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Lowe’s Introduces Hispanic Interns to Housing Careers
Lowe’s Home Improvement has joined the Home Builders Institute (HBI) and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation as a sponsor of a unique internship program for Hispanic college students.
Created by HBI, the workforce development arm of NAHB, in partnership with HHF’s “Latinos on Fast Tract” (LOFT), “Team Builders” was initiated in 2006 to introduce Hispanic college students to managerial positions in the home building industry. In the program’s first two years, interns worked at regional offices for large NAHB home builder members, including Pulte Homes.
Lowe’s has placed eight interns with its nationwide operations, along with business partners such as IRWIN Industrial Tools, to work on projects ranging from sales to mechanical engineering.
“I like that Lowe’s is focused on the customer,” says Yanet Favela, a Lowe’s commercial sales intern in Naperville, Ill. who has met many of the company’s business partners during her internship. “It makes me feel that customer service is an important part of my internship and that I am having an impact helping people.”
As a partner in another HBI program, Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition, Lowe’s has found an additional way to put the talents of its young interns to work. The company has donated five of the English as a Second Language (ESL) training tools to each of the students, who have volunteered during their 10-week internship to help launch the program with Spanish-speaking citizens in their communities.
Sed de Saber-Construction Edition teaches conversational English-language and job site safety skills in an easy-to-use, take-home format that is powered by Leapfrog technology. The program was created by Retention Education, Inc.
 Along with HBI, Lowe’s is dedicated to improving job site safety in residential construction, particularly among the industry’s Spanish-speaking workers. A recent Center for Disease Control (CDC) study found that Hispanic workers have higher fatality rates than others on the job site, with construction sites representing a particular area of concern as the number of Hispanic workers in the home building industry increases.
Currently, Lowe’s interns are in the recruiting stage of their Sed de Saber-Construction Edition implementation plan and will begin working with Spanish-speaking construction employees throughout their internships.
For more information on Team Builders, e-mail Page Browning at HBI, or call her at 800-795-7955 x8918.
For information on Sed de Saber-Construction Edition, e-mail Steve Kramer, or call him at x8925.
Home Builders Institute Offers New Program to Teach English to Spanish Speakers
Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition is an easy-to-use, take-home learning tool created by Home Builders Institute (HBI) to improve job site communication, construction quality and safety by teaching English to Spanish-speaking workers, who make up 25% of today’s construction industry workforce.
 Sponsored by Lowe’s Commercial Services, Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition was developed by a team of subject matter experts — including superintendents, craft skills experts, remodelers and builders — to ensure that its contents was relevant to today’s home building workforce. HBI also created a seventh book based entirely on the NAHB-OSHA Job Site Safety Handbook to address job site safety issues related to the language barrier.
 Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition uses proven LeapFrog technology to allow learners 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 about five months. Learning at home, on their own time, also eliminates scheduling conflicts.
NAHB members can purchase the learning system, all seven books and a skills assessment to chart progress for $395 per kit. The non-member price is $495. Order today at www.seddesaberconstruction.com or at www.lowesforpros.com.
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