<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The Career and Technical Education Center at Sitka High allows students to build large structures indoors. Not necessarily real-world conditions, but ideal for educators and students with limited time for learning. (KCAW/Woolsey)</figcaption></figure>

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With the voices of students Vance Balovich and Colton McGraw, teacher Mike Vieira, Sitka Community Land Trust director Randy Hughey, and Sitka Conservation Society director Andrew Thoms.

Saw cutting wood…

Vance Balovich: We’re building sheds for those houses that were recently built. And so this is all funded by a grant, I’m pretty sure, from the Land Trust, all this material that we’re using. So they give us some materials, and we just give them a finished product. 

KCAW: How’s  it been working with locally-milled lumber?

Balovich: It makes me feel like Sitka is more independent by using their own lumber instead of relying on other people’s lumber. And it is just a little harder to work with because it’s all rough cut, so it’s not straight. So we have to make the cuts straight, and make everything flat and plumb and flush.

Randy Hughey: The Alaska Community Foundation gave the grant. It was for $45,000 and it was for three semesters of work, which will wrap up in May, and there’s a possibility that we can re-up to get a total of 14 little sheds for the neighborhood. The Alaska Community Foundation has a local branch, the Sitka Legacy Foundation, and they’ve done a lot of good work. This is just the largest and most interesting of the projects that we’ve funded through them,

Mike Vieira: It’s a very small footprint, just the size of a 4×8 sheet of plywood. And really, the intention is that those homes are so tight to give those folks a chance to put their Costco totes and their crab pots and their strollers and their bikes up out of the rain. We were able to kind of come up with an architectural design on the outside that allowed us to use some of the lap siding – spruce lap siding – that was milled in Tenakee by Gordon Chew, and then put a little flavor on top of that with some good old Sitka T1-11 that gave us kind of that vertical batten look.

KCAW: What grade are you in? 

Colton McGraw: Sophomore?

KCAW: What do you think your educational plans are for the next couple of years, and then beyond?

McGraw: Just trying to take these classes throughout high school and then college, and going try to do some type of construction management program or business.

KCAW: Has working with Tongass lumber had any sort of impact on you? Would you like to use this material more in the future?

McGraw: Yes and no. It’s definitely cool to be using the wood. But lumber that you buy from the store is definitely a little nicer. It’s like, not as twisted, and it’s just easier to cut, easier to work with.

Vieira: I’ve worked with yellow cedar, locally-milled. I’ve worked with alder, the spruce that Gordon does really is a good product. It’s really very stable. It’s really very predictable. It’s something that I can have success with students. So we’re interested in seeing Gordon and his son continue to produce product, and other mills in the region try to replicate what we got there. 

Andrew Thoms: Yeah, this project’s worked really well for us, because it’s helping us figure out what we can use our local timber resource for, what the opportunities are, and what the constraints are for sourcing local lumber. And we’re training youth to be on career pathways to do construction work, and we need a lot of workers in Sitka to do construction work, and there’s a dearth of those. So putting them through this program and that they’re either going into the workforce or able to work on their own homes is a real good thing for us.

Balovich: Vance Balovich.

KCAW: Vance, your family is in the construction business?   

Balovich: Yes, my dad owns CBC construction. 

McGraw: Colton McGraw. 

KCAW: And McGraw is a familiar name in the construction industry here. What’s your place in the McGraw clan?

McGraw: Chris McGraw is my dad. Chuck McGraw is my grandpa. He owns McG Constructors.

KCAW: Are you thinking about getting into the construction business?

McGraw: I am, yes.

KCAW: Do you want to be part of the hands-on construction?

McGraw: Probably both, honestly. I want to be part of the family business, but I also want to work in the field as well.

<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Instructor Mike Vieira (c.) assists CTE students Mason McLeod (l.) and Tyson Bartolaba (r.) hang a door on one of 14 sheds that will ultimately be placed in the Sitka Community Land Trust cottage neighborhood (S’us’ Héeni Sháak). Student Vance Balovich works on the roof at right. While this class was all-male, in the spring semester of 2025, Vieira says several girls have enrolled in the class. (KCAW/Woolsey)</figcaption></figure>

Vieira: One of the fun things from this semester is that I had a lot of names in there that are synonymous with construction in Sitka: Balovich, McGraw, Martin. A lot of sons of contractors who work professionally. And, you know, it’s fun to work with that crew, because it was obvious that they’ve worked their whole lives, and so I didn’t have to teach them how to work. I just had to teach them the basics of carpentry and construction, and they were eager to go to work and apply those skills. But we kind of dangled a free breakfast at the Nugget in front of them in the last month, and it came down to the very last day, and I said, ‘Land Trust is buying breakfast at the Nugget, if you guys can get this thing wrapped up.’ And you know, at the end of the semester, kids kind of finish up in other classes. They’ve taken their finals. They’ve got a day or two where they’re just kind of killing (time) until the semester ends. And Vance Balovich was down every class period for the last two days of the semester and making sure that his shed got finished, so that we could get to the Nugget and have our breakfast.

KCAW: Are you thinking about a career in construction? 

Balovich: It’s a second choice. My first choice is to go to college and then dental school and then be a dentist.

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