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Steve Malany this month started his one-year term as president of the Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter, and he’s focused on workforce issues.

The one main agenda item this year for Malany, president of P&C Construction in Portland, is development of a plan to increase funding for career and technical education programs via the 2015 legislative session.

“The main priority for me is workforce – it’s getting those programs back into the high schools,” he said. “Baby boomers are going to be retiring. We’re going to be replacing half the workforce in the next 20 to 30 years.”

Kids are not getting the message that opportunities for good-paying jobs exist in construction, Malany said. A lack of hands-on learning opportunities at school makes it difficult to see the connection between learning the Pythagorean theorem in class and building a roof truss on the job site, he said.

“They don’t understand the technologies – how complex buildings are from a mechanical, plumbing and structural standpoint,” he said.

Getting more people to attend AGC events is another priority, Malany said.

Membership in the trade association has stabilized while revenues from members are starting to pick up because they are building higher-volume projects, he said.

AGC, which had 1,228 members at its peak in 2001, currently has 871 members.

“The state of the association is very strong,” Malany said. “Trying to get the (membership) back to 1,200 isn’t really a goal.”