On the cusp of spring in 2006, a young instrumentation fitter apprentice beads with sweat underneath his hard hat and safety glasses, heart thumping heavily but steadily in his chest as the National Craft Championship clock winds down. At the closing bell, Jason White would become the 2006 Instrumentation Fitter National Craft Champion. “That just skyrocketed my career,” he says, peering through the rearview mirror of his time in the construction industry. But he was not expecting how high that rocket would fly.
While White has made it a habit of looking forward, some major news gives him reason to reminisce exactly 20 years after that NCC title. He’s now added another title to his resume: ABC’s 2026 Craft Professional of the Year. “It was unbelievable,” says White upon getting the news. “I was taken aback.”
White grew up on a dairy farm in Fairfield Center, Maine, so he was no stranger to good, old-fashioned hard work. “I had some mechanical ability,” he says, “but no real trade.” So, at eighteen years old, fresh out of high school, White joined Cianbro, without a trade and without a plan. “I didn’t really know what was going to happen,” he says, but he was looking forward to whatever did.
In 1998, White began in Cianbro’s fabrication and coating facility in Pittsfield, Maine, and after a couple of years, the opportunity to work on an oil rig—without ever leaving the state—arose. “To people on the Gulf Coast,” says White, “this is probably not that big of a deal, but that was not something that was part of the Maine skyline.”
Cianbro transported two offshore drilling platforms up the coast of New England and was in need of instrumentation fitters to service them. When someone suggested White give it a go, he halted just for a moment: “I didn’t know anything about instrumentation fitting,” he says. But not knowing has never stopped him before. After some initial development, White says, “It worked out well. I really took to the freedom and the aesthetics of running multiple tubing lines. That’s also where I was introduced to the Wheels of Learning,” an ABC-turned-NCCER craft-training curriculum.
PIPE DREAMS
White put his work ethic to work and began taking monthly classes through NCCER’s instrumentation apprenticeship. Then in 2006, he was offered the opportunity to compete in ABC’s National Craft Championships.
After his win, White continued working his way up, becoming a journeyman and supervising crews, when yet another opportunity arose through Cianbro Institute to be in NCCER’s piping apprenticeship program, after which he was certified as a Performance Verified Pipefitter in 2015. “I was constantly working,” says White.
Today, he is constantly leading, as he serves on the NCC committee for the fifth time as the project manager for the instrumentation competition. As he looks forward to observing the future of the workforce compete in the renowned skills test, he cannot help but remember how it felt when he was on the NCC competition floor.
His words of advice from his own experience as a competitor: “Even just being here, don’t take that lightly. You have a sponsor or a chapter or a company that has invested a lot in you. Somebody believes in you—that’s why you’re here. Keep pushing forward and just do the best you can.”
As White serves as mentor and leader for younger construction workers, he has had mentors and leaders of his own—without whom he would not be where he is or who he is today.
INSPIRATION OVER PERSPIRATION
Who inspires the ABC 2026 Craft Professional of the Year? “Professionally,” he says, “I’ve had many people that I’ve looked up to.” He honorably mentions Mike Raven—retired instrumentation supervisor and instructor for Cianbro; Jon Sacks, retired training instructor and manager for Cianbro; and Ed LaPage, former project manager and superintendent for Cianbro, who passed away in 2020, who not only helped White climb the career ladder, but helped him grow up, both as a craft professional and as a person.
Not only has White grown up throughout his time at Cianbro, but he’s also built a family, with “a beautiful wife, Tammy,” and a 16-year-old daughter, Izabella, whom he says are his greatest cheerleaders—and also his biggest critics. “They keep me grounded.”
Tammy and Izabella enjoy traveling with White to support his work on the NCC committee. They also enjoy engaging in a little friendly competition of their own. Despite long winters in Maine, White and his daughter have found some thrilling ways to bond. “My daughter—I can’t believe she’s 16 already—and I enjoy skiing during the winter,” he says. “She’s excellent.” They frequent Sugarloaf, Saddleback and Sunday River. “We ski pretty much all of Maine.” During the summertime, the skis get traded in for the tires: “We love four-wheelers and other motor sports,” says White. “It’s so fun.”
White’s family have traveled with him to ABC Convention for the last five years—every year he’s served on the NCC Committee. “Time flies by,” he says, but the White family tries to make the most of it. “They tag along and get to see how we’re setting up the competition area. They tour the local facilities and definitely hit all the malls, that’s for sure.”
GET CULTURED
Over his 27-year career with Cianbro, White has learned a lot about a lot, but especially safety culture. “At Cianbro,” he says, “safety is obviously the number one goal. They really instill in us that they want us to go home in as good if not better shape than when we showed up. It’s not just a rule or a policy—it’s a culture.”
Over the last several years, construction has made remarkable strides in furthering safety culture industrywide. In 2025 alone, ABC’s STEP Health and Safety program amassed a record-breaking 5,052 participating companies, with 2026 expected to near 6,000.
The shift in construction safety culture mirrors White’s own personal motto he has honed over his nearly three decades in this industry: Adapt. Modify. Overcome.
“When challenges present themselves,” he says, “you have to keep moving forward and do the best you can. Then you’ll get through it.” In construction, crews encounter challenges all the time. White says despite that, “You have to keep the crews together and keep marching towards the goal.”
