The average college graduate enters the real world with no job, not much relevant work experience and a pile of debt. For high school graduates who don’t pursue a degree, the options in today’s economy can be even more limited. The construction industry offers an alternative.
A plethora of apprenticeship programs, two-year degrees and specialized, on-the-job training tracks are a gold mine for young people with an inclination toward technology, engineering, craftsmanship and teamwork.
As the economy edges toward recovery, construction employers and their education partners are ramping up efforts to appeal to the next generation with new training incentives—from general industry education to niche certification programs—to prepare for an exodus of skilled labor as baby boomers retire within the next 10 years.
Educators and construction workforce advocates are focused on creating a start-to-finish career track for young people seeking high-paying jobs with room for advancement, from entry level all the way into upper management.
Associated Builders and Contractors’ (ABC)
Indiana Chapter offers just that through a partnership with Vincennes University (VU). Upon entering its four-year apprenticeship program, a student completes 8,000 hours of on-the-job training, combined with 156 college credit hours for lab learning in a chosen construction trade.
“All of our apprentices graduate with a four-year master craftsman degree from ABC, plus a two-year applied science degree,” says J.R. Gaylor, president of the ABC Indiana Chapter.
“Essentially, a student is getting a Vincennes University degree for free; they leave the program with all of these credentials, a job and very little debt,” Gaylor says. “It’s pretty rare to leave a four-year college with a job lined up, and no debt.”
In addition, students take general education courses at VU in economics, communication, English composition, earth science, and health and wellness. “We try to make the academic experience relevant to their job; for example, there will be assignments about writing job reports and communicating with supervisors,” Gaylor says.
Because employers often provide tuition reimbursement to young employees just starting out in the trades, the situation becomes a win-win. The employer gains a more highly skilled workforce, and the apprentice gains a career for life.
The model demonstrates measurable success in providing a seamless career path. Now, the challenge is getting students to start the education track sooner—shortly after high school or college graduation. Often, Gaylor says, an individual will find himself underemployed in other industries before finding his way into the ABC/VU program in his mid to late 20s.
“The upside is that the older students tend to be more committed and focused on their training. The challenge is we need to try to get people sooner, before they knock around for a few years deciding what they want to do,” Gaylor says.
Gaylor is proud of the apprenticeship program’s growth in the state. In 2004, ABC’s Indiana Chapter married its apprenticeship program with VU’s as a way to demonstrate to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development that training grants were being applied to an upwardly mobile process for the individuals being trained. In 2006, ABC won a victory in the Indiana legislature, with a law passed that guarantees training dollars will be available to the university year after year.
Last year, ABC received $1.5 million from the department, allowing it to continue training nearly 700 apprentices enrolled at seven regional education sites. The apprenticeships in electrical, carpentry, HVAC, lineman, pipefitting, plumbing and sheet metal all are approved by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Apprenticeship Training.
Funding is essential to the life of the program. “If we didn’t have that grant money, our tuition would have to be higher, and we wouldn’t have the flexibility to offer the resources that we have. It is crucial for our ability to continue to improve the program,” Gaylor says.
Of the $1.5 million awarded to VU, $1 million is applied to apprenticeship training, $250,000 is applied to a journeyman upgrade program, and $250,000 is applied to a minority recruitment program.
ABC’s Indiana Chapter partners with 105 companies that administer on-the-job training opportunities for apprentices. Some of the larger companies include DEEM, LLC, Indianapolis; Dilling Group, Inc., Logansport, Ind.; Gaylor, Inc., Noblesville, Ind.; L-A Electric, Fort Wayne, Ind.; SSI Services, LLC, Indianapolis; and Votaw Electric, Inc., Fort Wayne, Ind.
The benefit for the firms that sponsor apprentices is loyalty. “It allows a company to grow an individual from their high school graduation into whatever role they want to have in the company,” Gaylor says. “It allows the individual and the company to have an entire life cycle of growth into a career.”
And, the benefit for the industry is a higher level of professionalism. “The individuals in the companies are more educated, better trained and safer. All of that adds to improving the image of construction,” Gaylor says.
Making Students Job ReadyABC’s
Western Michigan Chapter has a similar relationship with
Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC), offering electrical, plumbing and mechanical apprenticeships that combine field and classroom training.
Recently, the ABC chapter and leaders at the community college decided more could be done to encourage and develop individuals who aren’t ready to commit to a traditional four-year program, but are seeking flexible training options in other construction trades, such as carpentry and masonry.
Last year, John Doherty, president of the ABC Western Michigan Chapter, met with local industry stakeholders, including Brian Van Haren, president of
Van Haren Electric, Inc., Bryon Center, Mich. They conceptualized a new, flexible training model offered through GRCC that would give students some foundational skills to take to prospective construction employers.
The new ABC pre-apprenticeship program, still in the developmental stages, would be incorporated into GRCC’s 18-week basic construction curriculum, which offers three tracks focused on residential, commercial or green building and requires 612 hours of lab work.
In the new program, students could enroll with or without a job. They wouldn’t need to be sponsored by ABC or an employer, but could use this opportunity to position themselves as job-ready. A student would learn to take on more responsibility before choosing to pursue a higher education, or before committing to a full-fledged apprenticeship program.
“We asked, ‘Is keeping a student in one place with the same employer for four years a practical model? Or is that outdated?’” Doherty says. “Students might not want to be locked into school for that whole time, or they might want an online learning component.”
A more flexible learning model would allow an individual to choose when it’s best to attend classes. For some, evening classes are ideal, but for others, attending classes at night after a full day of work is not practical.
Doherty, Van Haren and GRCC are currently seeking more industry input. “We’re in the process of trying to reengage our commercial contractors, who can help the program make the candidates better suited to what they need as employers,” Van Haren says. “We hope to improve, change and expand the offerings that the community college already has.”
In addition, a financial incentive is imperative to attracting the younger generation. “My hope is that employers will step up and provide some scholarship money and internship opportunities,” he says.
The rewards are two-fold. “For students, it gives them a jump-start into the industry, and hopefully connects them with jobs. It gets them the foundational skills to be immediately transferrable to a job,” Van Haren says.
“For an employer, it provides some of the initial orientation and training that a good construction employee should have, such as safety knowledge or the use of hand tools,” he says. “It gives an employer a sense that the student has more than just an effective interview under his belt. And with the feedback from the college about how the student did in class, you increase the odds that you are finding someone with the right skills to become a construction worker.”
New Training for TAB TechniciansABC’s
Pacific Northwest Chapter, Beaverton, Ore., recently introduced a new training initiative catered to a niche sector of the industry: testing, adjusting and air balancing (TAB) technicians.
An important distinction must be made: TAB technicians are not the same as HVAC craftworkers or sheet metal installers. Rather, TAB technicians are the third-party testers that measure the air flow of a newly constructed system to ensure it complies with quality control requirements.
“There needs to be a go-between to see objectively if these systems work properly,” says Joe Helm, president of
Northwest Engineering Services, Inc., Tigard, Ore. The company recently performed air balancing tests for the Port of Portland’s new corporate offices, as well as the University of Oregon’s Matthew Knight arena.
ABC and a handful of local companies that perform third-party TAB work realized the need for a separate apprenticeship program when union sheet metal workers began advocating for TAB technicians to be paid under the same prevailing wage scale as sheet metal installation craftworkers. In the state, a craftworker on a public project must be paid the prevailing wage; if not, the worker must be a member of an approved apprenticeship program.
In 2007, following a lawsuit, ABC successfully convinced the Wage and Hour Division at Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries that TAB technicians must be categorized independently from HVAC installers when determining wages on public projects.
“This niche of construction has been around for 50 years,” says John Killin, president of the ABC Pacific Northwest Chapter. “This was simply a political push by labor to change the definition of TAB to make it a part of the installation trade.”
In 2009, the ABC chapter partnered with
Portland Community College (PCC) to launch its apprenticeship program, which is approved by the Oregon State Apprenticeship and Training Council.
The TAB training curriculum was developed from existing third-party certification models offered by the
National Environmental Balancing Bureau and the
Associated Air Balance Council. ABC added a hands-on mechanical training component—6,000 hours of on-the-job training in addition to the 490 related training hours required to take the certification test.
TAB training is becoming increasingly relevant as more public projects require third-party testing of air systems. Projects seeking green certification often require independent verification of energy savings as well.
In addition, a specialist must keep up with current technology and engineering standards. “A driving force is that today’s HVAC systems are becoming much more complicated, and therefore the need for an advanced training program has grown,” says Cindy Regier, apprenticeship director for ABC’s Pacific Northwest Chapter.
The program, she says, is a great match for a student who has a mechanical aptitude and a desire to test and troubleshoot equipment, or an individual with an inclination toward engineering. “It’s a way to a career path, with the first step being to gain certification through one of the air balancing associations before becoming a technician,” she says. “This is complex work, and you have to be pretty sharp to do it.”
Helm agrees that despite the current economy, niche apprenticeship programs are a boon for the industry. “It’s been a good way for our company to put people on a professional growth path,” he says. “It also helps us recognize people who have been working for us a long time through merit raises and performance evaluations tied to training.”
The apprenticeship program is the first of its kind in the nation. Only about 1,000 companies specialize in TAB testing in the United States, and only 12 companies in Oregon perform the work. Although just seven apprentices currently are enrolled, Killin and Regier say the program has strong growth potential, as more and more projects nationwide will require third-party energy testing.
“I think our training has an opportunity to gain some momentum when the industry comes back,” Helm says. “Making it a little more uniform and more formal is an important step going forward.”
Lauren Pinch is assistant editor of Construction Executive.
As a niche player within the construction industry,
The Fireguard Corporation, Glen Burnie, Md., invests in the next generation by hosting onsite student visits and supporting in-house continuing education programs.
“One of our goals is to increase knowledge of fire protection as a career choice because we’re not as well-known as the other construction trades,” says Michael Bonanni, vice president. “We’re a growing company, and we’re always looking for ways to bring new applicants on board.”
Last spring, Bonanni and Fireguard’s Director of Training and Continuing Education Dickie Delss launched a new workforce recruitment program with Eastern Technical High School, a vocational school located in East Baltimore County. Students are invited to attend four-hour interactive field trips at Fireguard’s state-of-the-art testing and training facility, where they get exposure to reading construction blueprints, performing hydraulic calculations and setting off fire sprinklers.
“We structured these training sessions to be very hands on,” Bonanni says. “The students were enthusiastic, and they asked a lot of questions. They were surprised about how many different opportunities exist within our industry.”
With the success of its first career day, Fireguard is expanding outreach to students enrolled at Montgomery College and the University of Maryland, one of the few schools in the country that offers a degree in fire protection engineering.
“Having these groups at our training facility shows the commitment we make to our industry and provides knowledge of the training one might get working at a place like Fireguard,” Bonanni says.
Newly hired employees attend a mandatory pre-apprenticeship program—a two-week crash course that includes on-the-job and safety training. “At the end of the pre-apprenticeship training, new employees are not only prepared to be more effective and productive workers, but they also can operate in a safe manner right off the bat. It helps put successful employees on the fast track for growth within our company,” Bonanni says.
The Fireguard Corporation also offers a four-year apprenticeship program that is accredited by the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia Apprenticeship Council.
-- Lauren Pinch
On a national scale, government agencies, community and trade organizations, academic institutions and businesses are partnering to provide new job opportunities and combat a dire skilled workforce shortage.
Last summer, industry stakeholders gained momentum with a little help from Mike Rowe, the Discovery Channel’s executive producer and host of the popular series “Dirty Jobs.”
Rowe is the face of “Go Build,” a state workforce recruitment program of the Alabama Construction Recruitment Institute (ACRI), which was created through an act of the state legislature in 2010. ACRI is funded through an employer fee levied upon wages paid to certain skilled workers on commercial and industrial jobs across the state.
ACRI is truly a collaborative effort: Local chapters of Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), Associated General Contractors, American Subcontractors Association, the Construction Users Roundtable (
CURT), the AFL-CIO and other construction trade unions all lobbied for its creation.
The Go Build campaign includes statewide print, online and television advertisements encouraging people to consider a career in the skilled trades.
Rowe also is the face of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ “I Make America” campaign, which aims to generate federal support for equipment manufacturers, lobby for federal infrastructure funding, and create jobs in the agriculture, construction, forestry, mining and utility industries.
The National Center for Construction Education and Research (
NCCER) and CURT recently took ownership of another workforce campaign that was years in the making: the Choose Construction Initiative, formerly known as the “I’m GREAT” campaign.
After Hurricane Katrina exposed the glaring shortage of skilled workers necessary to rebuild the Gulf Coast, organizations such as the Business Roundtable, CURT, ABC and NCCER—as well as private employers including Bechtel Corporation and DuPont—gained government support to create the Gulf Coast Workforce Development Initiative (GCWDI), which set the goal of recruiting 20,000 people to work in the construction trades. GCWDI received $3.5 million in private funds and $25 million in federal funds.
By the end of 2008, GCWDI had brought nearly 23,000 workers to the Gulf Coast region through the Get Rewarded for Education and Advancement Training (I’m GREAT) program, which provided NCCER-certified craft instruction at several local community colleges and trade schools.
Under CURT’s leadership, the program morphed into a national initiative known as the Choose Construction Initiative. Today, the program is no longer focused on disaster recovery, but instead on the big picture: forecasting where and what types of workers are needed, and then recruiting and developing individuals to pursue careers in the construction trades.
For more information, visit
www.mikeroweWORKS.com,
www.GoBuildAlabama.com,
www.IMakeAmerica.com and
www.imgreat.org.
-- Lauren Pinch