This is a 2021 EEBA Summit presentation with David Kendall from Thrive Home Builders, Ryan Hillgartner, Director of Marketing, Tim O'Brien Homes, Rick Wertheim from United Way of Long Island, Marye Hefty from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Theresa Gilbride, Building Energy Efficiency Researcher at PNNL.

The need for housing is rising across the country with home buyer demand far outpacing supply in most markets. All this demand creates a terrific opportunity to build high-performance homes. The problem is the shortage of skilled labor is nearly as severe as the shortage of available homes. Thousands of skilled craftsmen are retiring each year and the pipeline of new employees is just a trickle, with few young workers choosing the trades as a career path, leaving builders everywhere lamenting the lack of laborers. Join us to see how some high-performance home builders are tackling the problem head-on with training programs for young workers and creative approaches to finding and keeping good subs and staff. You'll also hear about government initiatives that could help. But since we need new ideas on such a massive scale, we want to hear from you too: What are your biggest workforce woes? How do you find talent? Where do you go for training? What ideas do you have for attracting, training, and retaining the next generations of skilled builders? Join us for this interactive session to learn and share your thoughts on this critical challenge to the homebuilding industry.