Beautiful weather the day before Halloween heralded yet another extremely successful ABC Construction Exhibition. This year’s event provided the opportunity for 400+ students and teachers from four area school districts as well as over 190 industry volunteers to experience, first-hand, numerous aspects of the construction industry. As many as 33 ABC member companies contributed to the event that allowed students to try their hand at such crafts as building scaffold, electrical wiring, pipefitting, welding, and maneuvering heavy equipment.
The exhibition began in 2004 with the intent to showcase local Craft Championships and to introduce both students and teachers to the possibilities of exciting careers in the construction industry. High school students, and this year some 8th grade students, watched as area craftsmen competed in our local welding, millwright, electrical, and pipefitting championships in hopes of winning a spot to represent local industry at the ABC National Craft Championships. Contestants are craftsmen from local member companies who work hard to get to this level of knowledge and understanding of their respective craft. This year, Chad Cotta, a pipefitter from Infinity Construction Services, LP will represent ABC Texas Gulf Coast Chapter in the national championship in Hawaii in February 2009.
Brazosport College, our partner in training for the construction industry for more than 30 years, hosted the event again this year. Their training labs provided many of the sites for the craft competitions as well as a site for many of the exploration areas including welding, pipefitting, electrical, and sheet metal. The back parking lot was turned into a wonderland of booths that allowed students and teachers the opportunity to work with a myriad of power tools, build scaffold, control heavy equipment, experience inventory control, and try their hands at working with rebar and pre-engineered forms. ABC appreciates the participation of Milwaukee Tools in the power tool exploration area. CenterPoint Energy also provided an exciting demonstration that helped all understand the need for safety in the work place and at home.
Students from Angleton, Brazosport, Columbia-Brazoria and Sweeny ISD’s had the opportunity to explore Brazosport College’s Process Tech lab, use technology to create a drawing of an I-pod in the Auto Cad Lab, practice good interview techniques in the Human Resources area, and experience team building with Tinkertoys in the Communications/Team Building sessions.
Finally, this year’s event was brought to a close by guest speaker Josh Shipp who entertained the students with a wildly funny but serious message about ‘Not Being Average.’ As the buses departed, many weary adults hoped that this year also enlightened our younger generation about opportunities for productive construction careers in their own backyard.
A very “Special Thank You” goes out to each and every ABC Member and helper, all the Sponsors and contributors, and Brazosport College who made this year’s ABC Construction Exhibition such a success. We hope to be bigger and better yet again at the next exhibition. Our future and the future of our industry depends on it!