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Sacramento BIA Participates in Workforce Development Grant
 Among the five recipients of the Home Builders Institute's (HBI) “Building Today’s Workforce for Tomorrow” grant, the North State Building Industry Association in Sacramento, Calif. is forging partnerships with schools, community colleges and employers to train workers for careers in housing.
The HBI program is being funded by the Department of Labor under the President’s High-Growth Job Training Initiative and is being implemented by the Employment and Training Administration.
Building on its existing local partnerships and adding new ones to meet the goals of its grant, the Sacramento builders association will streamline recruitment in the electric, plumbing, carpentry and HVAC trades. The association will fill 250 job slots with candidates ranging from high school students to dislocated workers.
“This is a much more efficient approach to construction training in these trades, and with better coordination we will have more students,” said John Orr, the BIA’s executive vice president. “As an association, we need to do more about workforce training so that programs are strengthened and enhanced, and to do that we need the support from builders, the trades and suppliers — our members.”
Joining in this effort with the North State BIA’s builder and contractor members are: several area high schools, the Cosumnes River and Sierra community colleges, the Western Electrical Contractors Association (WECA) apprenticeship program, Sacramento Job Corps Center (SJCC), the Sacramento City Unified School District, Linking Education and Economic Development (LEED) and the state office of the Employment and Training Administration.
As the facilitator of the grant, the association’s responsibilities include: coordinating the inclusion of HBI’s Residential Construction Academy (RCA) educational materials into the curriculums of the participating school and community colleges; developing agreements that will enable high school students to earn college credit for craft skills training; working with its members to provide internship sites; and, most importantly, helping to sustain the program after the funding ends in two years.
“We are really excited about the interest in this effort from the community,” said Orr.
Sacramento Job Corps a Key Partner
The Sacramento Job Corps Center is a key partner in the “Building Today’s Workforce for Tomorrow” grant, which will provide its students with increased opportunities to pursue careers with members of the BIA and make smooth transitions into community college programs.
The Jacksonville, Fla. and Arizona’s Fred G. Acosta Job Corps centers are also participating in the workforce grant program.
“Developing these partnerships has been great for us, it has really helped to reinforce Job Corps’ mission in the community,” said Mike Kohlbaker, an HBI carpentry instructor and NAHB Student Chapters advisor at the Sacramento JCC.
“Also, having the grant here has allowed us to strengthen the connections among young people, parents, educators, builders and business representatives.”
In addition to California, the program is underway in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.
Home Builders Institute, the workforce development arm of NAHB, is a non-profit organization offering craft education, training and placement programs for the residential construction industry. For more than 30 years, HBI programs have trained people in the trades, promoted the industry as a career and helped the residential construction industry and NAHB members address their workforce needs.
For more information on the “Building Today’s Workforce for Tomorrow” grant, e-mail John Shortt at HBI, or call him at 800-795-7955 x8924.
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