Future Construction Leaders
Future Construction Leaders (FCL), held June 17-21, gave 64 teen girls in grades 8-12 a taste of construction careers during the FCLTeenCamp program, formerly Camp NAWIC San Diego.
During the five-day program at the Associated General Contractors (AGC) San Diego Training Center, the teens got to perform hands-on projects in a variety of construction trades including electrical, plumbing, carpentry, tile, sheet metal, surveying and heavy machinery, guided by industry professionals.
In the classroom portion of the event, NTCA shared several documents with the girls, including several fliers that explain the skills needed and career path opportunities available in the tile industry. “Campers” also received information about the NTCA Women In Tile group that supports women in all aspects of the tile industry.
On day two of the week-long program, the young women learned about tile setting. Professionals from Wirtz Quality Installations stepped in to give the campers training in making mosaic trivets with donated materials from Dal-Tile, Custom Building Products and tile profiles from Schluter.
“Last year we had the girls make a 4″ x 4″ coaster and the girls really enjoyed it,” said John Wirtz, Owner of Wirtz Quality Installations. “This year we decided to do a similar project, only we made them 8″ x 8″, which allowed the girls a lot more creative freedom, and it really paid off. We got some great designs.
“We started by having the girls work on their design and dry set it on 8″ HYDRO-BLOK,” he said. “After that, they spread the thinset, getting edge-to-edge coverage with consistent 1/8″ V-notching. At this point they transferred their designs to the HYDRO-BLOK that was pre-thinsetted, making sure to have straight and consistent grout joints. After a little drying time [campers] attached the precut vinyl Schluter trim on all four edges. Once again, we had a little drying time prior to grouting. Grouting and cleaning was the next task. The final step was the application of a primer on the back side, with a final step of installing Crack Buster® from CUSTOM.”
The campers had a little struggle with spacing and grout, but overall they loved the process of working with the materials and expressing themselves in tile. They said, “I actually liked it a lot. It was really fun and creative. My favorite part was making the designs…” and “This was my favorite thing so far. I liked how we were able to choose the design.” One camper added,
“It’s very easy. You have to be patient. My favorite part was…making your own little design.”
Wirtz added, “We had an additional special project for a few of the girls that finished early. It was a tile logo of the FCL. When we presented it to Linda Young, the Director of the FCL I noticed she got a little misty eyed. That made it all worthwhile.”
In addition to the teen campers, 40 returning campers – known as journeywomen – framed and built 10 chicken coops to expand on carpentry skills learned last year.
NTCA interactive Training Map
NTCA has upped its game in communicating about upcoming workshops and training events with the introduction of an interactive training map.
Amber Fox, NTCA Director of Strategic Initiatives, explained that the map is designed to “give contractors, members and anyone interested in finding a training event another option to locate programs by area.”
NTCA maintains an ongoing list of training events at www.NTCATraining.com. Now visitors to that site can also peruse the interactive Training Map, as well as the Events Calendar.
Fox said, “It is being updated constantly: Using the map is simple – find the city or area you would like to attend a training event and click on the locator icon – blue for evening workshops and red for training events like GPTP Installation, Art Glass Panel Training, Large-Format Installation and Substrate Prep full day or two-day trainings.
A popup message will show the event, topic, date, host and location as well as a link that will take you to a registration page.
“It’s really helpful,” Fox said. “Now you don’t have to go through the list by date – you can just check the map!”
At this writing, the map has only been active for two weeks, but is already getting over one hundred views a day.
“Crossville, a brand of AHF Products, has been a longtime sponsor of NTCA training. We feel it is important to educate from a neutral position, and to educate from a foundation of industry standards. It is crucial for any industry to have a mechanism to stay current on new technologies, practices, and standards. Trade shows address this need on one level, but hands-on practical knowledge can’t be replaced with passive education available at a trade show. Because of this, NTCA trainings are a vital part of a healthy industry, and critical to the installer community that is an integral part of the business in which we participate. It’s not sustainable to manufacture tile without educated tile contractors and setters to successfully install it; having untrained installers who create bad installations is worse. We have great respect for and will continue to support NTCA’s education efforts across the industry.” – Noah Chitty, Technical Director, Crossville/ AHF Products
Editorial Director and Senior Writer for TileLetter and TileLetter ARTISAN
Lesley Goddin has been writing and journaling since her first diary at age 11. Her journey has taken her through a career in publishing and publicity, landing her the editor position of TileLetter and its special publications in 2006. Her goal is to educate, inspire, recognize and encourage those in the tile industry -- especially the tile and stone contractor.
