“Everyone I’ve met here is a pleasure to work with and exemplifies what the company stands for,” he says. “Webcor Concrete Assistant Superintendent Robert Lim, who I’m working closely with this summer, is a great example of someone who’s outgoing and hard-working but most importantly, willing to teach.”
For Ricardo, reuniting with Robert was the ultimate full circle moment: Almost two years ago, the two met at Webcor’s information session at CSU Chico, where Ricardo’s studying construction management. At the time, he was a freshman just beginning to think about internship opportunities and life after college.
During the info session, he asked Webcor’s participating PEs all about the company and internship program. Impressed with their project history and motivated by the PEs with whom he’d connected so naturally, he decided to pursue a spot in their summer 2024 program.
It was a successful first summer—so successful that he was asked to return for a second internship with Webcor Concrete at UCSB San Benito Student Housing in 2025. He accepted without hesitation, eager for another summer of tackling new construction challenges and of course, building relationships with Webcor’s seasoned experts—the passionate, talented professionals that drew him to Webcor in the first place.
It’s an opportunity he doesn’t take for granted for a second. “I’m so grateful to work alongside all the foremen who have taught me why we do things the way we do,” he says. “They and my teammates have taught me so much through hands-on learning and the lessons they’ve shared through their own real-world experience. It’s the type of education you can’t get in school, but it’s essential to building a successful career.”
One such lesson was the importance of double-checking others’ work—something he learned from Webcor Concrete Superintendent Fausto Rodriguez Gomez. “He emphasized that it’s your reputation on the line, not their’s.”
This summer has been a generous mixture of administrative and hands-on field work—handling RFIs, submittals, product data, concrete pour scheduling, embed logs, and more in the office, and pouring concrete, supporting layout for slabs/elevators/tower cranes, coordinating logistics plans and QC efforts, and organizing the site’s layout yard in the field.
As much as he’s loved every minute of his time with UCSB San Benito Student Housing, the standout moment was the 2 a.m. concrete pour for the tower crane foundations—Webcor Concrete’s first major milestone at UCSB.
“The adrenaline of everything moving so fast and the pressure of ensuring everything went smoothly was really exciting,” he says. “Seeing the actual process is especially rewarding when you get to work alongside our laborers and masons.”
It sums up what he’s always loved most about construction—the complexity of the herculean behind-the-scenes work it takes to deliver a structure, and “seeing it all come to life in the field.”
Outside of construction, Ricardo’s passionate about K-9 training. “I love taking my dog to protection work—seeing him do bite work with human dummies and run through obstacle courses never gets old!”
