National Skills Summit

National Skills Summit
Innovative Initiatives: Construction and Transportation

Home Builders Institute, National Association of Home Builders
Women's Council, and JELD-WEN, Inc.:
Cornerstone Project

The Challenge:

To satisfy the intense demand for skilled workers in the booming home building industry.

The Solution:

Create a mentorship program that fosters the involvement of women in the industry, opening profitable careers to women and supplying employers with much needed workers.

The Partners:

Home Builders Institute, the nation's leading source for education and training programs serving the home building industry, trains skilled workers in residential construction.

National Association of Home Builders Women's Council, a resource for women in construction, helps women develop careers in building, remodeling, and related industries.

JELD-WEN, Inc., is leading manufacturer of doors, windows, and specialty millwork, located in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Pozzi Wood Windows, a division of JELD-WEN, has specifically contributed to the Cornerstone project.

The Story:

Women may comprise nearly half of the American workforce, but they make up only 10 percent of construction industry employees. Cornerstone was created with precisely this fact in mind.

Cornerstone is a national mentorship program that pairs experienced women in the industry with protegees from academic, community, or trades training backgrounds in an effort to increase retention of women in careers in the industry. Through these mentoring relationships, the National Association of Home Builders Women's Council, and Pozzi Wood Windows hope to alleviate the fears of women unfamiliar with the home building industry and increase the number of new recruits.

The program has also produced a number of publications geared toward local implementation of the program and being a good mentor or protegee, as well as a newsletter distributed to program participants containing advice, progress within the program, and other things of interest to women and businesses in the industry.

Cornerstone is funded by $300,000 in corporate donations. The program has doubled since it started in 1998 and continues to expand with 40 new mentoring pairs matched as of April 2000.

A Model of Innovation:

Cornerstone uses a mentoring process to bring women into the construction business in management positions. The program does not train women to do the building, but instead encourages them to develop and manage construction projects and start their own construction companies.

Contacts:

Dennis Torbett,
WANTO Project Coordinator Home Builders Institute
1090 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
202-371-0600 (p)
202-898-7777 (f)

Laura Ivey
Home Builders Institute
1090 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20005
800-795-7955 (p)
202-861-2170 (f)

Carmel Nayman
Executive Director National Association of Home Builders, Women's Council
1201 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
202-822-0410 or 800-368-5242, ext. 433 (p)
202-861-2170 (f)

Teri Cline
JELD-WEN, Inc.
3250 Lakeport Blvd.
Klamath Falls, Oregon 97601
541-850-2606 (p)
541-850-2640 (f)

Highlight quote:

"This mentoring program is about women helping women succeed, and in fields that many may never have thought possible. Non-traditional jobs - and especially those in the building trades - pay a lot more and allow women to be successful and self-sufficient."

--Alexis M. Herman