VIDEO: Partnership With Marek Brothers Helps LP Card Construction Students Nail Assignment
Posted on 12/03/2013
Marek Brothers Systems provide LP Card students with hands-on training during their the 2nd Annual Sheetrock Clinic.
LP Card Career and Technical students put down the books and picked up some tools during the Second Annual Sheetrock Clinic hosted by Marek Brothers Systems, Inc.
Part of an on-going partnership with Pasadena ISD, a team of Marek Brothers Systems professionals visited the LP Card Center for a day to provide construction and electrical students with intense hands-on training installing sheetrock or “drywall”.
Both classes, under the instruction of construction teacher Guadalupe Garza and electrical teacher Samuel Bishop, divided up into two groups and used their trade skills to complete their class project. Marek employees coached students while they measured, cut and mounted slabs of drywall.
“This is something we’ve been very excited about for two years,” Guadalupe Garza, LP Card Construction Technology instructor, said. “My students are having so much fun installing sheetrock. They are working with professional bosses – telling them how to work, what works best, and what are the best ways to do things. So it’s something that is working very well. It’s almost flawless.”
The Houston based construction company teamed up with Pasadena ISD in an effort to train the next generation of trade workers and inform them about career opportunities available in the construction industry.
“This is a great opportunity for young people to get into the construction industry in a more personal way and to get some hands-on training doing this,” Buddy Britt, Marek Brothers Systems representative said. “We hope to give these young people the opportunity to work with us. If they want a career in construction, we want to make sure that we make ourselves available to those students to get involved in the construction trade, and then we’ll see what we can work out.”
Just into its second year, the program has already received positive feedback from district employees – and especially participating students considering a career in the trade.
“I am enjoying the experience a lot,” he said. “Marek Brothers talked to us about safety and they taught us how to properly build drywall. I think all that is very important for a construction job. I think I am going to take this experience with me in the future because I want to be in the construction industry. I would like to go to college, get a business degree, maybe a MBA and open my own business with my brothers and my cousin.”
Later in the school year, students will have an opportunity to go on two field trips to the company’s industrial and business sites so they can meet some experts in the business.
Marek Brother Systems employees are hopeful that the partnership will help construct a promising future for students.
“We want students to find a career path that works for them – that is what is so great about this partnership,” Britt said. “We just hope that this is only the beginning of our work with Pasadena ISD.”
