The Alaska Contractor - Summer 2008

AGC of Alaska forms
Construction Education Foundation
BY TRACY KALYTIAK
Nearly two decades ago, the Associated
General Contractors
of Alaska faced a dilemma.
Experienced, capable workers in the
construction industry were retiring
and only a few people were stepping
into the jobs that were being vacated,
at a time when Alaska’s growing population
needed more homes to live
in, more buildings in which to work
and shop, and more roads to drive on.
Dwindling energy sources highlighted
a pressing need for construction of a
natural gas pipeline, a massive project
that would require thousands of workers
to accomplish.
“We had to take proactive action,”
said Dick Cattanach, AGC’s executive
director emeritus.
AGC of Alaska launched a flurry of
education and training initiatives that
were so successful the organization earlier
this year formed the AGC of Alaska
Construction Education Foundation,
which will independently oversee and
get funding for those programs.
“AGC is a contractor group whose
main function isn’t education,” said
Terry Fike, secretary/treasurer for the
new foundation and president of Alcan
General Inc. “Education and training
programs have spread out to such
an extent we felt it was better to move
them into a foundation. They were just
getting too big to handle as an entity
inside AGC.”
AGC is now deeply involved in a
near-statewide network of construction
academies for high-school students;
coordinates support for the
Build Up! program for older gradeschool
kids; supports a Denali Commission-funded
effort to promote
construction education in 42 school
districts throughout rural Alaska;
helps young adults access training in
the construction trades and college,
and coordinates other training courses
aimed at helping workers enhance
the knowledge they already have or
explore another specialty within the
construction industry.
“It evolved over time,” Cattanach
said. “We started really working with
the schools, trying to get them to reinstitute
some programs and then we
built up the university component.
When the state started getting a surplus
from oil price increases, we saw
that as a way to create an experimental
program, the construction academies.
Everything’s really been coming to a
head in the last five or six years.”
Cattanach said the idea for the
foundation coalesced about a year ago.
“We had got a grant the year before
for the academy in Anchorage,”
he said. “We were going to expand it
to Fairbanks. All of a sudden we found
ourselves spending more and more
time on the education component and
less and less time on the overall activities
of AGC of Alaska.”
Cattanach said they decided to
move existing construction academies,
the rural construction education program
and AGC’s training program
under the umbrella of the foundation,
along with the three full-time AGC
staff members who had handled education
and training programs and the
executive director of the construction
academy program.
“We’re going to transfer all the
grants – $250,000 from the Denali
Commission, $3.5 million from the
Department of Labor – to the foundation,”
Cattanach said. “It will be basically
self-funded. Plus, there will be
any revenues from training activities
from members.”
Cattanach said discussions are taking
place with the Alaska Housing Finance
Corp. about training its work force in
weatherization, as well as with ConocoPhillips
for pipeline-related training.
“If they want a trained work force,
they need to start training now,” Cattanach
said. “Requiring the executive
director of AGC to keep track of that
and other parts of AGC would make it
almost impossible to provide service to
our members.”
Legally, the new foundation will be
totally independent, Cattanach said,
though it will initially be housed in
AGC’s building.
Fike said a construction education
foundation opens up funding options
AGC didn’t have. Individuals may now
contribute, tax-free, to the construction
education foundation. Under AGC’s
sponsorship, contributions were only
tax-free for businesses.
“It’s one of the benefits of setting
it up the way it’s set up,” Fike said. “It’s
another avenue for collecting funds,
endowing scholarships. People in the
trades who want to move into management
but don’t have funds to train
can apply for grants. It’s an infant;
we’re just trying to get it launched.”
Fike said the model for the new
construction education foundation is a
similar program put together by AGC
of Washington state.
The foundation was approved in
March, Cattanach said, and will officially
begin functioning when the new
fiscal year begins July 1, which also
happens to be when the construction
academy grants start.
“It’s just a lot easier to finish under
the old name and start the new grants
under the new foundation,” Cattanach
said.
Nine board members have been
selected, and each will serve a oneyear
term, Fike said.
In addition to Cattanach and Fike,
members of the education foundation’s
board of directors are Jan van den Top,
president of The Superior Group Inc.;
Glen Knickerbocker, immediate past