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Job Corps Grads Fill Labor Needs in Arizona
 “Follow your dreams,” NAHB associate member Fabian Liera, the winner in January of NAHB’s first President’s Award, told students at the April 8 commencement ceremonies of the Fred G. Acosta Job Corps Center in Tucson, Ariz.
“Through hard work, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to,” said Liera, who was a 1992 graduate of the Home Builders Institute’s (HBI) plumbing program at the center. He is today the owner of Irownwood/Winnelson Plumbing, which exceeded $4 million in business last year.
Liera was also able to address the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association (SAHBA), which was holding its general membership dinner next door to the Job Corps graduation.
Liera told association members that he places great value on the training he received from HBI at the Acosta Center and he recognizes the enormous benefit to the construction industry of strengthening ties between Job Corps programs and local builders associations.
“We don’t have a labor pool, we have a labor puddle. That’s why our relationship with Job Corps is growing in importance,” agreed SAHBA Government Liaison Alex Jacome. “The shortage of skilled workers in the home building sector remains the biggest reason why Job Corps is such a success. Such training programs provide employment opportunities to America’s youth, while also supplying one of the nation’s most demanding industries with a dynamic workforce.”
John Gallagher, an HBI plumbing instructor at the Acosta Job Corps Center, said that he is appreciative of home builders who select his former students to fill their labor needs and confident that the center’s graduates have the skills they need to succeed in construction careers.
“We graduate and place around 75 students a year from our HBI construction trades at the Acosta Center,” Gallagher said. “My goal is to have all of them go to work with SAHBA members or their subcontractors.”
HBI, the workforce development arm of NAHB, has training programs at 68 Job Corps centers in 40 states and the District of Columbia, teaching students brick masonry, carpentry, electrical, painting, plumbing, facilities maintenance and landscaping skills.
For more information on HBI's program in Job Corps, e-mail Maria McIntyre at HBI, or call her at 800-959-0052 x8912.
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