SPRINGDALE, Ark.—The tires on the 40-ton rigid frame haul truck were as tall or taller than the three teenage girls standing nearby, contemplating whether to board the mammoth machine.

“My dad drives one,” said 17-year-old Susana Salguero, a junior at Crossroads Alternative School in Rogers. But she said she plans to join the National Guard after high school, rather than follow in her dad’s footsteps as a heavy-equipment operator.

Salguero was among a few female students from Northwest Arkansas high schools who joined their male counterparts at Construction Career Day, held Friday at Northwest Technical Institute. The first of its kind in this region, the event was intended to expose 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders to the opportunities in the construction industry.

Organizers set up a variety of heavy equipment behind NTI. The students were allowed to climb into the cabs and operate the controls that worked gear other than wheels and tracks, so the equipment stayed in place.

Lauren Meyers, 15, a sophomore at Pea Ridge High School, tried her hand at using the scoop on an excavator backhoe to pick up a basketball perched atop an orange plastic cone, then dropping it in a basket a few feet away. She successfully moved the first ball but missed the second.

It was her first time to operate such equipment, and she said she was nervous and excited.

“It’s hard,” she said, but was easier when an operator was standing nearby to talk her through the task.

Ashley Beeks, 16, a junior at Farmington High School, liked the National Guard Humvees and a semitrailer.

“They’re hard to drive,” she said.

A friend, Ashley Alvarado, 16, a junior at Farmington, attended along with Beeks.

“I’m not normally interested in this, but you get more insight,” Alvarado said.

Chrissie Doyle, a teacher and senior adviser at Crossroads, brought 32 students to the career day. Many of her students work full-time at night and come to school during the day and are more likely to attend a technical school than a four-year university, she said.

Doyle said the career day was one way to get information to students who one day will be part of the work force.

In 2008, there were 952,000 vacant skilled-construction jobs, according to the National Construction Career Days Center, and a million-plus new workers will be needed each year in the future.

The average age of skilled trades workers nationwide is 48, the center says, and those workers will start retiring between 2010 and 2015.

Thursday’s event was sponsored by the state Highway and Transportation Department, Office of Human Concern and Northwest Technical Institute.