Member News

July 24, 2015

Webcor is committed to building a better future for San Francisco. But as one of the largest private construction companies in the city, it’s not just building this future brick by brick — it’s building it person by person through partnerships with educational organizations and initiatives that provide construction job training.

One of the company’s biggest partnerships is with CityBuild, a construction training academy sponsored by the city of San Francisco and run by City College of San Francisco. The 18-week program provides all-expenses-paid, pre-apprenticeship training to 50 low-income San Francisco residents twice a year. Students also often receive job placement through the program.

“There’s really a need for this sort of transitional vocational education prior to immediate employment,” said Pat Mulligan, director of CityBuild. “So we’re training people for employment to fill needs in this industry, especially in a rapidly expanding construction economy.”

Along with providing materials and instruction for things like live cement pour demonstrations, Webcor is also the largest employer of program graduates, hiring 350 individuals to date.

“We connect with our communities in a really specific way with the jobs that we build,” said Jes Pedersen, Webcor’s president. “We want to try to better those who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity.”

Webcor has donated more than $50,000 in tools, equipment and materials to both CityBuild and Tech 21, a construction education program at San Francisco’s John O’Connell High School. This year, Webcor also took interns from the Tech 21 program to assist on the company’s Transbay Transit Center project. In collaboration with the San Francisco Unified School District and City College of San Francisco, Webcor is working on expanding the Tech 21 program to other high schools.

Webcor also sends employees to Oakland schools to spend a day teaching grade, junior and high schoolers about the construction industry through the Junior Achievement program. In addition, the company donates time, material and labor to renovating centers for seniors and kids through another initiative, Rebuilding Together. Most recently, the company renovated a Boys and Girls Club in Oakland, providing new cabinetry, electrical, paint and more.

In addition to that outreach, Webcor also works to help the homeless. Every year, the company participates in Canstruction, a competition to build a structure out of thousands of canned goods that the company then donates to the Food Bank.

“These are the kinds of things we like to do to try to reach out to our community,” Pedersen said. “We know that it takes engagement on a lot of levels.”

Company: Webcor

HQ: San Francisco

Top Bay Area executive: Jes Pedersen

Bay Area employees: 575