Recently the Carolinas AGC Foundation Build Your Career (BYC) workforce development initiative launched its “Contractors in the Classroom” program at R.B. Stall High School in North Charleston, SC in partnership with long-time CAGC member firm, Trident Construction.

Contractors in the Classroom is a program designed to place our BYC Ambassadors directly in schools throughout the Carolinas region. The goal of this program is to educate students, their parents and teachers on the many amazing benefits of pursuing a career in the construction and craft trade industry. Through ongoing outreach programs developed for our North and South Carolina schools, our Ambassadors are able to promote construction careers to future generations of workers and educate them on why it is such a rewarding and viable career choice!

“Our recent participation in the Build Your Career Contractors in the Classroom program was a great experience and exceeded our expectations. It was very encouraging to see how engaged the students were and the genuine interest they showed in construction careers. I would highly encourage all AGC member firms to get involved with this program and help recruit the future of our industry,” said Todd Bulwinkle, Vice President of Trident Construction.

During the BYC Contractors in the Classroom program launch, Tammy Ford the BYC Program Director, worked in tandem with a team of Trident Construction employees to conduct classroom presentations promoting careers in construction and illustrating industry-specific career pathways to a group of over 80 sophomore, junior and senior students at R.B. Stall High School. Leading the presentations on behalf of Trident Construction was VP Todd Bulwinkle, as well as John Edward Griffith and Joe Silverman, both Superintendents at Trident.

During the first portion of the rotating class visits, participating students learned general information about the construction industry from the BYC Director, such as understanding the differences between vertical and horizontal building projects, the differences between General Contractors and Sub/Specialty Contractors, as well as salary and earning potential. The Team from Trident Construction then wrapped up these highly informative sessions by discussing the history of their company and providing the R.B. Stall students with information on careers and advancement opportunities within Trident.

The component of the class visit that the students seemed to appreciate the most with eager engagement, was the project-based learning activity the Trident Team incorporated at the end of their presentation. The students were first shown a video of a time-lapsed building project completed in Charleston by Trident Construction. They were next shown a BIM video of that same project detailing all the interior and exterior specs. Finally, the students were all given hard copies of the actual project blueprints and challenged to identify certain details and areas on those prints as they pertained to the overall finished project. This in essence provided the students with a complete and comprehensive understanding of the start-to-finish cycle of a vertical building project.

Jeremy Carrick, Principal at R.B. Stall High School, said, “We are so grateful to have the participation of local employers like Trident Construction and trade associations such as Carolinas AGC here onsite to help enlighten our students on potential career opportunities within the skilled trades. The goal of the educators and the entire staff here at R.B. Stall is to continue facilitating these types of partnerships in the future so we can offer clear career pathway information to our population of students here at Stall interested in pursuing these types of careers.”

Now that the CAGC Build Your Career Contractors in the Classroom program, led by our diverse group of BYC Ambassadors, has been successfully piloted and launched, it will now be replicated in participating schools throughout the Carolinas. Our volunteer Ambassadors will be able to use their fully-loaded toolkits and resources to continue promoting construction career awareness to the next generation of construction and trade industry craft workers.