(MARSHALL, Texas) – At Texas State Technical College in Marshall’s recent graduation ceremony, students making up the first cohort of the Building Construction program received certificates of completion.
The Marshall campus began offering the Building Construction program in fall 2025. Thirteen students were part of the first graduating class on Friday, August 14, at Memorial City Hall in downtown.
Steven Sloan, of Marshall, is already the construction manager at SCS Services, a business he started with his father. He said the most rewarding part of attending TSTC was meeting his classmates.
“You come here with a bunch of guys that you’ve never met before and you spend all year together and you become super close, and they end up being some of the best friends you ever made,” Sloan said.
Orlando Cerda, of Longview, plans to join TSTC’s Electrical Construction program this fall. After previously attending another college and later choosing a different path, this marks his first college degree. He is excited to celebrate this accomplishment with his family.
“I’ll probably go to the lake with my son,” Cerda said. “He loves the water.”
Xaviar Harris, of Elysian Fields, brought a big crowd to support him at the ceremony. He said the most rewarding part of attending TSTC was expanding his knowledge and ways of thinking.
“I knew a lot of the basics (of construction), but being here at TSTC, it helped me to go through a lot of new processes, new ways of thinking that I haven’t thought before,” Harris said. “I feel butterflies because it’s another big thing in my life — another chapter — but I’m definitely excited about it.”
TSTC offers a certificate of completion in Building Construction – Craftsman at the Marshall campus.
According to onetonline.org, first-line supervisors of construction trades and extraction workers earn a median annual salary of $74,520 in Texas, with 8,780 job openings projected in the state each year between 2024 and 2034.
Registration for the fall semester at TSTC is underway. For more information about TSTC, go to tstc.edu.