Industry Mentoring Program Doubles In Size In A Single Year
The nonprofit ace mentor program Inc. is on a roll, having doubled in size since last year. The educational outreach organization, dedicated to aiding an industry critically short on talent by guiding inner-city high schoolers toward careers in architecture, construction and engineering, has 1,400 teenagers enrolled, up from 600 in 2000-01. The group, which also awards college scholarships, has burgeoned from nine chapters to 17, with a new "baby ACE" as far away from the program's New York City roots as Honolulu.
To fuel ACE's growth and its scholarship fund, "we need to formalize the national organization," says structural engineer Charles H. Thornton, ACE's chairman and co-founder. "The development of new chapters has only been limited by the ability of the current ACE structure to handle growth," he said in a March 29 invitation letter to 30 prospective directors of the board of ACE NATIONAL, which will be based at the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) in Washington, D.C.