“A young lady can come in today breaking concrete, and tomorrow she’ll be breaking the glass ceiling”
It seems something is under construction no matter where you look, whether it’s an apartment complex, new neighborhood, commercial building, mixed-use development, or even the roadways. According to industry experts, there are not enough construction workers to meet the construction demands.
In fact, in Florida, more than 400,000 construction workers are needed this year to help meet all the construction jobs around the state. That’s according to the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) organization.
iBuild Central Florida was founded in 2016 after construction leaders met to discuss the growing need for skilled workers. As part of that meeting, they realized that in order to tackle the growing problem, they had to help solve it.
They offer training and classes for high school students and adults who are interested in construction, helping them learn the skills – and certifications – needed to do the job. To date, more than 2,000 students from Central Florida have earned their certifications. More than 9,000 high school students have taken classes.
“For me, it was a vision of how to do we get people that normally don’t look like the people in our construction industry, and how do we change that view, because the construction industry is for everybody,” said Debbie Rodriguez, founder and president of IBuild.
Michele Daughtery, president and CEO of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Central Florida, said the demand for workers is growing.
“The crisis is so large right now that for every three individuals that are retiring from our industry, only one individual’s coming in,” she said.
She’s passionate about the iBuild programs, knowing that it can provide so many students and workers a future.
“A young lady can come in today breaking concrete, and tomorrow she’ll be breaking the glass ceiling because of these amazing iBuilD programs,” she said.
What they’re saying:
Olivia Gonzales has taken classes through iBuild and said it helped her understand how the construction industry works. She wants to become an architect.
“I’ve been wanting to do architecture, so this helped me get like the background knowledge,” she said, noting that she’s learned how to build many projects and the tools needed to build them.
“I learned several things…We build like tables and different (things) and like bird houses. Which I probably wouldn’t have known how to do otherwise.”
Amik Leafgree, another student, joined iBuild because he wanted to learn more about the industry and work on his skills. For him, he learned that there are many types of jobs in the indsutry.
“There’s so many jobs,” he said.
He also hopes to construct buildings in Central Florida.
What’s next:
Visit http://www.ibuildcentralflorida.com to learn more information about the program, the classes offered, and how to get started.
