Article by Morgan Peters, GHBA Communications Director
Each year, members of the GHBA’s Custom Builders Council (CBC) dedicate a day to giving back, lending their time and skills to a local charity. In recent years, that effort has centered around The Hangar Unity Center in Brookshire, a community hub operated by Eyes on Me, a nonprofit that mentors and serves at-risk youth. The CBC’s connection with Eyes on Me began years ago through Allen Griffin, CBC past president and founder of 512 Builders, and has continued to grow through the council’s ongoing volunteer work with The Hangar’s youth construction skills program.
Last year, Curtis Lawson, founder of Crafted Custom Homes, and a group of CBC members went out to The Hangar to help build a concession stand alongside students of The Hangar’s trades program. Evelio Salazar, who was 17 years old at the time, stood out to Curtis and thought he would make a great addition to his team.
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“I saw that he was really jumping in to help out and he was really enthusiastic. What really got my attention about him was even when there wasn’t anything going on, he was always looking for ways to help,” Curtis said.
Because of The Hangar’s trades program, Evelio came to Crafted Homes with a set of skills that gave him a great head start, and ever since he joined the Crafted team, he has continued to develop those skills as a carpenter in training.
The GHBA and its members value programs like The Hangar’s trades program because it provides our youth with hands-on training, exposure and access to the skilled trades workforce. Skilled trades are a secure and rewarding career that is full of advancement. It’s a great option for students who don’t see traditional education as the right fit, whether it’s because of different learning preferences, financial factors or personal goals.
“The construction industry’s workforce is starting to retire, and we don’t have young skilled tradesmen coming up,” Curtis said. “We want to have a pipeline of young people coming in, learning the basic skills and being able to see that pathway from laborer to carpenter to assistant project manager to project manager and maybe estimator.”
According to a National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) analysis of Census data, more than one in five construction workers were aged 55 or older in 2021. And, a recent study released on June 10 from the Home Builders Institute (HBI), in collaboration with NAHB, indicates that the skilled labor shortage’s impact on the residential construction industry is a multibillion-dollar annual challenge.
NAHB and HBI are committed to boosting the skilled labor workforce and mitigating the adverse economic effects of the labor shortage through collaborative programs, education initiatives and advocacy efforts. Locally, GHBA and its members focus on concentrated but meaningful efforts like volunteering, connecting and collaborating with organizations and local ISDs that offer trades programs. While it’s just one example, this story is one that exemplifies how we can bring young people into our industry.
Curtis’s willingness to recruit a young adult with basic trades experience is one small yet impactful example of how we can recruit more people to the skilled trades workforce. At the GHBA, there are many opportunities to get involved within the community to support our industry’s workforce. You can start by reaching out to Kourtney Keller at kkeller@ghba.org for more information.