Masonry Magazine April 1985 Page. 22
PLANNING & EDUCATION
continued from page 16
IMI has made progress in the area of professional education with the publication and promotion of its three-part modular syllabus for engineering education in masonry-now being used by 115 colleges and universities.
IMI is undertaking a new program to service national clients-that is, clients of the building industry who are active in geographically dispersed markets-that will ultimately have a major and favorable impact on a list of critically important corporations and other organizations.
The IMI Market Development Program is on the verge of a significant new direction-the creation of regional market development programs in order to broaden the funding base for and the coordination of our promotional efforts at the regional level.
Training has been an IMI activity for the past three years-since the International Masonry Apprenticeship Trust was merged into IMI. Now known as the IMI Apprenticeship and Training Program, this activity has recently moved onto a higher level of involvement in masonry training with the initiation of a National/Regional Trowel Trades Training System.
This system has a number of desirable features. One of them is a plan to provide pre-job training to apprentices a type of training that has been sorely lacking and which has affected the apprentice's ability to earn his way when he shows up on the job. Under the system, pre-job training could be provided at a series of regional centers. The same centers also could provide journeyman training to improve existing skills and cross-branch training to enable the journeyman to add new skills and work more flexibly. Still another feature of the system will be the creation of an International Training Center at which instructors will be trained and certified, and at which special training can be offered in branches of the masonry craft that lack a broad enough economic base to justify such training at the regional level.
In short order, the National/Regional Trowel Trades Training will begin addressing, in a way that responds to contemporary problems, what must be one of our major concerns the provision of an adequate supply of trained craftsmen.
One of the most important and newest of IMI's programs is in the Research and Development area. Here, IMI is developing and executing projects specifically tailored to help keep mason contractors and craftsmen competitive and responsive to market needs. In addition, through its Research and Development Program, IMI participates in and supports the research efforts of the Masonry Research Foundation. Among current IMI research projects are a state-of-the-art study of corrosion in masonry walls; an analysis of conditions pertinent to water penetration of walls, and a study of the current and future market for panels of all kinds, leading toward the development of a plan to enable the masonry industry to control a larger share of that market.
Through IMI, we have had an important role in the development of the first bibliography on masonry and masonry research. The bibliography is now being published by the Masonry Research Foundation. It is the result of a decision made several years ago that top priority in masonry research needed to be given to compilation of a document that would tell us what kind of research was already available and what kind of research was currently going on.
We all know that there are several keys to our future as successful mason contractors. Research certainly is one of them. Another is training of craftsmen. And still a third is promotion. But one more remains the creation and maintenance of stable, progressive relations with the organizations representing our craftsmen. IMI is active in this area, also.
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