Tridel donates $3 million to George Brown construction program

George Brown College’s construction program is $3 million richer thanks to a hefty donation from Tridel Corporation.

Tridel is donating the money to the college’s Success at Work project––a $60 million fundraising campaign to help with the college’s expansion, which includes a modern waterfront health sciences campus, projects at other campus locations, and increasing scholarships and bursaries.

Nancy Sherman, dean of the Centre for Construction and Engineering Technology at George Brown, said the construction programs will use the money to improve the learning spaces and applied research capabilities at the Casa Loma campus in Toronto.

And it could open the door to a significant increase in enrolment––from 3,500 to 5,000––in the construction programs by 2016.

Sherman said for the past five years more than 1,200 qualified applicants have been on the waiting list for the college’s construction programs each year.

The added enrolment spaces are needed to help fill the forecasted labour shortages in the construction industry, she added.

A Colleges Ontario report shows Ontario will be short 190,000 skilled employees by 2020, more than 360,000 by 2025 and more than 560,000 by 2030.

“We feel the construction sector is in good position to continue to grow and with retirements as well, they’re going to need our graduates,” she said. “That’s what they’re (construction employers) telling us. That’s what we’re trying to gear up to serve.”

George Brown College has named one of its construction schools the Angelo Del Zotto School of Construction Management after Angelo Del Zotto, CEO and chairman of the Tridel Group of Companies and Tridel Corporation, to show its appreciation for the donation.

Tridel is one of the largest builders of sustainable condominiums in Canada. It partners with George Brown College in many areas such as hiring recent graduates, guest lectures, applied research, on program advisory committees and through the establishment of the Building Opportunities for Life Today program. www.georgebrown.ca/successatwork.