Some of Keith Gray's students are struggling to recall details of a previous Construction Management Fundamentals class as he quizzes them before moving on with the day's lesson.

"Help your teammate out," Gray says repeatedly during the brief review session, eliciting some correct answers from others in the class.

"That's what they've got to do out in the field," he said later when asked about his "teammate" refrain. "Everyone on a construction site has to work as a team to make sure there are no mistakes and the project gets done on time."

But teamwork was in Gray's DNA long before he set foot on a construction site – or stepped in front of a classroom. After playing basketball at Western Carolina University, the Mississippi native had a 10-year pro career that included stops in South Korea, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and with the U.S. Basketball League's Raleigh Cougars.

"I liked having the ball in my hands," the veteran point guard said.

When his playing days were over, Gray says, a friend starting a company to clean newly constructed buildings before they were occupied asked him to join the business. From there, they gradually expanded to general contracting.

"I didn't know anything about construction," he said. "There are so many avenues to get into it and so many areas you can make money in it."

He may have been a novice in construction, but Gray was no stranger to running a business. His degree from Western Carolina was in entrepreneurship, and he had already run a hair salon and a tailoring business.

As a contractor, he says, he enjoyed completing a project that he could later point to with pride. On the flip side, he found dealing with an array of subcontractors a daily headache – real-life lessons he tries to pass on to his students.

"You have to work with a lot of personalities," he said. "You gain wisdom over time, so you know what not to do. You can dodge a lot of landmines when you've got experience."

Current and former students say Gray uses his experience to engage and motivate them in class and build relationships with them.

"He doesn't just lecture us," student Alexandra Reyes said. "He asks questions to push us, and he doesn't take 'I don't know' for an answer."

"He's passionate about the subject," student Michael Townsend said. "You can ask him questions unrelated to homework, and he'll give you knowledge outside of the assignments."

Gray says he got into teaching almost by accident.

To boost his construction business, he earned an AAS degree in Construction Management Technology (CMT) at Wake Tech and became certified in Lean Six Sigma. He later bumped into the CMT program director at a Lean Six Sigma function who told him of an adjunct faculty opening and urged him to apply. Gray says he thought about it for while, but then saw it as an opportunity to move beyond construction as he got older. After teaching evening classes for a couple of years, he joined the faculty full time.

"I love teaching. It's like coaching," said Gray, who was a player-coach with the Raleigh Cougars and serves as a volunteer coach with Wake Tech's men's basketball team.

"You've got to come up with different strategies to motivate different people," he said. "You've got to get tough on them at times."

Despite the tough talk, Gray often displays a wide smile, exaggerated expressions and a deep laugh in class.

Wake Tech Graduate Kimberly Lewis says her former teacher "really does care" about his students.

"If he notices a change in you, he checks in in a low-key way to make sure everything is all right," she said.

Lewis was named the 2024 North Carolina Work-Based Learning Association's Outstanding Student of the Year for her work with Monteith Construction. She credits a field trip Gray arranged for one of his classes to check out Monteith's work at Wake Tech East for connecting her with the firm, which later hired her.

"He's a good mentor," she said of Gray. "I have a lot of respect for him."