Early last year all Blake Kelly-Keepa knew about the Tauranga Eastern Link was what he saw from his car window.
One year later the 18-year-old is playing a key role in ensuring the motorway to Paengaroa is on track to be completed by 2016.
A collaborative project has seen Mr Kelly-Keepa and three other previously unemployed Tauranga people working on one of the country's biggest earthwork projects.
Nga Potiki, along with Fulton Hogan, InfraTrain and Work and Income got together last year to begin a pilot programme to provide unemployed Maori with qualifications, and the opportunity to work in construction.
From a database of 85 people, the group whittled the list down to 20 and then 12. Ten chose to take up the challenge after an intensive three-week introduction to the industry, which included everything from safety to nutrition, cultural development, and obtaining their wheels, tracks and rollers licence. The candidates are now in the process of completing their NZQA qualification, Basic Civil Construction Certificate in Infrastructure Works.
Six are working outside the construction industry and four people, including two women, were working on the $455million Eastern Link project as employees of Fulton Hogan or their alliance partner, HEB Construction.
Mr Kelly-Keepa, who moved from Wellington to Tauranga last year, said he'd been out of work for two to three weeks when Work and Income told him of an opportunity to be part of the biggest roading project in Tauranga's history.
Having only "college qualifications" and with work being short in Tauranga, he jumped at the chance.
"I'd been looking constantly and there wasn't much work going around here," he said.
The Maungatapu teenager is now a construction hand or "technical expert" and yesterday had taken a break from pile driving in Maketu to be interviewed.
Fulton Hogan stakeholder manager Keith Campbell said with so many construction workers looking to move to Australia and Christchurch, the industry hoped to leave behind a legacy of trained people who remained in Tauranga - particularly young people.
The average age of workers in construction in New Zealand was 49.
Mr Campbell said 180 people were currently employed on the Eastern Link venture and that number was likely to grow to more than 300 by the time full operation began next spring.