October Member News

MONTHLY MEMBER NEWS

OCTOBER 2020

Your Member Liaison | P: 515-450-3414 | E: kmeyn@acimech.com

Thank you to those who participated in our recent PAC clay shoots. These events were a great opportunity to get outside, practice our shooting skills and network together as clients, friends and employees. Your participation in these events help fund our state political action committee which in turns supports pro-merit shop candidates. This ensures we can continue to be the watchdog for protecting merit-shop contractors from discrimination in public job bidding and apprenticeship education funding at the statehouse.

If you’ve been living under a rock and missing all of the political ads, Tuesday, Nov. 3rd is election day. ABC National President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Bellaman recently shared an opinion piece where he very thoughtfully lays out what’s at stake for our industry this election cycle. I hope you’ll take the time to read it. Iowa polling locations can be found on the Secretary of State’s website.

Finally, at our board meeting this month, your board spent much of the time reviewing our strategic plan, discussing the goals achieved so far this year and evaluating where we continue to go in the future. If you ever have any input or thoughts that you would like me to take the board on your behalf, please reach out at any time.

APPRENTICESHIP & EDUCATION UPDATE

Ginny Shindelar, VP of Education and Training Services

P: 515-985-1175 | E: ginny.shindelar@abciowa.org

41 Years of Apprenticeship

We kicked off the 41st year of our apprenticeship program in October with over 1,000 students. Thank you to employers, instructors and students for working with us on these new protocols. We have begun enrolling for the Winter term, please visit our website for more information. Registration deadline is Dec. 9th.

Welcoming back ABC of Iowa students at our Grimes location.

Continuing Education

We will be offering Continuing Education opportunities in November with our NEC Code Update class in Davenport. Registration is now open, you can find more information here.

National Apprenticeship Week is Nov. 8 – 14 and serves as a time to showcase your apprentices or highlight the benefits of becoming an apprentice in the trades. You can find resources and helpful information on how to promote your team here.

MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

Jared Harridge, Membership Director

P: 515-681-5620 | E: jared.harridge@abciowa.org

Member Survey Review

Thank you to those who participated in our member survey. It is our goal to ensure we continue to offer relevant programming and benefits to your ABC membership. The Membership Council has begun to review, assess and evaluate your feedback. We will use this as our planning tool for the future.

If you know any contractors or potential associate members, please drop Jared a note. He is more than happy to follow up with them and help provide more information about the benefits of ABC of Iowa membership.

NEW RECRUITMENT TOOL

In an effort to recruit new members, we have created a brochure that showcases all the great services and benefits being an ABC of Iowa member. You may view the PDF version here or let Jared know and he will mail you a stack to hand out to potential members.

SAFETY UPDATE

Rich Formanek, Safety Consultant

P: 515-681-1542 | E: rich.formanek@abciowa.org

30-Hour Construction

We will be offering a 30-Hour Construction course which will provide students with safety and health information focused on hazard recognition, avoidance and abatement as well as employee rights and employer responsibilities. This is a great course for anyone who has safety responsibilities or would like additional training in hazard recognition. The deadline to sign up is Nov. 23rd, you can register here.

PIT Survey Results

A survey was conducted between Sept. 22 and Sept. 29 to provide data on powered industrial truck (PIT) use among ABC of Iowa Members as an objective of the ABC of Iowa/Iowa OSHA Alliance. This survey was conducted as a request for information to determine actions necessary to reduce regulatory burden in light of the potentially forthcoming update to OSHA’s PIT standard.

If interested, you may read the full results here. In November we will be conducting a crane operator certification survey as part of the alliance. We will share those results in the future.

Don't get left behind! There is still time to sign up for STEP. What if your company could be 827% SAFER than the industry average? Getting started with STEP is FREE and can help you lower your workers compensation insurance rates.

Join the Safety List

We are creating a safety email list to serve as our Safety Department’s direct link to members, providing constant updates, information on safety-related events and much more. If you would like to have someone on your staff included on this email list, please let Rich know.

MEMBERS IN THE NEWS

Michelle McKinney, Marketing & Communications Coordinator

P: 515-985-1164 | E: michelle.mckinney@abciowa.org

Have interesting social media content?

We’d love to feature our members’ social media pages. Please email Michelle a link to your company’s page so we can share your content across all of our channels.