CAGC’s BYC Ambassadors Build Construction Industry Workforce
The Carolinas AGC Foundation’s Build Your Career workforce development initiative hosted its Spring 2019 Ambassador Summit Series meetings in Columbia, SC and Raleigh, NC. More than sixty CAGC Build Your Career (BYC) Ambassadors—our volunteer “boots on the ground” industry professionals—attended these meetings.
“The biggest challenge the construction industry continues to face is attracting and recruiting new generations of workers into the vast array of well-paying and rewarding careers that are currently available, and will continue to be available in coming years, in the construction industry throughout the Carolinas,” said Dave Simpson, CAGC President and CEO. “The CAGC Build Your Career program is playing such a vital role in not only addressing, but also potentially ending the labor shortage crisis in the construction industry here in the Carolinas.”
BYC Ambassadors were provided with customized toolkits that contained essential resources and materials to successfully participate in industry-specific BYC workforce development outreach efforts. The new BYC toolkits function as a “resource hub” for our Ambassadors, providing them with the supplies needed to promote construction career awareness to K-12 students and various groups of displaced workers, inevitably leading future generations to construction career opportunities.
Many of the BYC Ambassadors gave rave reviews about the program and their involvement:
Mark Johnnie of Balfour Beatty: “The consensus of those that attended the Summit meeting is that core BYC tools and materials are now in place for us to start the process of attracting the next generation builders to our industry. For Balfour Beatty, our first step is to include BYC as a discussion point during our weekly team meeting. Our second step is to target a school in our operating area, using the tools provided by BYC, and then to talk with school administrators about how we can work with them to deliver the exciting news about our industry to interested students.”
Kris Hannah of State Utility Contractors: “The coming relaunch of the BYC website, Ambassador toolkits, customizable presentations and the NC and SC school contact lists have totally eliminated the ‘how’ and ‘what’ guesswork for us when it comes to the process of educating our youth on careers in construction.”
Mike Hall of Hall Contracting: “I cannot tell you how pleased I am with the work Tammy Ford has done developing a professional approach and first-class materials for the Build Your Career initiative and its volunteer Ambassadors. I hope our CAGC members will get involved in supporting this crucial, long-term solution to our needs of attracting new blood into the construction arena as a career choice. It is an investment, not an expense.”
Meghan Ketterman of Contract Construction: “The work that CAGC is doing to promote BYC’s Contractors in the Classroom program is effective in building this pipeline to construction programs at the high school level. Contract Construction is very proud to be a part of the BYC Ambassador program.”
Luke Blythe of Blythe Development (and Chair for the CAGC Foundation Board of Trustees): “There’s nothing more important to our industry than workforce development, and the Build Your Career initiative is the driving force behind our CAGC efforts as we work together to tackle this very important issue that affects each and every of us.”
