WASHINGTON - The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced $235,500 in grant funding from DOL to establish seven new Construction Career Academies across the United States.

The grant is funded under the president's high-growth job training initiative, which seeks to leverage the publicly funded workforce system more effectively in collaboration with private and public sector partners, and to prepare new and incumbent workers with the general and industry-specific skills demanded by employers.

This initiative focuses on high-growth industries - such as construction - where specialized skills training curricula needs to be developed or upgraded to ensure that workers have the right skills for the right jobs.

"AGC will use these grant dollars to help train the future workforce of the construction industry," said AGC chief executive officer Stephen E. Sandherr. "Career academies have proven that they prepare students for the workforce by integrating career and academic skills into the education process."

Through the grant, AGC will provide funding to seven of its chapters to start Construction Career Academies in their local communities. Each sub-grantee will receive more than $20,000 during the course of the three-year grant.

Additionally, each AGC chapter will be supporting these local schools through matching funds and in-kind contributions. The seven sub-grantee recipients include: AGC of Alaska and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District (Anchorage, Alaska), AGC of Houston and The Houston Independent School District (Houston), AGC of Kentucky and Iroquis High School Magnet Center (Louisville, Ky.), Mississippi AGC and Mississippi Construction Education Foundation (Jackson, Miss.), AGC of Nebraska and Omaha Public Schools Career Center (Omaha, Neb.), AGC Oregon–Columbia Chapter and Simon Benson Polytechnic High School (Portland, Ore.), and AGC of Wisconsin and Burlington High School (Burlington, Wis.).

For more information, visit the AGC Web site at www.agc.org.

Publication date: 05/09/2005