In His Element

As a freshman at Marietta High School, Diego Bello Garcia struggled with any teaching that required him to sit at a desk and work on a computer. Then he discovered instructor Michael Barcarse’s construction program. Three years later he was a graduate of MHS’s College & Career Academy with a full-time job at McCarthy Building Companies.

“To me, that is no fun,” Diego says of desk-oriented work. “I don’t really find that interesting.”

Barcarse’s class, on the other hand, provided a wealth of opportunities for hands-on learning, both in and out of the classroom. Industry partners sometimes visited, and Barcarse would take his students on field trips to companies and job sites, such as the Mechanical Trades Institute, the Southeastern Carpenters Training Trust, and a data center project run by Brasfield & Gorrie.

“He would always do really well when we would have our industry partners in here to go through different craft skills,” Barcarse recalls. “Carpentry was the biggest one for him, because that was what he wanted to get into. Right from the get-go, he said, ‘I want to be a carpenter.’”

In the spring of 2023, Diego attended the Construction Ready CareerExpo and SkillsUSA State Championships at the Georgia World Congress Center. He was inspired to join his school’s SkillsUSA team, and as a senior he competed in the carpentry competition at the AGC Georgia Regional Skills Competition in Marietta.

During the summer between his junior and senior years, Diego and a classmate were invited to participate in a four-week carpentry boot camp hosted by Anning-Johnson Company. He was trained in safety, first aid and hands-on skills such as demolition, steel framing, and drywall.

Barcarse said that experience gave Diego “a really huge edge” as a senior in his program. “We were doing mock space setups in our lab. One had three vertical sections to it, with a window, a door, and a ceiling. The students had to hang drywall on the inside part of it, and it was like nothing to Diego.”

Diego’s connection at Anning-Johnson was Edwin Parra, who was the company’s operations administrator at the time. In spring of 2024 Parra moved to a workforce development role with McCarthy Building Companies and Diego met him at a career fair hosted by the school. Edwin explained his new role and Diego immediately became interested in pursuing a career with McCarthy.  A few weeks later the pair celebrated the hiring with Barcarse and MCCA CEO Rob Garcia at a Signing Day ceremony Marietta High hosted for seniors headed into post-graduate employment.

Right away Diego began earning valuable experience on one of McCarthy’s high-profile projects, Brookhaven City Centre, a five-story mass-timber facility slated for completion in summer 2025. It will be one of the largest municipal mass-timber buildings in the Southeast and the first of its kind in the City of Brookhaven, a suburb 10 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta.

“I helped build one of the frameworks for the concrete,” Diego says. “Seeing it hold up, I feel pretty proud of that. I’m seeing this project from the ground up. One day I’ll drive by and say, ‘I saw that when it was just the columns, when it was just the rebar on the ground.’”

Diego calls Barcarse “a very important role model to me.” Over the summer his former instructor had the opportunity to visit Diego on the Brookhaven job site (the two are pictured above). Barcarse says he was overcome with pride at Diego’s progress.

“It’s kind of like seeing my son [succeed],” he says. “It’s fulfilling to see him go through our program for three years, and now there he is, working a job that’s going to actually make an impact in the world. He is going to be a model for other students who are just starting out as freshmen.”