Page 10 - 2021 San Antonio Housing Forecast

Young People are the Future of the Home Building Industry
Thank You 2021 Housing Forecast Partners
Kristi Sutterfield GSABA Executive Vice President
Jobs in the residential construction industry continue to be in high demand. To help recruit the next generation of highly skilled craftspeople, we are asking you as a member to invest your time to help us recruit middle school, high school, and college students to the residential homebuilding, remodeling, and construction industry.
For those of you who may not know, the Greater San Antonio Builders Association (GSABA) has an Education Foundation. We fund scholarships each semester to students from all walks of life that are studying and training in the construction trades. Led by Chairwoman Kelly Parrish-Walker and a Board of Trustees, we met with high school students in 2020 and helped one of the local high schools with critical tools that were needed for a construction training class. Our goal is to expand our student chapters to the high school and middle school levels in 2021 and 2022. This will take a lot of man hours and your involvement is critical to our success.
GSABA will also build a Scholar Home in partnership with Armadillo Homes in 2021 to fund scholarships and provide training. Armadillo Homes has partnered with GSABA for nine years and we are very grateful for their
leadership and for so many of our member’s support through donations and contributions.
We have two college student chapters, one at St. Philip’s College, and one at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). St. Philip’s has five one- and two-year training programs in the construction trades. The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) has a four- year construction science degree with day and nighttime classes too. While we partner with the commercial construction trade associations, they have done a much better job of recruiting students than we have. UTSA shared that over 80 percent of their graduates are recruited by commercial construction firms in San Antonio.
The St. Philip’s Student Chapter was awarded Student Chapter of the Year in January at the 2020 International Builders Show (IBS) by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). There are over 200 student chapters in the United States, so this was quite an honor. We have not been able to have in-person student chapter meetings since March. However, we did stay engaged with the students and their faculty advisors in 2020. We provide tickets to education, special events, and membership mixers at the Association.
You and your team members can help us recruit students and others to our industry by volunteering to speak to students. We always struggle to get speakers. We will have numerous opportunities once we can move past this pandemic and can meet in person.
We are planning a Job Shadow Day for late summer and we will host a Job Fair in the GSABA Ballroom as soon as we can. We will send you information on both events to help connect you with student chapter members who are looking for internships, part-time and full-time employment. Several builders have all hired graduates from our student chapters!
NAHB partnered with the Department of Construction Science at Texas A&M University to create lesson plans that building professionals can use to encourage interest in construction careers at the middle school level (5th-8th grades). The goals of the lesson plans are to engage the students, fit in teachers’ required curriculum and be applicable for schools across the United States. Each lesson plan includes a hands-on activity where students apply the math and science principles being taught.
GSABA has all the tools you need to teach a class and can coordinate all of the dates, times and details for you. If you have an interest in this recruiting and outreach program, please call Haley King at 210-696-3800. If you have an interest in donating to the Education Foundation or contributing to the Armadillo Scholar Home, please call me.
Thank you for your continued support of the Greater San Antonio Builders Association.
Warm Regards,
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2021 HOUSING FORECAST