May is Mental Health Awareness Month. For a long time, mental health was not discussed in many construction industry companies as it was looked at as “risky” and a topic many feared to touch. 

This has gradually changed over the past several years as the statistical data available now has indicated that the construction industry suffers tremendous loss from death by suicide and substance use disorder (SUD). The most recent data from 2023 shows that the construction industry lost 5,095 professionals due to death by suicide and 15,910 professionals to SUD. These are staggering numbers totaling more than 20,000 professionals, however an improvement from 2022 where the industry suffered 5,237 professionals lost due to deaths by suicide and an estimated more than 17,000 professionals lost from SUD. 

Please note these statistics are not trade specific and include both leadership and trade professionals — death by suicide and SUD have no boundaries and impact all walks of life in the construction industry. While I like the direction the industry is trending toward, we must continue the awareness work we are doing. Too often industry leadership is reactive and throws all it can at a crisis when analytical information or an incident takes place; then something new comes along and we react to that. Our work in this space needs more attention at all times.  

My Story 

How did I get involved in the mental health space? If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be a mental health advocate in the industry in 2025, I’d say nice try. However, I’ve got other plans. To be upfront, I’m like most individuals in the construction industry who started out needing a job many moons ago and worked hard to constantly obtain getting promoted to a higher level. I attended school after work (sometimes during) wanting to improve my education and those around me. I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by some of the best leaders in the industry and absorb knowledge from them constantly improving and trying to do what’s right for the good of the industry.

However, things changed for me in 2020 with a phone call and a conversation. I had been doing a solid job as the director of safety for a large size general contractor outside of Boston, MA, and got called up to take on an additional role as COVID-19 czar. At the time when being asked to take this additional role, did I think to myself “can you handle taking on this additional role?” No, that’s not how I’m wired. I’m very servant / operationally minded and part of a generation that is programed to never turn down an opportunity to serve and be loyal to the company you represent. Some call it the generation that likes to drink from several fire hoses. At this time in my career, I was very confident, experienced, and led several large-scale jobs that averaged 200,000 workhours a week and felt I could shoulder anything thrown at me (like most experienced construction professionals). When I was given this opportunity, I felt a sense of pride, accomplishment, and recognition as a leader. 

That feeling lasted just a few days. Quickly things got very hectic, and my daily work hours increased from 10 hours to 15 hours. We were successful early on in this campaign, mainly because our mission was no loss of life to COVID and to maintain keeping our jobs open to support the more than 5,000 families of our team. There were many (almost all) days that were very combative regarding behaviors people would inflict upon me because of change and uncertainty. COVID brought out negative behaviors in most people in the industry for many reasons. As the campaign continued, my workdays increased to 19 and 20-hour days and I was impacted daily by challenging conversations that were usually heated and threatening. Facing this type of environment every day started to impact my sleep. About three weeks into this campaign, I started to suffer from sleep deprivation. I kept telling myself I needed to keep pushing through as I accepted the mission and I was not going to fail. I told myself that I had worked 100-hour work weeks at Kiewit and can do this — no problem. 

Two months into the campaign, I started to isolate myself to avoid conflict due to being over capacity with responsibilities. This is a common behavior for people suffering similar challenges as I was — depression. I kept telling myself I would catch up and things would be ok. However, the daily combative calls and behaviors never stopped and I was suffering from sleep deprivation. I started to have dark thoughts, and all I could see was the negative in life — we call it silent suffering. I had never quit anything I had started and kept telling myself things would get better. As I would try and sleep, I would lay in bed crying silently because I wanted to stop having these thoughts of failure (I was failing as a father and husband because of my job, I was failing at my role. If I would ask for help, I was fearing I’d lose my job. If I lost my job I can’t provide for my family and would lose our home, and then I kept thinking about my commitment to this campaign and those I serve). 

So many thoughts that couldn’t stop — mental warfare every night in my mind. I was in a dark place like never before. This continued to take place daily to the point that during the day if I wasn’t engaged in a work activity or talking to someone, I started to have suicidal thoughts — I call it mental chaos. It took place daily and through the night. It was so hard to be as dark as I was inside and smile at everyone and act like all was good. We call that masking and I was the master of masking. I would avoid video calls with people who I thought would see through me — I’ve never figured out why I behaved this way but I know the feeling was shame. It’s a generational process many have been taught in the industry. Some call it being macho.  

Fast forward to six months into this campaign — working each day being in the darkest place I had ever been in and dancing with the abyss daily. Wishing for it all to end any way possible with no glimmer of light in sight. I would pray daily for God to have mercy on me. I received a call on a Saturday that would be one of the biggest exposure incidents I would have to manage — it broke me worse inside as this was the first time that my mission would bring tears to my daughter’s eyes due to the lack of time I would be able to spend with her. I pushed through though. Knowing I was in the worst condition I had ever been, I changed things up and went to a jobsite to get outside and see people hoping to gain some mental clarity. When I arrived, things were great and all the work I’d been putting in seemed to be making an impact. Walking through the job and seeing everyone in COVID compliance — the sense of pride was coming back. However, it would be crushed moments later when the top leaders on the job were walking next to each other not in compliance. I’m big on leading by example. I was broken and mad — all I had done for this company the past six months to stay open and fight to go zero in COVID fatalities meant nothing to these leaders. I left — returning home in a blackout state of mind. This incident led to me going to the darkest mindset I had ever been at and broke me to the point of total failure mindset.  

That night I tried going to bed by 10:00 p.m., hoping to rest my mind and avoid my thoughts of suicide. I couldn’t stop the mental warfare that night though, getting up at 2:30 a.m. As I tried to sleep, that night I had made the decision to end my life by suicide. When I got up, it was to write letters to my daughter, wife, and mother. I wanted them to know I loved them, and this was all on me. Writing these letters took me almost four hours. As I prepared to leave for work (my plan was to end my life in the parking lot of the place I worked), I yelled out — ‘I love you guys, I’m leaving.’ Within seconds my daughter was running after me saying “Papa, Papa — don’t go to work today,” grabbing my arm and repeating “Papa…Papa don’t go – stay with me.” I couldn’t refuse her wishes as she knew that when she called me Papa, it warmed my heart because Papa was her first word. I stayed home that day watching her in her room attending school online. She kept looking back at me saying — “I love you… Papa…I love you.” It was the first time in six months I saw a bit of light and was surrounded by love. As I watched her, I fell asleep… 

After I awoke, I attended a peer group meeting call with more than 40 professionals. It was a meeting for people to share challenges they faced and ask for help. A person that attended that day was extremely upset about the loss of his best friend to COVID. He was broken and suffering from the loss of his friend. This was my clarity moment and the moment I decided all my fears of failure and what would happen if I asked for help were gone. After the meeting, I reached out and asked a friend for help. It was the best thing I ever did for my family and myself and it was the start to my recovery process. 

Since then, I have been on a mission to share this information and bring awareness that the stigma that mental health and substance use disorders only happen to bad people. That is wrong. This happened to me in just six months, trying to provide for my family, being committed to my job and mission, being the man I was raised to be. Yes, I made several mistakes. I turned down help several times and let shame and my ego almost defeat me. It is called being a human. 

Your Challenge 

I share this info with you simply to bring the awareness of how life challenges can impact leaders / people in this industry. If you take a step back and think about how we are all managing our daily lives in the industry — we are all working past our capacities regarding amount of time we work. How are you managing your mental health? 

I challenge you all to start with self-care tactics. Normalize using employee assistance programs (EAPs) and talking about it. Assess your programs and verify they work the way you want them to. Soon after I reached out for help, I started my recovery process — it is called shadow work. If you google that, you can learn more. Shadow work made me a stronger, more confident leader. If you’re interested in starting shadow work, feel free to contact me as I can help you start your journey. 

This is how I became a mental health advocate in the construction industry and why this is my mission now. Check the resources with this article that can help you start a mental health program in your organization as well as some contacts to other leaders that can help with guidance. Good luck with your Mental Health Awareness month campaign, and I hope you make this topic part of your legacy mindset. 

Leaders: Do These Today 

• Assess your own mental health 
• Evaluate your company’s programs to help employees who might be struggling 
• Fix or add programs as necessary 
• Promote open discussion of mental health in your workplace 
• Be there for your people 

Mental Health Resources 

• Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention 
• Construction Suicide Prevention Week 
• National Alliance on Mental Illness 
• Mental Health America 
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 
• Josh Rizzo | Speaker on Leadership and Intentional Action 
• Joshua Vitale | Workforce Mental and Whole-Person Health Advocate 
• Justin Azbill | Mental Health Advocate 
• The Tribal Group LLC | Helping Guide Individuals through Leadership Challenges 
• Mission-Mindset Inc. | Emerging Leaders to Succeed 

Mission-Mindset offers several peer groups designed to share struggles and find relief, including: 

• The Human Side of Leadership 
• Leadership Mentoring 
• Rough Edges 
• S4S-Psychological Safety 
• Vets in Construction 

Important 2025 Dates 

• May: Mental Health Awareness Month 
• September: National Suicide Prevention Month 
• September 8-12: Construction Suicide Prevention Week 

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