New York City Preapprentice Training Program
Opens Doors to Local Construction Careers

By Debra K. Rubin

This month’s ENR syndicated column focuses on a program in New York with more than 80% retention.

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A New York City-based preapprenticeship program run by local building trades for public high school students and adult residents of city housing projects has attracted attention from a national owners group—and the New York Yankees. The program, Construction Skills 2000, has placed 750 largely minority graduates in apprenticeship since 2001, with more than 80% still actively employed in construction, officials say. Current and former students say it has opened doors for them in New York’s booming industry.

 The program had rough going when initially run by the city’s school construction authority but has bounced back under the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York (BCTC), says Louis J. Coletti, program chairman and president of the Building Trades Employers Association at a “hands-on” demonstration of craft training last month for 1,000 potential student and adult participants. “We want you to be successful,” he told attendees. “Just show up on time and be persistent.”

Darryl Walker, 43, a first-year painter’s union apprentice, hopes a job in the painting trades will get him out of public housing. “I chose the painters because we’re the last finishing trade and I get a thrill when people move in,” he says. His $12.70 hourly apprentice wage rate will nearly triple as a journeyman.

Jaime Goly, a 21-year-old second-year roofers’ and waterproofers’ union apprentice demonstrated craft methods to students. He joined Construction Skills in 2005 but his intended plan to start a baseball career in college left him financially strapped. “In the union, you have benefits,” he says. “It’s a great backup for me.”

Participants take three hours of weekly classes in the spring. That intensifies to seven hours a day for four weeks in summer, says Paul Fernandes, program CEO and BCTC chief of staff. It is an introduction to tools, preparation for apprenticeship requirements and early job-site experience, he adds.

Graduates say program participation has moved them to the top of waiting lists for entrance into construction unions. “It was the easiest way to get into construction,” says Theanne Crattick, a 2004 program graduate and a plumber’s apprentice who earns up to $21 an hour. Coletti says training costs local unions and their contractors $20,000-$25,000 per student, but the investment can pay off if graduates learn skills to fill current and projected labor gaps in New York that could threaten projects. “If we don’t get these people now, we’re a dying breed,” says Liz Sgroi, an instructor for carpenters’ Local 157 who started her industry career at age 42 after years as a dental hygienist.

Eric Kroll, 17, entered Construction Skills in February and hopes to enter the tile, marble and terrazzo trades. “I’m now getting ready for the hands-on program this summer,” says the graduate of a Staten Island vocational  school whose father is an engineer for Camp Dresser & McKee. “It’s the most beneficial program I’ve ever been in and my parents are thrilled,” he says.

Construction Skills 2000, renamed last month for BCTC President Edward J. Malloy, last year was cited for its success by the Construction Users Roundtable, the Cincinnati owners’ group. Program officials also hope to win a chunk of the Yankees’ estimated $1-million community grant fund. But the award’s amount and timing remain unclear, officials say.“There’s a lot of mystery to kids in how to get into the…trades,” says Fernandes.

 “This program puts some light at the end of the tunnel for them.