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Tom & Linda Schaefer Establish Building Trades
Scholarship Fund
Individuals thinking about entering the field of
construction now have an added incentive. Tom and Linda Schaefer of
Mason City have created an endowment fund through the North Iowa Area
Community College Foundation which will provide twelve $1,000
scholarships each year to students in NIACC’s Building Trades Program.
"There are many good employment opportunities here
in Iowa, but those jobs will only go to people with the right
training," said Tom Schaefer, president of Henkel Construction.
"Our business is growing and one of our biggest challenges is
finding qualified people. We hope that these scholarships will encourage
more North Iowans to join the construction industry and improve their
skills."
Henkel Construction is a member of the Contractors
Advisory Association, a group of 10 local contractors who revived NIACC’s
Building Trades Program in 1996 due to the significant demand for
skilled construction workers.
The NIACC program, which is one year (3 semesters) in
length, prepares students for employment in residential, commercial, or
industrial construction. The program is structured so that students may
enter at any semester interval.
The College plans to award four Schaefer Building Trades
Scholarships at the start of each term: June, September and January. To
be eligible for these scholarships, students must be enrolled full-time
and seeking a Building Trades diploma at NIACC.
Linda Schaefer, who graduated from NIACC and taught at
the Mason City Alternative School for 24 years, sees the importance of
having affordable education and training for everyone. "With an
excellent facility like NIACC in North Iowa, we need to establish
scholarships to assist NIACC students in achieving their goals,"
she said. "Their education will impact their future and the future
of North Iowa. It is exciting for me to see students have success."
The demand for skilled construction workers is near an
all-time high in North Iowa. The placement rate for the NIACC’s
Building Trades Program has been 100 percent four consecutive years,
with most of the graduates choosing to live and work in North Iowa.
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