​Diane Aguilar
C3 Marketing & Operations Manager

​Hello Friend,

You may be surprised at how often I hear “I didn’t realize how small the C3 staff is”. I take this as a huge compliment, especially because about 50 percent of our staff has joined us within the last year. But here we are. A team of just eight highly motivated individuals. Getting all the stuff done. Impacting projects, companies, schools, and the industry as much as we can with all we’ve got.
I recently got to spend my lunch break with our newest staff member, Nancy, and I realized that we are still getting to know each other. So, if we are still getting to know one another within our office, what do our partners know about us? Who do you know that works at C3? What exactly do you think they do for the organization?

Reflecting on how to tell you who our staff is, I’ve noticed we all have several things in common. Every single person on our staff takes pride in the ownership of duties, and I have never heard a staff member say they were unable to take on a new challenge. In fact, I witness the opposite almost daily. I see staff members jump in and offer to help other staff members at any opportunity. If they can’t help, they will at least offer an ear to listen or a little “cheer-up dance” if you’re lucky. So let me introduce you to this fabulous team of people I consider family.

Serafina is usually the first voice a person hears when they call for information about enrolling. She is our Operations Administrator and handles all incoming inquiries by phone and email, and if you’ve ever been on our website and seen our little Serafina-bot pop up offering to help, that’s actually her! She is excited to jump in wherever she can, so on top of handling all the steps of getting companies enrolled, she also tracks all of our financials and helps keep the website up to date as companies enroll or reach new craft training endorsement levels.

Ebrahim (Eb) is our Industry Outreach Director and one of our newest staff members. His position and energy allow us to develop and offer new student outreach events. He is currently running the planning for our #SHEbuildsHouston event as well as our Educational Committee. He is also working to plan our upcoming career awareness event and career fair, as well as planning our attendance at other educational functions.

Daniel is our Compliance Manager. This may sound scary, but I assure you that Daniel does his best to help every project team come as close to reaching perfect compliance as possible. He goes above and beyond to make sure project teams are given ample time to address any findings he may come across on a job site visit because he believes that we are not into the business of slapping wrists, we are looking for ways to elevate the industry and this can only happen by upholding C3 requirements. In addition to taking care of compliance, Daniel has recently taken over our Safety Committee and is currently working on developing a scorecard to present to project owners.

Nick, one of our Learning & Development Business Consultants, has been with us for over a year now and has made a huge contribution to our staff and what we’ve been able to offer. He not only consults with companies, but he also leads instruction on many of our courses and always makes himself available to bounce around ideas. Nick served our country as an Army Staff Sergeant for 18 years and did two tours during his service. He demonstrates what he learned in the army about teamwork every single day.

Reba has been with C3 longer than most. She is also a Learning & Development Business Consultant and spends most of her day meeting with external companies to help them develop training programs and competency maps so they can reach their craft training endorsement goals. Within the office, she has is our Excel and Access expert who can build beautiful spreadsheets and charts. Like everyone else, she is happy to offer a hand whenever she sees the need and has proven herself to be a true-blue friend for the past three years I’ve worked with her.

Nancy, our Talent Management Business Consultant, as I mentioned earlier is our newest staff member. Her position is similar to that of what Reba and Nick do. She consults with external companies to help prepare them to reach their desired craft training endorsement levels. She has a strong focus on HR, so she brings this to their companies as well. In her short time with C3, I’ve already seen how she naturally brings our staff closer together and inspires collaboration. On top of that, it’s undeniably obvious that she truly cares about everyone on the staff and in the companies with whom she meets.

Angela… what can I say about our Executive Director. I’ve worked with her almost as long as she’s been at C3, and I’ve witnessed her grow into new positions at a pace I didn’t even know was possible. She not only handles the executive functions of meeting with representatives of outside companies, and communicating with the board of directors, but she is engaged in every aspect of C3. She’s done an excellent job of recruiting talent that has drive, ambition, and fits so well within this organization. Probably most importantly, she makes it a point to check in and ask about how each of us is doing every day on both professional and personal levels. She is my first boss that has truly understood how much life and stressors at home can affect our work and she is always there to offer any guidance she can. She is truly an inspiration to all of us here at C3.

And I’m Diane. As I mentioned, I’ve been with C3 almost as long as Angela. I started as the Operations Administrator where I put many processes into place. I enjoy talking with people about C3 and our mission, and since starting at C3, I’ve finished a degree and moved up to become the Marketing & Operations Manager. In this position, I oversee both the operations and compliance departments and handle all our digital and traditional marketing. I also help as much as I can in as many places as possible because I want to see all our efforts succeed, and because I love getting to work with all of these fabulous people.

So, there you have it. We are a small staff trying to make a big impact. If you work with us at all, you probably know that the impact we are trying to make just isn’t possible without the involvement of volunteers and companies who believe in us. Thank you for believing in us and for being so wonderful to work with. I hope to get to know each of you well and on a personal level because people with hearts like yours, like those of each of our staff members, just make life and work so much better.

If you want to be more involved in helping us impact the commercial construction industry but haven’t had a chance yet, please click on the button below to learn where you can plug in as a volunteer or committee member.

Collaboratively,

Diane Aguilar
C3 Marketing & Operations Manager

Nick Guidry, MBA, M.Ed., SHRM-SCP
C3 People Development Team

​Greetings!

After the first day on the job, does a new apprentice or newly hired experienced craft professional instantly become a company asset who no longer needs additional coaching or mentorship? Has the employee graduated from the need for performance evaluation to ensure the employee is assimilating, reaching full competency or proficiency, and actualizing the full scope of their talents? Of course not. The reality is, as posited by Herb Kelleher, co-founder of Southwest Airlines, “The business of business is people – yesterday, today, and forever.” The business strategy or strategic plan of companies in the commercial construction space is directly aligned with the people strategy embraced by company leaders. Confidence in the sustainability of strategic plans is not simply founded on having the best suppliers, most innovative applications, standing relationships with owners, sterling company reputations, or the best bidding processes, but also on having the right people, harvesting employee proficiency, and driving worker engagement.

Tony Dungy, Pro Football Hall of Fame former head coach of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Indianapolis Colts, asserts in his book The Mentor Leader,
 
“Engage, educate, equip, encourage, empower, energize, and elevate. Those are the methods for maximizing the potential of any individual, team, organization, or institution for ultimate success and significance.”

Coach Dungy expressed in an interview with the Positive Coaching Alliance that “I think as a coach, you are more than just an athletic instructor. You are there to help them grow.” Construction leaders who align themselves with C3’s mission commit to positively impacting the future of the industry by strengthening the safe, skilled, and sustainable craft workforce talent pipeline. The effectiveness of this strategy is aligned with embracing the sustainable workforce process of effective recruiting, onboarding, development, evaluation, and identifying future leaders. This process is the focus of C3’s Driving Business Results through Talent Management course.

One vein that runs throughout the sustainable workforce process is mentorship. Mentorship is a process that begins during the onboarding stage and continues, either formally or informally, until an employee exits your organization. Mentorship is a structured, often one-to-one relationship in a professional setting with an outcome of increasing engagement, advancing institutional knowledge, and building skills for future goals and milestones. When organizations set into action well thought out mentorship programs, they can “engage, educate, equip, encourage, empower, energize, and elevate” individual employees, future leaders, and the entire organization.

Just like many of you, I have seen the explosive power of effective mentorship in my professional and personal life. Sergeant Major Charles Covington offered me my first operations management role in the military and help me to embrace my ability to solve complex issues by developing exhaustive task lists. Master Sergeant Jesus Marchan helped me to speak frankly with those in positions of power and to effectively develop courses of action for executive decision-making. Sergeant Major Michael Terzian taught me to embrace failures and course correct to ensure that performance or planning gaps were filled. C3’s Executive Director, Angela Robbins-Taylor has taught me the value of casting a larger strategic vision and managing multiple lines of effort. This is not intentionally a recognition of my mentors but rather an empirical example of where mentorship can take an employee and how that development can benefit your organization. C3 is excited to offer the NCCER Mentoring for Craft Professionals course on February 8, 2022. We encourage Accredited Employers to identify experienced craft professionals to attend. These professionals will receive tools to bring back to their companies which will help drive your people strategy.

Mentoring Statistics: The Research You Need to Know

• 67% of businesses reported an increase in productivity due to mentoring (National Mentoring Day Global, 2022)
• 55% of businesses felt that mentoring had a positive impact on their profits (National Mentoring Day Global, 2022)
• More than 4 in 10 workers who don’t have a mentor say they’ve considered quitting their job in the past three months (CNBC, 2019)
• 71% of people with a mentor say their company provides them with good opportunities to advance in their career, compared with 47% of those without a mentor (CNBC, 2019)
• 94% of employees said they would stay at a company longer if they were offered opportunities to learn and grow (2021 Workplace Learning Report)
• Retention rates were much higher for mentees (72%) and mentors (69%) than for employees who did not participate in the mentoring program (49%) (Wharton University, 2007)
• 79% of millennials see mentoring as crucial to their career success (Forbes, 2021)

Collaboratively,

Nick Guidry, MBA, M.Ed., SHRM-SCP
C3 People Development Team