Local 85 and Georgia SMACNA Score a Touchdown in Membership Growth

By / Sheralyn Belyeu

Over the last three years, more than 800 new workers have joined Local 85 in Atlanta, leading to a 24% increase in overall membership despite retirements and attrition. Business Manager Steve Langley credits the growth to Georgia’s passion for high school football. “We track the number of hits to our website,” Langley says, “and it doubles, or even triples, in September through December.”

In 2020, the mechanical association invited Georgia SMACNA to join them and other building trades in sponsoring the Corky Kell + Dave Hunter Classic. This series of football games is played at local high schools and in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. Twenty-two school teams from as far away as Alabama pay to participate in the games. “We partnered with the mechanical and split the sponsorship fee,” says Ginger Slaick, executive vice president of Georgia SMACNA & North Carolina SMACNA.

As program sponsors, the mechanical association and Georgia SMACNA each receive two 30-second TV commercials per game, four 30-second commercials and ads on message boards inside each stadium, announcements during the games, fullpage print ads in all game programs, and interviews during half-time.

Local 85 is also a sponsor with its own commercials and ads. “During the breaks or the timeouts, they will play the commercials,” Slaick says. “We have media posted on scoreboards and the Mercedes Benz Stadium leaderboard to advertise. I don’t have enough staff and volunteers to take advantage of all the opportunities that they’re willing to give us. They’re dedicated to getting us in front of people. It’s been a great partnership.”

Besides the 40,000 plus fans who attend the games in person, over half a million viewers watch the live broadcasts on TV. Nearly 600,000 more fans have access to Corky Kell games through apps, websites, and a national streaming service. “We know our ads are being seen,” Slaick says, “because friends say they’ve seen me on TV.”

Last year she learned that one of her adult son’s friends had not known what she does for a living before this sponsorship. “I had forgotten that people were still seeing it, but his mom told me that her son saw me on TV, and now he has a whole new respect for me and for the industry.”

Reaching teens and young adults was one of Georgia SMACNA’s goals. “We felt like it was a really good target audience for our needs,” Slaick says. “We want those high school students who haven’t decided what they want to do yet.”

As important as students are, they are only a fraction of the audience for these highly competitive games. “Grandparents are watching, parents are watching, and aunts and uncles watch their nephews and nieces on TV,” Langley says. Since the Local and the Chapter started sponsoring Corky Kell games, recruitment has improved across all age groups.

SMACNA and SMART hired local videographers to film their commercials. Past commercials have included footage of a JATC, an interview with an apprentice, and football themes. They emphasize the opportunity to get an education without student debt and reference georgiaconstructioncareers.com, a subsidiary of the Atlanta and North Georgia Building Trades Council. The website is even incorporated into the top of the official 2024 game schedule logo.

The game commentators hold the interviews during breaks in the play. “I have our women’s committee chairperson and our minority group go to these games,” Langley says. “At halftime we get to do interviews on TV to show that we believe in equality, diversity, and equal pay for equal work.”

Beside traditional advertising, the sponsorship includes opportunities to build relationships. “They have a big kickoff luncheon the week before the Classic,” Slaick says. Athletic directors, football coaches, star football players, and sponsors are invited. “This helps with recognition because it’s putting more spotlight on the skilled trades.” During actual games, the sponsors also have access to the students, players, and the cheerleaders.

With all its value, the sponsorship brings some challenges. The message boards in each stadium have different technical requirements, especially the Mercedes Benz Stadium, so they need different versions of the commercials and ads.

“I send the specs to our videographer, and he formats the commercials so they will play properly,” Slaick says. But her biggest challenge is keeping up with potential recruits. “We are tracking activity and reaching out to individuals who showed interest or submitted an inquiry,” she says. “Maybe they haven’t graduated yet, so it’s not really time for them to apply to the apprenticeship school.”

It’s not always clear which people have registered with both Georgia SMACNA and Local 85. “We don’t want to bombard them with calls and emails, and we don’t want to overwhelm them,” she says. “We want them all as potential candidates for the program. Our challenge is continuing to build that relationship. We’re seeing success, and I think we will see more success if we dedicate additional time and personnel.”

In 2022, Georgia SMACNA and Local 85 stepped up their involvement by becoming sponsors of the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame. “Our business manager is on the Hall of Fame board,” Slaick says. “My husband, son, and I went to the inaugural induction, and it was a major event, with NFL players coming back to be inducted.”

As more sponsors and community leaders build relationships with sheet metal professionals, they can encourage more young people to consider careers in sheet metal.

Georgia’s sheet metal industry needs the increased visibility to meet recruiting goals. Over the last decade, Local 85 averaged 1.39 million work hours per year. New projects drove up demand to 1.7 million work hours in 2023, and workhours continue to increase. “We’re getting more and more work,” Langley says. “The sponsorship has been a very helpful tool. I have appreciated the partnership with Georgia SMACNA to contribute and help out. It’s been a game changer for us to supply the workforce that we need.” ▪

A Colorado native, Sheralyn Belyeu lives and writes deep in the woods of Alabama. When she’s not writing, she grows organic blueberries and collects misspellings of her name.