On M
arch 23-24, 2017, Clara Smith, Joe Pearson, Debi Gilbert, Anthony Maddox and Ken Stephenson manned a table representing the Facility Management Profession and IFMA Atlanta at the Construction Education Foundation of Georgia (CEFGA) program held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia.
This event gave us the opportunity to introduce the Profession of Facility Management to thousands of High School Students, Teachers and Counselors. Most of the students that we spoke with had no knowledge of the Facility Management Profession before meeting us. Those who did seemed to link the idea with the Building Manager position. They were much more interested once we explained that the full breadth of the Facility Management Profession went far beyond this. They were very interested in the job opportunities that exist in the FM field and the application of technology to manage and maintain buildings. They could easily see that this is a growing profession with a bright future as more buildings are planned, constructed, occupied and need to be cared for as important assets of the businesses that occupy them.
By participating in CEFGA we were able to reach out to many individuals who will be entering the job market in the next 3-7 years – the workforce of the future- in support of IFMA’s Global Workforce Initiative. We were also able to point them toward our ADP Partners at Kennesaw State University and at Georgia Tech as higher education opportunities. Both schools also had tables and it was heartening to see students checking out these programs after talking (and playing putt-putt) with us.
I was very impressed with the students that I was able to talk with and with the stories that I heard from the other volunteers. If my feelings are right, there is hope that the profession will be in good hands as we move into the future.
