PRESIDENT’S LETTER

Hafa Adai GCA Members:

Happy New Year! Good riddance to 2020. What a relief to get over a very challenging year in 2020. I wish prosperity and good health to all our members, their employees and family.

The new year for GCA brings special meaning. We are having a fresh start in 2021 with the relocation of our offices to our new home in the newly acquired and renovated GCA Trades Academy Training Center located in Tiyan, Barrigada Guam. We are very excited for the move and to starting the new year in a brand-new facility. An announcement is forthcoming on the grand opening of the facility in the near future. I appreciate your patience and understanding during this transition and we are looking forward to servicing our members at full capacity again.

While we all want to forget 2020 (yes, the year of the Corona Virus Pandemic) the construction industry had remained stable and operational despite a couple setbacks that shut us down temporarily. More good news came to the industry when the 2021 NDAA became law on January 1, 2021. This provided an appropriation for Guam military construction in the amount of $664M for fiscal year 2021. In addition, an exemption to the H2B program, allowed foreign skilled workers to be hired, not only for military construction projects, but also for civilian (non-military) construction projects as well. This provision should provide relief, especially for our smaller contractors to be able to hire a supplemental workforce under the H2B program. More good news came a little later, when it was announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) put back the Philippines on the approved list of countries which can avail of foreign skilled workers under the H2B program. After a rough year last year this news was certainly the silver lining for the industry. I believe this will raise the confidence level for our contractors to petition for H2B workers. This does not guarantee an approval, but the chances to get these petitions approved is greater, especially with the NDAA provisions.

While this is all great news for the industry, we must not be complacent about training our local workforce to sustain our industry when we return to normal levels of construction work. Now with the new GCA Trades Academy Training Center, our capacity for training has increased with more state-of-the-art classrooms and shop area. We are looking forward to the completion of the second building that houses additional classrooms and a large shop area for hands-on practical work.

2021 is looking to be a start of a great year for GCA and the GCA Trades Academy and we hope that this translates to our members and our industry as well. We have great events planned for this year barring any restrictions and we hope to engage with all our members in these events to create opportunities for networking among our members. We are also looking forward to holding our monthly general membership meeting once our hotel partners are ready to open for large gatherings. There is still uncertainty for what is to come, but we remain optimistic and hopeful for a great year in 2021.

Dångkulu na si Yu’us ma’åse’ James A. Martinez President Guam Contractors Association