Government Affairs: Bringing North Carolina to Washington, D.C. and Hopefully Young People to Your Jobsites

Words: Stephen Borg

For you long time members of the Mason Contractors Association of America you likely remember our Annual Washington, D.C. Fly-In where MCAA members from around the country would come to Washington, D.C. meeting with Members of Congress from their home states, educating them on our top priorities and attending fundraisers on behalf of our political action committee, MAC PAC. In recent years, we have pivoted away from the larger fly-ins and have focused on smaller state specific weeks in Washington, D.C. We had members from Texas, Tennessee, and Utah join us towards the end of last year and as we moved into kicking off our efforts in early 2025 we wanted to make a concerted effort to focus on our top agenda item and have impactful meetings discussing Youth Outreach at the High School level. We also saw an opportunity to shore up old relationships at the same time of building new ones and so Jeff Buczkiewicz and I discussed that North Carolina would be a prime target. Like a grizzled old manager, Jeff stepped out of the dugout, swiped his sleeve and pulled his ear, signaling to the bullpen we needed our Youth Development and Education Ace to join us and throw some sweet “pitches” in the Halls of Congress.

For those of you who have never had the opportunity to meet or work with Ryan Shaver, Executive Vice President of the North Carolina Masonry Contractors Association, you really are missing our ace when it comes to Youth Outreach and Education. Ryan was a long-time mason in the field and by chance was talked into becoming a high school masonry teacher by one of his mentors and the rest is history. Ryan has spent the past 15 years building his teaching skills and not sitting idly by when he saw the disconnect between the North Carolina education system, Youth Outreach and Education initiatives, and the masonry industry. What has taken years to build has turned into an innovative work-based learning program across the whole state of North Carolina. Ryan worked with the Department of Education, Department of Labor, and various other stakeholders to bring real-life, work-based learning to high school students in 103 programs in the state, where ultimately students are able to earn school credit, earn real money, and earn hard masonry skills on jobsites in the summer months. Incredibly, 25% of the students who go through this program in North Carolina end up staying in the masonry industry after graduation and begin their full-time careers. We decided the time was right to bring this message to Washington, D.C. and asked Ryan to join Jeff and I the first week of March to share his success and to educate Members of Congress on establishing this program on the national level to make it as easy as possible for other states to follow North Carolina’s lead.

We spent a day and a half on Capitol Hill meeting with the Speaker of the House’s education policy advisor, the House Education and Workforce Committee, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, former Chairwoman of the Education and Commerce Committee Virginia Foxx’s (R-NC) office, Rep. David Rouzer (R-NC), Rep. Richard Hudson’s (R-NC) office, new North Carolina Member Rep. Brad Knott’s (R-NC) office, new North Carolina Member Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-NC), and Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee Tim Walberg (R-MI). The feedback was incredible and we are excited about the prospects of this initiative moving forward as we continue to have these conversations and look for innovative ways to solve our high school recruitment needs.

At the same time, Ryan, Jeff, and I also took the opportunity to sit down with the office of Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL), the lead sponsor of our priority legislation the Dignity Act. MCAA was extremely engaged on securing bipartisan cosponsors and the very critical endorsement of the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus last Congress for the Dignity Act. Knowing the legislation would have to be re-introduced during the new Congress that was sworn into office in January 2025 we had a very fruitful conversation and look forward to once again supporting this legislation when it gets re-introduced in the coming weeks.

Partnering the Dignity Act, with initiatives like work-based learning programs, will go a long way to ensuring you, our MCAA members and mason contractors throughout the country, will be able to find and hire the future workers that you need to help grow your business, build our nation’s infrastructure, and ultimately boost the American economy. I would like to personally thank Ryan for all his efforts and his willingness to come out to Washington, D.C. to share his story and success. Without members like Ryan sharing his voice on behalf of our industry, we would not have as much success as we do on behalf of MCAA members in the Halls of Congress and the Administration. If I squint hard enough, I am pretty sure I see Jeff stepping out of the dugout once again…tip of the hat…rub of the nose… who is that coming out of the bullpen?!? Is it YOU???

Government Affairs: Bringing North Carolina to Washington, D.C. and Hopefully Young People to Your Jobsites

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