GTCC’s construction management program helped Tsion Mangum keep dream of construction career alive

“The GTCC classes helped me grasp what’s going on the site,” Tsion Mangum says. “Mr. White helped me find the job. He got my resume out there. He’s done that for other folks as well.”

When Tsion Mangum was in kindergarten, he knew what he wanted to do as an adult. Along the way he encountered a couple of detours, but today, just shy of his 25^th birthday, he’s on the job site he always dreamed of.

“I’ve always known what I wanted to do, and I’m blessed to find it, find something I enjoy,” said Mangum, who graduated from Guilford Technical Community College’s construction management program in December.

“I’ve always had an interest in construction, even when I was younger. When I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be an architect. I took a civil engineering program in high school. I always knew I wanted to be outside and on the job site.”

And that’s exactly where Mangum is these days, on a road-building jobsite for KCI Associates of North Carolina working as a construction inspector.

There was a time, though, when Mangum wasn’t sure he would reach his dream job. He went to North Carolina A&T State University out of high school and then COVID hit. With three years of college under his belt, Mangum left school, took a year off, and enrolled at GTCC in 2022.

“Early on it was a bit of a struggle (at GTCC). I was making the transition from A&T, changing majors and coming out of COVID,” Mangum said.

But he quietly got back on track. “Over a year’s time, he turned his grades around and became highly engaged in class,” GTCC construction management instructor Jonathan White said. White helped Mangum get an internship with KCI, an internship that turned into the full-time job he has now.

“The GTCC classes helped me grasp what’s going on the site,” said Mangum. “Mr. White helped me find the job. He got my resume out there. He’s done that for other folks as well.”

Over the years, when Mangum was not in school he worked at a variety of construction-type jobs to gain experience for his career destination. “I worked with general contractors, carpenters, lots of different types of construction work,” he said.

That diverse experience is paying dividends in his work for KCI. As a construction inspector, he keeps up with what everyone else is doing on the job site daily. It may sound simple, but it’s far from that.

 “We have line codes for each item that has to be paid for on site. I record and observe their work, from putting in guard rails to how much asphalt was put down in a day to striping the lines when a job is finished,” explained Mangum. “I make diaries entry every day about what everyone has done and then enter it into the system so the contractor can be paid”

Though Mangum earned his associate degree from GTCC in December, he never paused education. Since then, he has received state certification in several areas and has already been accepted into an online construction management bachelor's degree program at Indiana State University.

“To me everything I’m doing is going to help me in the future,” Mangum said. “I’ve always aspired to work in commercial construction. I’d love to end up being a superintendent for a commercial construction company.”

There’s no doubt he eventually will.

For more information, visit GTCC’s Construction Management program web page.