Be Pro Be Proud announced it has expanded into Texas in collaboration with the TEXO Foundation of Dallas.
Be Pro Be Proud is an initiative by the Associated Industries of Arkansas that aims to help students explore, plan and launch careers in high-demand technical professions. The initiative hopes to bring a new generation of professionals to Arkansas’ workforce.
With the TEXO partnership, Be Pro Be Proud will mobilize a touring workshop across middle and high schools in several states and regions over a three-year period. The workshop will offer virtual and augmented reality technical career simulators in industries such as construction, welding, manufacturing, transportation and utilities. The initiative’s first mobile workshop was launched in 2016.
The campaign will serve as a pilot for other areas across the state. Over the three-year period, Be Pro Be Proud is projected to have more than 300 tour dates, attract more than 45,000 mobile workshop visitors and engage nearly 12,500 students, educators and employers in Texas.
TEXO Foundation, the nonprofit arm of TEXO, The Construction Association, aims to address the construction industry’s labor shortage by educating, recruiting, training and retaining the next generation of construction professionals through strategic outreach to youth, colleges and the community.
“The biggest issue facing the construction industry right now is a skilled craft professional workforce,” Meloni Raney, president and CEO of TEXO, The Construction Association, said in a press release. “To recruit the next generation of workers, we must do it differently, and Be Pro Be Proud is a great tool to help us do so.”
Texas is the eighth state where Be Pro Be Proud will operate, joining Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
“This unique collaboration will not only make a powerful, long-lasting impact on Texas’ skilled workforce, but it will also help shape a future where every aspiring individual can embrace his or her path to success,” Randy Zook, president and CEO of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce and Be Pro Be Proud, said in the release.
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