Wood Technology Center brings hope and opportunity to Seattle youth

Wood Technology Center brings hope and opportunity to Seattle youth

by Janelle Guthrie Communications Director

BIAW members frequently share their passion for residential construction as well as the frustration that comes from a widespread shortage of skilled trades people looking for work.

A group of builders and remodelers in the King County area hope to make a difference. They’re not only sharing their knowledge and expertise, but providing opportunities for the next generation of workers to learn the skills necessary to join their teams.

Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBAKS) members Courtenay Gebhardt of Blue Sound Construction and Amy Ecklund of AmyWorks co-chair Seattle Central's Wood Technology Center (WTC) Technical Advisory Committee.

Together with Laura Elfline of Mighty House Construction, Teri McDermott of CRD Design Build, Erich Armbruster of Ashworth Homes and other local builders and remodelers, Gebhardt and Ecklund helped develop Seattle Central’s latest micro-pathway: Residential Construction.

While the Wood Technology Center (WTC) in Seattle’s Central District opened in 2013, the first cohort of the Residential Construction program started just this fall. The one-year program, one of five micropathways at Seattle Central, started on Sept. 29.

“This is the first program WTC has offered that specifically targets an earn-and-learn offering, where we expect skills to be supplemented with working during the day,” Gebhardt said.

“The goal is to provide a lot of different onramps so people of all backgrounds can find an entry point to a career in construction.”

Students receive in-person instruction each Wednesday of the quarter for roughly three hours. They also attend classes in the Core Shop on three Saturdays during the quarter for four to five hours at a time. This in-person learning is coupled with online curriculum to allow students to work, take care of their families or do other things while in the program.

Blue Sound Construction employee, Brian Bender, is one of the carpenters enrolled in the evening course.

“We’re really about changing lives and bringing hope to our community through working with wood,” said Associate Dean of the Wood Technology Center Rob Watts. “Employers are definitely looking for some good employees, and we plan to give them to them.”

Structured around the Home Builders Institute's (HBI) Residential Construction Academy, in accordance with NAHB standards, the curriculum trains new residential carpenters and provides formal, accelerated training for workers already employed with local companies.

Class sizes range from 7-20, and the first cohort filled up quickly. The total cost for the year is roughly $6,000 but several local construction companies offer paid employment to students in the program. Others help offset costs of tuition and fees.

Gebhardt credits BIAW’s Workforce Development Task Force as well as Education and Workforce Development Director Al Audette for their support of the new Evening Carpentry program, including marketing materials, advice and tuition reimbursement agreement templates to help industry employers establish a viable way to fund this education for their workers.

“BIAW was instrumental in supporting the Evening Carpentry Program since its inception, and provided the link to the HBI curriculum contacts and other program design resources,” Gebhardt said.

Melissa Irons of Irons Brothers Construction, Inc., chats with Vitino Solano at the Wood Technology Center Job Fair on Sept. 10 in Seattle.

As Watts and his team at the WTC prepared for classes to start, Gebhardt and others joined him in welcoming potential students and other interested workers at a job fair at the center on Sept. 10.

Roughly 20 MBAKS builders and remodelers, including Melissa Irons of Irons Brothers Construction, participated in the event, greeting a steady stream of potential new hires. Irons Brothers has a student in the evening carpenter apprenticeship program. Blue Sound Construction has three in the program as well.

After working in a variety of different jobs, 37-year-old Vitino Solano attended the job fair hoping to make inroads into a career in construction in Seattle.

“This year, there’s over $3 billion going into construction in Seattle, why not be a part of it?” he said.

BIAW Workforce Development Task Force Chair and MBAKS member, Darylene Dennon of Solid Energy, Inc. in Woodinville, welcomed jobseekers like Solano and offered this valuable advice.

“Not everybody wants to work in technology,” she said. “A lot of kids want to work with their hands. People need to open their minds. As my dad always said, learn a trade and you’ll always have a job.”