ABC Mass. Chapter chairman's message: “Maintaining a Competitive Advantage” - by Luiza Mills

The focus of our most recent ABC Massachusetts board of directors meeting centered on progress review on the goals set forth in the ABC MA and Gould Construction Institute 2025-28 Strategic Plan. It is important to take this opportunity to highlight our chapter’s top priorities as we embark into 2025.

The theme of our strategic initiative is “Maintaining a Competitive Advantage,” and it lays out four main priorities: Education & training, workforce development – building mass careers, membership growth and engagement, and legislative effectiveness.

A cornerstone of our education and training goals revolves around our new training facility in Billerica, Mass. This facility embodies everything we need to foster learning, growth, awareness and development. We seek to expand our professional and non-trade specific course offerings and are expanding our engagement with the community and local schools to bring deeper awareness of the tremendous GCI offerings.

Our workforce development goals also include Building Mass Careers, our new 501(c)3 charitable organization that promotes careers in construction and connects ABC members and Gould with graduates of BMC’s pre-apprenticeship programs. BMC also supports Gould’s outreach efforts and provides grant funding to help Gould invest in curriculum, teachers, materials, equipment and PPE.

Membership is the foundation of everything we do. Our membership growth and engagement efforts are focused on engaging new members, enhancing and streamlining the membership recruitment and renewal process and expanding our professional development offerings. We are also excited to relaunch our Chapter’s young professionals group with a relaunch event scheduled for March 11^th.

Finally, in a state in which organized labor is so strong, legislative effectiveness is critical. Efforts range from increasing member involvement and ongoing awareness, fundraising efforts focused on particular issue areas such as project labor agreements and reforms to ratio requirements that are outdated and continue to suppress hiring in our industry. 

As our valued membership, we appreciate your support. We know these goals and their deliverables are impactful to you. We also want to hear from you on other priorities in which ABC MA and/or GCI may assist. We encourage you to get involved. Your participation in committees and events allow your voice to be heard and helps our ABC MA foundation remain strong and impactful for generations to come. 

Luiza Mills is the 2025 ABC MA chair and senior vice president at Interstate Electrical Services Corp., North Billerica, Mass.