JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Northeast Florida Builders Association (NEFBA) on Thursday welcomed students from across the area to its National Apprenticeship Week Fall Expo.<\/p>\n
One of those students was James Norton, a student at Ridgeview High School in Clay County. For James, working on HVAC systems has always been his passion.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI really love it,\u201d Norton said. \u201cIt\u2019s a goal I\u2019ve been working at since I was about 14 years old.\u201d <\/p>\n James joined dozens of other students from Northeast Florida to see what the NEFBA program has to offer. <\/p>\n \u201cWe train individuals that are seeking to go into the skill trades to become carpenters, electricians, HVAC technicians, and plumbers,\u201d Christina Thomas, Director of Workforce Development at NEFBA, said. <\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n Students heard from apprentices about their experience, networked with skill trade industry leaders, and participated in hands-on demonstrations.<\/p>\n Something that Thomas said is needed now more than ever. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to experience in the state of Florida a 400,000-worker shortage in the skill trades over the next 5 years,\u201d Thomas said. <\/p>\n According to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), the industry must hire approximately 723,000 new workers per year nationally to meet demand and replace retiring talent. <\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n For James, he said he hopes he can fill that gap. <\/p>\n \u201cHonestly I\u2019m really excited,\u201d said James Norton. \u201cMy main thing for excitement is I want to start my own company, so I got to start from the bottom up. That\u2019s what I\u2019m really excited for.\u201d<\/p>\n If you would like to learn more about Northeast Florida\u2019s Builder\u2019s Association\u2019s Apprentice program, click here<\/b><\/a>. <\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The Northeast Florida Builders Association (NEFBA) on Thursday welcomed students from across the area to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":376499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,7325,181024,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-376498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-fox30","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-fl","16":"tag-northeast-florida","17":"tag-northeast-florida-builders-association","18":"tag-southeast-georgia","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-wfox","26":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115543812709017516","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}