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Is the construction industry tech-averse? No way! says Tooey Courtemanche

May 2, 2022 | By Anthony Capkun


“People thought of folks in construction as being laggards, but they certainly weren’t.”


May 2, 2022 – Prior to founding Procore Technologies—a construction management platform used in over 1 million projects across 150+ countries—Tooey Courtemanche built a software consultancy developing corporate HR applications that connected to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

How did Tooey go from corporate HR applications to the world of construction… to founding a company whose mission is to “connect everyone who touches construction […] to manage data and drive better business outcomes”?

It wasn’t that much of a stretch, actually, because a love for construction has been running through Tooey’s veins since at least Grade 8, when he started earning a paycheque by sweeping up a cabinet shop “and hanging out with people I just loved—construction industry folks”.

Electrical Business Magazine recently had the opportunity to connect with Tooey and, although we do chat about the founding of Procore, our conversation mostly revolves around Tooey’s personal and professional mission to help “modernize an industry that has been unfairly labelled as tech-averse”.

When you dive deeper, you realize that construction industry players are not tech-averse; instead, they’ve been underserved by technology providers. “People thought of folks in construction as being laggards, but they certainly weren’t,” Tooey insists.

Our conversation moves to skilled labour shortages, and the work Procore is doing to help attract new professionals to the field, which includes efforts to see more women pursue careers in construction. “You cannot get full employment in construction unless you attract both male and female participants to the industry.”

“Almost more important is educating the parents of kids in K-12,” Tooey says. And part of that education includes discussing the complexity of construction. “It requires a tremendous amount of education and skills to succeed in the industry.”

“You know, it’s a complicated industry that we serve,” Tooey notes. “Ultimately, everyone’s trying to get jobs done on time, on budget—safely. And when we’re successful, they do.”


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