Public Relations & Marketing

Building the Future: BCI and HCC Partnership Expands Apprenticeship Opportunities for Local Trades Workers

Since the Barr Construction Institute was first established in Hagerstown in 1958, approximately 2500 construction trades workers have completed the training. Now, thanks in part to a partnership with HCC, Director Amos McCoy expects that number to grow significantly in the coming years.

“I believe we'll see around 300 to 400 students in the program, over each four-year cycle,” said McCoy. “We have a significant number of people in the industry who are at retirement age and we are not producing people with skills as fast as those people are retiring.”

BCI began offering registered apprenticeships through the Maryland Department of Labor in the mid-1960s. Over the decades, it has operated in several prominent locations, beginning with partnerships at Hagerstown Junior College and the Washington County Department of Education, before moving to facilities on Howard Street. In 2008, it expanded to the historic Broadway School on Locust Street, where training programs were offered until 2024.

To accommodate the anticipated growth, BCI recently partnered with HCC and is transitioning its operations to the fill 15,000 square feet in the new D.M. Bowman Family Workforce Training Center on Northern Avenue. McCoy is excited by the opportunity to work with HCC and have access to college resources, grants, and other funding that will ensure training is provided with a state-of-the-art facility.

McCoy, who’s been with BCI since 2016, stresses that apprenticeship isn’t just on-the-job training; it combines classroom curriculum, lab practice, and real-world application. That threefold approach accelerates learning and produces professionals who are far more prepared than those with experience alone. BCI currently averages 175 student apprentices per each four-year class, in one of five areas of study: masonry, carpentry, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical.

“What we offer is a structured way to learn, rooted in one of the oldest, most proven methods –apprenticeship,” McCoy shared. “Benjamin Franklin was an apprentice, learning in a hands-on setting as a print setter, before becoming one of America's most influential figures.”

A benefit to BCI’s apprenticeship students is that they are typically working in the field, so they are earning an income while they are training. The cost of their tuition is paid by their employer, allowing them to graduate without debt. Once they’ve completed the program, they have the opportunity to apply their credits toward an associate degree from HCC, a benefit made easier by the connection with HCC and the move into the Bowman Center.

“It all started in 2018, when I was introduced to President Klauber, by Jack Latimer, who was a board member for BCI and the HCC Foundation,” McCoy recalled. “Dr. Klauber and I immediately started to discuss opportunities and, during a car ride back from a training facility tour in Baltimore, we hatched the idea for what became the Bowman Center.”

Now, BCI students are the beneficiaries of the opportunities that the collaboration is providing. With more than 500,000 construction jobs available nationwide, expanding access to these careers can help create and sustain long-term economic growth in the region for students and their employers.

“The opportunity to expand this partnership and give more local students a path to earn family-sustaining wages is, I believe, the most significant impact we can have on our community,” McCoy concluded.