We’re talking home building and AI-proof trades for Gen Z with President of Southwest Montana Building Industry Association slash owner of Rivers Landscaping Riley Rivers and Career Outreach Coordinator for Bozeman and Gallatin High Schools Karl Schwartz, architect of the new Bozeman Construction Academy.
Riley breaks down the real inputs driving building costs in the Gallatin Valley: materials, labor, land, fuel, permit delays, government regulation, and the cost of holding land while projects wait for approval. Karl explains how the Construction Academy gives high school students hands-on trades experience, college credit through Gallatin College, and job-site readiness before they graduate.
They also get into why construction careers are much broader than “swinging a hammer,” why AI is not about to install sprinkler lines on a Big Sky hillside, and how private industry support helped launch a public-school trades program. Then Joe makes Riley and Karl play a deeply unserious but weirdly educational price-per-square-foot guessing game featuring storage units, Bozeman homes, Costco, Yellowstone Club, coffee shacks, the Las Vegas Sphere, and the International Space Station.
Join SWMBIA: SWMBIA.org
Support the Construction Academy: BozemanConstructionAcademy.org
And get your Big Sky Community Rodeo tickets here: BigSkyPBR.com
