Industry Workforce Development

Together We Can Build A Stronger Texas Workforce

It’s Our Business

We need to find ways to improve our workforce numbers. That’s why the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, the Texas Asphalt Pavement Association and the Texas Department of Transportation’s Connect2 Jobs Program have joined forces to produce a 15-week Next Generation Workforce course to provide in-classroom and hands-on pavement construction experience. The Next Generation Workforce courses are offered through the Blinn College District and are available in the spring and summer of 2023 and fall of 2024. All students who complete the program will be ready for hire!

The classroom portion of the course introduces participants to:

• Job site safety, including OSHA 10 certification,
• Plans and specification reading,
• Job site math,
• Job site layout,
• Material construction concepts, including

TXAPA Soils and Base and HMAC Level 1B curriculum, and

• Material production concepts, including TXAPA HMAC Level 1A curriculum.

The field portion of the course introduces participants to:

• Hands-on experience within an HMA paving train, including:
  • Operator time on a paving machine, rollers, power broom, and skid steer,
• Hands-on experience with setting rolling patterns,
• Hands-on experience cutting cores and perform lab testing for QC/QA, and
• Hands-on experience performing production laboratory testing for QC/QA.

We Need Paving Equipment

You Can Help

Ideally, participants will be able to gain valuable time on several pieces of equipment needed for an HMA laydown operation. The Next Generation Highway Worker courses need access to this equipment, and we are actively seeking an industry partner to help supply it. We have optimized the schedule to condense the time we need equipment on-site into eight weeks.

An industry expert will instruct students on how to operate the borrowed paving equipment safely and correctly. The anticipated usage involves cold laying screenings through the paver to acquaint participants with its operation. Ultimately, participants will use the equipment to lay a hot mat of plant-produced HMA. We anticipate the program will add between 64 and 80 hours to the equipment.

The equipment will remain on-site at the TAMU RELLIS campus and stored under cover. The program can pay to have the equipment hauled to the TAMU RELLIS campus and back to the donor. We will gladly advertise and promote the donor’s generosity with program marketing materials.

Blinn has years of experience delivering vocational courses with corporate partners. Through this experience, Blinn has developed an indemnification structure to protect Blinn and its corporate partners. As part of this program, all parties will execute the necessary indemnification agreements to ensure safety responsibility falls to the program participants and does not lie with the donor, Blinn, TXAPA, TTI, or any other program partner.

Contact Us To Learn More

Charles Gurganus
TTI Research Engineer
c-gurganus@tti.tamu.edu
(979) 317-2302

Rick Davenport
TTI Project Specialist
r-davenport@tti.tamu.edu
(979) 317-2303
(979) 820-4844