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Latino Students Become ‘Team Builders’ for Housing Industry
 Eight Latino college students participating in the three-month Team Builders program this summer will gain work experience preparing for managerial positions in the home building industry.
Initiated in 2006, Team Builders is a joint effort of the Home Builders Institute (HBI) and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation's (HHF) “Latinos on a Fast Track” (LOFT) program; it is being sponsored by Lowe’s.
In the position of Program Implementation Manager (PIM), student participants will be responsible for teaching English as a Second Language to a Spanish-speaking construction worker using HBI’s Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition ESL curriculum.
 Sed de Saber™-Construction Edition was developed by HBI in partnership with Lowe’s to address the need for English language training for Spanish-speaking workers on the job site. The ESL tool has shown positive results, reducing job site injuries and fatalities, improving the quality of construction and boosting the loyalty and overall morale of workers.
The students will meet with the Hispanic workers twice a week at the local home builders association, working closely with HBI and HHF staffs to ensure that program objectives are met.
“Team Builders has been a great program for the past three years and we are very excited about the direction in which Lowe’s and HHF are taking it,” said HBI Chairman M. M. “Mike” Weiss.
“Job site safety is one of the most important training components in the construction industry. Unfortunately, when it comes to language barriers, it has often been overlooked,” he said. “Sed de Saber has proven to increase the overall productivity on the job site and we know that the Team Builders students will do a great job teaching English to a valuable sector of the construction workforce.”
The Team Builders program will operate in Atlanta, Houston, Seattle and Southern California.
Previous Team Builders sponsors included Pulte Homes in 2007 and 2008 and Beazer Homes in 2006.
For more information on Team Builders, e-mail Page Browning at HBI, or call her at 800-795-7955 x8918.
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