The Central Gulf Industrial Alliance (CGIA) is a collaborative industry organization that includes industrial owners and contractors as well as some training providers in the Gulf region. The organization’s mission is to improve industry performance in the areas of workforce development, work safety, quality and productivity.
The association was formed in 2007, after Hurricane Katrina, when several industrial owners identified a need for industrial owners and contractors to work together to address some of the common issues they were facing, particularly the shortage of skilled craft workers.
According to executive director and founding member Frank Jelercic, CGIA has done much over the past nine years to address that challenge.
“We currently have 37 members, from industrial owners to contractors and training providers, who teach craft skills in our region,” he explained. “Our primary focus is workforce development. Working with training providers to ensure they are meeting the workforce needs in our region is our No. 1 goal.”
One of the major ways CGIA has endeavored to address industry’s workforce shortage is through its Endorsement Program.
“Our endorsement process is one of our biggest successes at CGIA,” Jelercic said. “We evaluate craft training providers in our region using subject matter experts from our membership and conduct a survey with employers that have hired from the training providers. We then endorse them (gold, silver, bronze) or provide assistance to get them to endorsement status.
“There are many benefits to endorsement, including assistance with placing grads, providing materials/supplies/speakers and connections to industry. We started the endorsement process three years ago, and we have evaluated approximately 20 separate programs since. Of those, about half are endorsed.
“Our Endorsement Program is beginning to receive national attention from organizations such as the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT) as well as other sister organizations around the country.”
In addition to its Endorsement Program, CGIA has also recently hosted a Welding Professional Development Day and holds biannual meetings open to anyone in industry.
“We recently hosted our first-ever Welding Professional Development Day for welding instructors throughout the region,” Jelercic exulted. “While both endorsed and non-endorsed programs will be invited, this is a perfect example of one benefit to being an endorsed program, since it all began with a request from an endorsed program welding instructor who saw a need for welding professional development opportunities.
“When it comes to our endorsed programs, we look forward to hearing their needs and working together towards a positive outcome.”
Jelercic emphasized CGIA welcomes increasing engagement from industry, noting anyone concerned about “the future needs of the industry” should take action and get involved. “As with most nonprofit organizations, we always would like more engagement from industry,” he said. “We have a good slice of companies participating but would like more.
“The call to drive new membership is great, and it is our focus at CGIA to create value for our employers in an effort to accomplish our mission to improve industry performance. We have two membership meetings a year (the next one is Nov. 15) as well as best-practice forums and Workforce Development Committee meetings — all great opportunities for industry to get involved.”
The General Membership Meeting in November will include a keynote speaker, Brooke Chesnut, who specializes in closing the generation gap and working with millennials (and vice versa). Chesnut will also be offering a workshop earlier in the day on the same subject.
