CHARLOTTE, NC — Carolinas AGC announces the organization was among a small group of AGC chapters from across the country honored with 2021 Chapter Awards at the 2021 AGC National and Chapter Leadership Conference, which took place September 19-20 in Orlando, Florida. Carolinas AGC was awarded two of the seven awards, the only chapter of 89 chapters nationwide to earn more than one award. The AGC of America Chapter Awards recognizes chapters that have developed outstanding programming and excelled at achieving tangible accomplishments during the calendar year.

Honors included the Chapter Public Relations Award for CAGC's efforts to support the Construction Industry through a $3.75-million Construction Pandemic Mitigation and Education Grant from the North Carolina General Assembly, as well as the Chapter Workforce Development Award for the organization's 2020 workforce development efforts.

Through listening sessions with CAGC's members and other groups representing the construction industry, the organization learned of the challenge many construction businesses, particularly small and minority owned companies, were having with financing pandemic mitigation efforts. Although some businesses were able to get financial assistance with PPP loans, many were left out of this process and needed help with considerable unbudgeted costs such as buying PPE for their workers and cleaning equipment for their jobsites. Through a grant funded by the state legislature, CAGC was awarded $3.75 million for construction pandemic mitigation and education outreach from the state’s share of the federal CARES Act funding. $3 million was used to make subgrants to businesses, nonprofits and other eligible groups for mitigation efforts related to health and safety measures, and the additional $750,000 was used to make subgrants to media organizations, businesses, and nonprofits for multilingual education, training, and community outreach programs. The Carolinas AGC Foundation recognized the key to building a successful comprehensive workforce development initiative needed to be deeply rooted in effectively mapping out a strategic plan of action designed to address the most critical needs of the industry — recruiting, training, and retaining a sustainable workforce. To build upon CAGC’s Build Your Career (BYC) program, CAGC implemented additional robust programs in 2020, a sampling includes:

• Updating the BYC website to include a skills assessment quiz; career pathway information; a listing of construction-related training and curriculum offerings throughout the Carolinas; a new educational video series, Building Your 21st Century Construction Career; a fully loaded resource toolkit for Ambassadors and educators; school visit request forms; information on registered pre-apprenticeship programs; a jobs posting board; and more.
• Creating a comprehensive construction education video series for CAGC's Ambassadors to use during virtual or live Careers-in-Construction school visits.
• Partnering with the NC K-12 system and Wake County Educational system to produce a construction-themed SummerSTEM workshop for nearly 100 educators.
• Creating a customizable teacher externship program template for virtual or live use.
• Creating an original content Workforce Development CE elective course for the NC Licensing Board for General Contractors titled Ways to Create, Retain & Sustain a Viable Workforce.