Kirk Samuelson founded BuilderFax in 2023 after a decades-long career as a construction executive, notable among which was a stint as a senior vice president at Kiewit Corp.

BuilderFax captures certifications, training cards, licenses and memberships, and organizes them by type and favorite status, allowing craftworkers to share credentials and certifications securely stored in their digital wallet along with training records and qualifications. For trade contractors that work more than 20 jobs a year, it simplifies a tedious process usually based on sharing paper records and certification cards.

“Most contractors are run by people that started in the field,” Samuelson says. “That’s how I started, 46 years ago, out there in the field running crews. If a [software tool] is going to make it, it has to make what I call the pointy end of the spear better. That’s the end that needs to be improved. That’s when we get excited.”

Also founded in 2023, and originally designed for specialty contractors to better manage their craftworkers, Lumber is an all-in-one workforce management platform used for payroll, time tracking, safety compliance and field productivity, as well as employee rewards and recognition. Its AI is backed by a large language model that’s able to track and emphasize safety compliance through deep-stack integration with a contractor’s construction management and enterprise resource planning systems.

“By combining our AI-powered platform with BuilderFax’s credential management capabilities, we’re streamlining workforce management and supporting a national imperative to develop, certify and retain skilled trade workers who will literally build America’s future,” said Shreesha Ramdas, CEO and co-founder of Lumber. “When credential management fails, workers lose jobs, and projects stall. Our integrated solution addresses this $12 billion problem while strengthening the career paths of craftspeople.”

Lumber is one of the AI platforms incentivizing trade contractors in the field through safety compliance and gamification of safety recognition and rewards.

“If you identify the key workflows where workers are engaging and workers can feel the impact of AI, that’s what will make a difference,” Ramdas says. “I’ll go back to what Kirk mentioned: If your recorded time and your workflow goes to a compliance function, that’s really important. If a worker gets a message about safety when they receive their pay stub, they’ll pay attention to it.”

Jose Tellez, dispatcher and “Mr. Tech” at American Asphalt in the San Francisco Bay Area, said that the platform has helped break down the difficulties of teamwork and project silos.

“Part of our training is, for example, our seal-coat team—they’re yellow. We identify that and a particular number for them for each project. After training, they nailed down how they had to enter their time and be identified,” he said. “The same thing happens with our asphalt team. They’re used to production and being go, go, go, and using [Lumber and BuilderFax] kind of helped them slow down a little bit and really analyze what they’re doing in the day.”

Tellez said one of the benefits of using the Lumber platform to manage their workforce is responsiveness.

“It’s a partnership, right? They talk to their customers,” he said.

Tellez said that American Asphalt has its own safety recognition program, called Safety Bucks, that they’re looking to integrate with Lumber and use to gamify safety compliance and rewards.