing.”

Turkovic has been able to do a little bit of everything, from setting forms for the foundation to working with rebar for the chimneys. She said she called Haulotte to ask about the computer-aided drafting program, and he told her about the Camp Pin Oak project.

“This is better,” Turkovic said. “You get to see everything instead of just reading about it.”

Salas said the students are working well as a team, and they are learning a lot from the instructors.

“Even the subcontractors have taught us a lot,” he said.

Haulotte said the students will potentially earn a construction management degree in a year’s time, plus or minus a few credit hours.

“This is more hands-on than anything we would learn by book,” Salas said. “It’s a win-win. We get hands-on experience and an education.”

Sablan said construction management degree programs are uncommon.

“They are not offered very much, so for a community college to be offering this kind of program is that much more rare,” she said. “Community colleges are more affordable, and much more accessible to students; they can still maintain a family or work life and go to college.”

The CBDG that SFCC won for Camp Pin Oak will have an impact beyond the completion of the project. The funds are being used to purchase tools and equipment that also can be used for other projects, and those purchases are being made locally to pump more life into the area’s economy.

“We have bought $60,000 or $70,000 in tools,” Sablan said. “We are reaching out to local businesses to give them an opportunity to bid, to put money back into the local economy.”

Haulotte said: “Not only is this leading to students having jobs, but ... these grants are putting money back into the community outside of the college. This is a lot of money, over $1.5 million. Even the instructors are local people.”

Sablan said she was hired on because SFCC is hopeful that more projects like Camp Pin Oak will come in.

Holste wrote: “The governor has seen Missouri’s community colleges demonstrate their ability to produce graduates who are trained with the skills to step right into the careers and vocations that are in demand, and he will continue to whole-heartedly support their mission.”

Sablan said the better the SFCC crew performs on the Camp Pin Oak lodge — staying under budget and on schedule — the more likely it is that other state projects will come their way.

“Everyone’s eyes are on it,” she said. “We fully intend on doing more. We have that hope.”