Construct-Ed Partners with Educators, Associations and Companies to Provide Online Education

Today most aspects of a construction project can be managed remotely. Site plans, checklists, punch items and job photos are sent to cloud servers where all parties can view progress from any enabled device. The same is happening for training and education — the construction community is turning to the Web to share trade skills, knowledge and abilities.

Construct-Ed Inc. is one of the first online training platforms serving the construction industry. Its mission is to provide a community where instructors can share unique insights, skills and knowledge with learners in order to build the next generation of construction professionals and leaders. The company formed in March 2014, founded by Chris Jurin, now CEO, Rory Detweiler, operations manager and Jeremiah Rizzo, communications manager.

In January 2015, Construct-Ed officially launched its full suite of training and educational tools, opening Web access to trainees and trainers alike. Construct-Ed’s online training platform offers courses covering everything from business management to marketing, trade skills, sales and more. To date Construct-Ed has 15 instructors and more than 100 courses and the company is growing rapidly.

Connecting with experts

Construct-Ed works with expo speakers, associations and experts who want to publish their training in the form of online courses. Construct-Ed receives the instructor’s training videos, turns them into online courses for free and publishes them in the course library. The instructor can choose to charge for their course and profit from each course sold, or distribute it for free.

Construct-Ed recently partnered with award-winning interior designer Christopher Grubb, building and remodeling pro Brian Altmann, Visible Builder founder Dennis Schaefer and corporate marketing manager Chelsea Welsh of Southeastern Metals, to expand its online library of construction education tools. Although Construct-Ed’s new instructors have different backgrounds and fields of expertise, they are united by one thing: frequent travel and speaking engagements at various expos and conventions, as well as a desire to educate the industry.

“The educators’ newly published online courses train students on subjects such as educating contractors on partnering with interior designers to create more luxurious bathrooms, utilizing social media to gain leads for business and ways to create independence within your team as a small contractor, so you can take off the tool belt and grow your business,” says Jeremiah Rizzo, who works closely with all instructors, helping them publish their training materials as online courses.

The four educators that recently partnered with Construct-Ed join a growing number of online instructors and their newly published courses help put the online training platform at over 100 courses to date, since the January 2015 launch. Construct-Ed is also currently working with a roofing database company called Dataforma, and Roofer’s Coffee Shop, an online forum, and other associations and educators, to publish and power training.

“It’s a really cool system,” says Rizzo. “The expo speakers want to educate the industry, and the industry wants to learn from them, and we make that easier than ever. When an educator publishes their training on Construct-Ed, they can be in many places at once and preserve their training, and they’ll reach a wider audience. And the contractors, business owners, or students who want to learn from them can watch those sessions from anywhere in the form of an online course. Expo speakers are eager to educate, and by doing the heavy lifting for them — building  the courses, hosting them and handling all the e-commerce — we provide them an awesome solution.”