The Wisconsin Laborers’ District Council has started an $8.5 million, 25,000-square-foot addition to its apprenticeship and training center in DeForest, north of Madison, with J.H. Findorff & Son as general contractor. The point isn’t just more room. The union wants to stop running a seasonal training calendar, because its signatory contractors told it they need trained laborers all year.
The Daily Reporter laid out the project Oct. 14. Ground broke in September, crews are in foundations and footings, and completion is set for August 2027. Potter Lawson is the architect and Wyser Engineering handled civil.
What the DeForest training center addition adds
The two-story addition on the east side of the campus holds three training bays averaging about 1,400 square feet each, three classrooms and an enclosed maintenance bay sized for three trucks and trailers. The bays get excavated floors so instructors can run pipe-laying and utility work indoors. Findorff won the bid at $7.5 million, and equipment and electronics bring the total to about $8.5 million, according to Craig Ziegler, director of the Wisconsin Laborers’ Apprenticeship and Training Fund.
The truck bay fixes a specific problem. CDL training now runs on a surface lot that’s usable about half the year. Wisconsin has around 6,000 openings a year that need a heavy truck license, and fewer residents hold one than in 2010, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
It’s the first addition since 2018, when the council built 16,000 square feet with one bay and four classrooms. The campus trained 3,215 members in the 2025-26 season.
Year-round apprenticeship training came out of contract talks
Laborers’ training has traditionally started in fall and wrapped in spring, leaving members free to work the building season. Ziegler wrote in this year’s class schedule that during 2026 contract negotiations, signatory contractors said year-round training was needed to keep union firms competitive in Wisconsin. That’s an employer-side request written into the training budget, which is less common than a union pitching it.
Demand isn’t hard to find. District council president Kent Miller said the program has more than 800 active apprentices and record graduations year after year. He credited utility-scale solar for most of this year’s growth, citing the federal clean energy tax credit rules that require 15% of labor hours to go to apprentices, and said the council placed 400 to 500 apprentices this year. Data center campuses in Mount Pleasant, Port Washington and Beaver Dam are pulling on the same pool.
What happens to the construction labor pool after the peak
Miller said the extra space will go partly to pre-apprenticeship, getting people ready before they enter the registered program. That fits what the St. Louis Fed found next door, where construction made up most of the district’s apprentices and completion is the weak spot.
The harder question is timing. The big Wisconsin data center jobs are scheduled to wrap around 2028, and the solar pipeline depends on tax credits that have been narrowed. A training center that opens in August 2027 will be graduating its first year-round cohorts right as that work tapers. Specialized trades like sewer and water, pipelaying and mason tending are the bet that keeps those apprentices busy after the megaprojects move on.