February 26, 2004 10:40 AM CST

MCAA Workforce Development Initiatives Premier at NCMA's Annual Meeting

By Melissa Polivka

The National Concrete Masonry Association's Workforce Development Committee welcomed Melissa Polivka, MCAA's Director of Workforce Development, to their annual committee meeting on February 5th to discuss MCAA's energized efforts in the arena of masonry recruitment and training. The committee, convened in Atlanta, was excited to learn what MCAA is doing, offered its partnership and promotion of our masonry career training website, and is currently considering lending their support to our High School Recruitment Campaign.

MCAA's online Masonry Career Training database (accessible at www.masoncontractors.org) will replace NCMA's website that also listed masonry training programs. Based on our quality of information, ease of use, and design, NCMA has agreed to link their website to ours, and no longer maintain their database. All traffic visiting the NCMA site will now be directed to the MCAA Masonry Career Training page. NCMA feels that MCAA and our contractor members should be the leaders in training journeymen, and they are now taking the steps to endorse this.

Also under consideration is an endorsement and sponsorship of the MCAA High School Recruitment Campaign. NCMA has always been interested in promoting masonry careers to students of high school age, and when Melissa Polivka presented the High School Recruitment Campaign, in which MCAA is distributing masonry career information to almost 1,200 schools nationwide, the group was impressed. The committee formed a "task group" to review the career kit materials and our proposal, and will hopefully return to MCAA with a favorable response and donation to the program.

In addition, many attendees of the meeting approached Melissa as potential individual sponsors, and she left the meeting with a $2,000 sponsorship from Butch Hardy of Adams Products Co.- Oldecastle for schools in North Carolina!

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About the Author

Melissa Polivka spent time as the Director of Marketing, Director of Membership, and Director of Workforce Development for the Mason Contractors Association of America.