|
Carpentry Students Prepare for Home Building Careers
Through their affiliation with the NAHB Student Chapters and support from the Home Builders Association of Kentucky, four high school carpentry students from the Marion County Area Technology Center in Lebanon, Ky. accompanied their instructor to the International Builders’ Show (IBS) in Orlando, Fla. in February for a first-hand look at the latest products and trends in home building.
“Attending the NAHB conference was memorable because of all the new technology that is now available in today’s market,” said Thomas Murphy, a fourth-year student who is serving as president of the Marion County Home Builders Association Student Chapter (MCHBASC). “The most interesting exhibit I saw was where they used pre-fab Styrofoam walls for homes.”
Murphy said that he and his fellow students also had the opportunity to see the latest power tools on the market. “In fact, we had an opportunity to test all types of tools from several different manufacturers,” he said.
Three of the four students came home from the show with a set of free Ryobi tools valued at $160 for scaling the exhibitor’s rock-climbing wall without using their feet, and all of the students won tickets to Sea World for making two consecutive free throw shots from a basketball goal set up at the Lowe’s exhibit.
Carpentry instructor Danny Taylor led efforts to form a student chapter for his students after he was contacted by the HBA of Kentucky two years ago. With assistance from Juva Barber, the association’s governmental affairs director, Taylor’s area technology center was the first in the state of Kentucky to form an NAHB Student Chapter.
“We wanted to give these students a chance to broaden their capacity to understand what is available in the residential construction industry while providing them with an opportunity to develop their leadership, communication and networking skills,” said Barber. “We also wanted to show them what is out in the real world and at the same time provide it in an environment where they could learn from the best professionals available from all over the world.”
Barber added that “we are looking forward to the time when these student members come back as industry members.”
While a visit to the IBS was a special learning experience for his students, Taylor noted the sustained value of participation in the NAHB Student Chapters program.
“One of the many major benefits afforded to my students is that when they graduate from my program, they will receive a certificate from NAHB,” Taylor said. “Once they receive that certificate, the student can post his or her resume into a job bank and automatically become eligible for employment in the construction industry anywhere in the U.S. To me, that’s a great career builder.”
Taylor uses the Home Builders Institute's (HBI) Residential Construction Academy instructional materials, the standards-based educational tools developed with Thomson Delmar Learning publishers, and credentials its graduates.
“There are also scholarship opportunities,” he said. “Last year, one of my students received a $1,000 scholarship to help pay for school. He has gone into the construction management program at Eastern Kentucky University. He is in his first year and is enjoying the program. Once again, we owe a debt of gratitude to Juva because she pointed us in the right direction for him to become a recipient of this scholarship.”
The HBA of Kentucky is one of 10 associations working with HBI to implement “Building Today’s Workforce for Tomorrow,” a program funded under the President’s High Growth Job Training Initiative and carried out by the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.
For more information on the grant, e-mail John Shortt at HBI, or call him at 800-795-7955 x8924; for information on the NAHB Student Chapters, contact Page Browning, x8918.
Home Builders Institute Offers New Program to Teach Hispanic Adults English
 Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition is an easy-to-use, take-home learning tool created exclusively for the construction industry by the Home Builders Institute to improve communication, quality and safety on the job site.
The product, now available at www.seddesaberconstruction.com, uses proven LeapFrog technology to allow workers to listen, record and play back their pronunciation of more than 500 vocabulary words and 340 phrases. Participants who practice 30 minutes each day will complete the program in just four months. Learning at home, on their own time, also eliminates scheduling conflicts.
 Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition was developed by a team of subject matter experts assembled through HBI — including superintendents, craft skills experts, remodelers and builders — to ensure that the information is relevant to today’s home building workforce. To address worker safety issues related to the language barrier, HBI created a seventh book based entirely on the NAHB-OSHA Job Site Safety Handbook.
NAHB members can purchase the learning system, all seven books and a skills assessment to chart employee progress for $395 per kit. The non-member price is $495. Order today and empower your workers to learn English at www.seddesaberconstruction.com.
|
