The HBI Story
For more than 40 years, HBI and its forerunner, the Manpower Development & Training Department of NAHB, have trained skilled workers in residential construction, promoted the industry as a career and helped the membership address its need for qualified employees.
Today, HBI continues its dedication to the advancement and enrichment of craft education and training programs serving the needs of the residential construction industry.
Here are some of the milestones in the growth of HBI and its quest to provide a trained home building workforce for America:
1947
NAHB begins educational programming by holding seminars for its members.
1967
NAHB establishes its Manpower Development & Training Department to solve construction labor shortages in the home building industry.
1968
The NAHB Manpower Development & Training Department launches its Craft Skills training program with funding from the U.S. Department of Labor. Local home builders associations operate the pre-apprenticeship training program to help youth and unskilled, underskilled, unemployed and underemployed individuals enter the home building industry with training in carpentry, electrical wiring, plumbing, painting, landscaping, heating and air conditioning, building and apartment maintenance, rehabilitation, remodeling and the masonry and trowel trades.
1970
Operation Transition provides more than 5,000 returning servicemen with training in brick masonry and job referrals in their local communities until the program ended in 1974.
1971
More than 9,000 construction industry jobs were referred to veterans through the Veterans Construction Job Clearinghouse, NAHB Manpower, administered until 1974.
NAHB Student Chapters start organizing at colleges and universities to give students first-hand exposure to the real-world of the home building industry through NAHB membership.
1974
HBI, then known as NAHB Manpower, signs its first agreement to train individuals through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Job Corps Program, the only national residential education and training program serving disadvantaged youths ages 16-24. HBI trains 150 individuals in seven construction trades at one Job Corps Center that first year. Today, HBI is the largest residential construction career technical trainer in Job Corps, operating programs on 73 centers nationwide, placing more than 2,000 new workers in the industry annually.
1979
The Native American Apprenticeship program trains individuals in entry-level construction skills and subcontractors and contractors in improved technical and managerial skills for employment in the building industry until 1981.
1983
HBI is founded when NAHB merges its Manpower Development & Training Department, Education Department and Education Foundation to create the non-profit corporation.
HBI designs construction and training employment programs that help major cities train their unemployed to become construction rehabilitation specialists while they rehabilitate community-owned housing stock that is part of Community Revitalization Projects.
1986
HBI creates the Graduate Builders Institute, a comprehensive certificate program that presents the basic principles of building management and technology. The program is sponsored by HBI and home builders associations and hosted by leading universities. The NAHB Education Department now oversees the GBI credential.
1987
HBI begins a hands-on training program that prepares offenders for work release by providing them with entry-level building skills for employment in the industry.
American builders travel to China, Japan, South America, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Great Britian, Russia, Spain and Scandinavia to meet fellow builders, inspect residential and commercial construction projects and compare technology and building techniques through HBI International Study Tours.
1991
HBI responded to a demand for its services in Russia, Armenia, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the Dominican Republic. It worked with the Armenian Assembly and USAID (Agency for International Development) to deliver construction craft training to Armenian workers. In Poland, it helped Polish home builders establish a private housing industry.
1994
HBI creates the Pre-Apprenticeship Certificate Training (PACT) when its 26-year-old longstanding U.S. Department of Labor Craft Skills grant ends in this year. PACT is an industry-validated curriculum and off-the-shelf training package based on the Craft Skills model. HBI continues to deliver the PACT program in 10 states.
HBI launches Project CRAFT (Community Restitution Apprenticeship Focused Training), a program that targets adjudicated youth and uses a comprehensive education approach to assist troubled youth turn their lives around and gain sustainable employment in the building industry.
1995
Project TRADE (Training, Restitution, Apprenticeship Development Employment), a program designed to train and place adult ex-offenders in employment in the home building industry begins as a demonstration project. The program goes on to train and place thousands of ex-offenders in 10 states.
2001
HBI founds the Residential Construction Academy (RCA) to bridge the skills gap between secondary and post-secondary classrooms and the construction job site.
2002
HBI assembles industry subject matter experts from the NAHB federation to develop the first sets of National CRAFT Skill Standards for Residential Carpentry and House Wiring. They are the foundation for a growing set of HBI programs and resources including the Residential Construction Academy Series of textbooks and educational materials. Standards and textbooks for Facilities Maintenance; Green/Energy Efficient Building; Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC); Masonry; Plumbing; and Solar follow.
2003
HBI begins offering the Residential Construction Superintendent designation, a series of eight courses on subjects NAHB members identified as critical to a field supervisory job. An Advanced RCS and special designations for concrete construction superintendents and log home construction superintendents follow.
2004
HBI and Lowe's Home Improvement establish the HBI/Lowe's Building Careers Scholarship, providing financial assistance to qualified graduates seeking careers in the industry.
HBI develops partnerships with HBAs and their employer members, high schools and community colleges to create a systematic approach to construction industry workforce education and training through the U.S. Department of Labor’s President’s High Growth Job Training initiative.
HBI and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development team up to offer thousands of low-income youth access to industry-sponsored career and technical education training for careers in residential construction through HUD’s YouthBuild program.
2005
The United States Congress recognizes Project CRAFT’s efforts “as a model among youth intervention programs… and strongly advocates the continued replication of the program.”
2006
Operation Reconstruct Jefferson Parish launches to put people back to work in the rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
HBI introduces Make It Happen, a career recruitment and awareness campaign for the 21st Century. Make It Happen informs students, parents and educators about the variety of careers in the home building industry through posters, brochures and multimedia.
2007
HBI ships the first units of Sed de Saber, a self-paced English as a Foreign Language learning system to help some of the industry’s 2.5 million Hispanic workers learn to speak English. HBI created Sed de Saber to address job site communications and safety challenges presented by the language barrier.
2009
HBI aligns all of its training and resources to the new National Green Building Standard™, the green building rating system for all residential construction.
2010
HBI inaugurates an industry-sponsored mentoring program for youth ages 16-18 with promise and untapped abilities with its Construction-Coaching Opportunities to Reach Employment (C-CORE) program, funded by a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. The program will match 5,000 youth with more than 1,600 mentors recruited from home builders associations, NAHB Student Chapters, other business organizations and local communities.