Metro Atlanta students put construction skills to the test

Thousands of Georgia students are showcasing their construction skills at the 2026 AGC Georgia Skills Challenge Series. Our Chris Rosenthal joins us live with more and Chris you know talk about why this event is so important when it comes to construction and the industry Yeah, absolutely. You know, like you said, when it comes to construction thousands of students across the state, about 200 here in Marietta today representing 28 different schools. and the industry. These students getting to compete in a variety of different skilled trade competitions. We have masonry over here. We have carpentry over here. There's electrical work. There's, you know, there's plumbing, a little bit of everything here for these students to compete in. And I have a CEO. Associate General Contractors here, Zach, and Zach, tell me, skilled trades, why is it so important to get these students here up to speed on this and get them competing here? Well, there's a great industry need. I mean, any industry in the state that needs to grow facilities and infrastructure, we have to have the skill trade pipeline. But even more important than that, these young people need opportunities. And the skilled trades offer pathways, low barriers to entry into our industry, debt-free, probably going to be in a pretty good situation with AI and future careers. And so these young people need to showcase their skills. They've got great programs at their schools that we're all supporting, and we get to showcase that and job opportunities. He's going to come out of this for many students today. This is pretty sophisticated. I mean, these students, they're here competing, but they learn this all year in school. I mean, what do you see at the level of sophistication of what these students are being taught here? These students are being taught at a very high level. I mean, most of their instructors are specialized and have an industry background in one or more trades. Every plan they're doing, it's an industry standard blueprint that they're operating off of, and they're being judged by industry personnel and industry professionals that do this every day. From the standpoint of the contest design, the plans, and the judging, all up to industry standard, and great opportunity for these young people. And one thing we don't normally think of, women here are represented pretty well. So we have tremendous momentum right now in growth in women in construction across the board, and we're really seeing it on these competitions right now. The last couple of years, again, we run eight regional competitions in partnership with SkillsUSA. I'm going to say about 20... Approximately 20% of our competitors today are female competitors, and they're winning. They're winning electrical. They're winning masonry. They're winning carpentry. We're seeing it all over the state. And the next level for the winners here, where do they go? They're going to go to the SkillsUSA State Competition that will be held at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. So we're fortunate to host that here. And then the national competition is hosted in the same place as well. So mid-late March will be the SkillsUSA State Comp, and then June or a little later will be the national competition. Beautiful. All right, Zach, thanks for joining us. And give us a little explainer here. Yeah, this is, I'll tell you, it's really great watching these students here. Hard at work and learning so much and so sophisticated. I mean, this is more than just a typical shop class type thing here. And the next, you know, this is a series that goes throughout the state. The next one that they'll be having is in Statesboro, Georgia. But, you know, of course, the bigger ones that they have are here in Metro Atlanta. This one here in Marietta, one of the biggest ones that the Associated General Contractors of Georgia has for the skills competition. And Chris, before we let you go, really quickly, have you been able to talk to students and just the excitement surrounding and learn more about their excitement surrounding this event? Yeah, I mean, you know, whenever I talk to students at these events, I mean, they're excited. They, you know, they seem to have a passion for, you know, for learning these trades. And, you know, I think they're excited at the opportunities that they have, you know, for careers going beyond this. All right, Chris, sounds good. Thanks so much for showing us this competition and good luck to all the construction students. And thank you all for watching us here on Fox Local.