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From the President, March 2001
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Back in high school, I didn’t have many choices about my career. I grew up in a family business and had a pretty good idea that’s where I would be spending the rest of my life … working in the window and door subcontracting business – if I didn’t end up recruited by Uncle Sam first! Our high school students today have a world of career choices to select from … and the list of opportunities keeps growing daily. In spite of the continuing commercial construction growth, most students are not considering a career in our industry. I read an interesting article in one of the recent ENR (Engineering News Record) weekly magazines. A new charter high school in St. Louis, MO is planned to open next fall – it will specialize in construction education. This school will be the first publicly funded high school for construction in this country. A task force consisting of members from the American General Contractors of St. Louis, staff, and educators wrote the charter. Ultimately, the school will have 500 students who will have construction applications taught in every class. The article went on to say that the students would graduate with skills to enter the construction industry and an apprentice program, or go on to college. I have to applaud the efforts of the AGC. Although all of us in this industry have seen the effects of the shortage of trained and skilled workers recently, we are slow to react to do something about this growing problem. Seeing that the AGC Chapter in St. Louis is trying to correct this change is encouraging. I hope this idea will be able to foster other construction education programs at the high school level in the near future. At the recent Minnesota School Board Convention, I spoke to a school board member from one the Twin Cities districts. Eager to hear how our schools would respond to the shortage of students going into construction careers, I was disturbed to hear that construction careers were not promoted. In fact, the industrial arts departments were disappearing because of three things - the lack of interest in programs not directly connected to a college prep curriculum, the increasing liability and risk for schools to have power equipment for student use, and pressure from parents for their children to pursue traditional college educations. If we as parents aren’t encouraging our children to consider careers in all avenues, we are doing them a huge disservice. Not every student may want to become a carpenter, electrician or glazier. But, MANY students leave high school with no idea of what they want career they may want to pursue. Some rattle through a couple of years in college, only to drop out and find something “good enough” to pay the bills. They may never have the chance to see if a construction career might be excellent and rewarding way to make a living. Once I asked one of our glaziers what he liked best about his job installing curtain wall and glass. He said, “That’s a simple answer. I take a lot of pride driving by a building that’s being used in a community and saying … I helped build that. Those folks are sending their kids to a school that has a part of my skill in it. They look out my windows and use my doors every day. What could be better than that?” And he is right! Contributing to your communities, creating new structures to live in, work in, learn in, worship in and play in … it just doesn’t get any better than that! After working in my family business since I was a kid, maybe I have gotten too close to see how wonderful this building industry really is and how proud I am of our accomplishments. This is the message we need to send to our students .. “Construction is a great industry to be in!” So, fellow CSI member’s, it’s your responsibility to start recruiting our students at an early age. Let them know that this industry is worth their while and needs to be considered as a career choice. Personally, I have never been sorry that I selected this business. It’s my life, not just a job. As always, I am eager to hear from you. Email me, write or call me. If you have ideas to help students consider construction careers, please share them with us. John “Grif” Griffith, CSI |
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