Building futures one apprentice at a time
Construction company the Gelder Group demonstrates its commitment to apprenticeships
05 July 2013
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Video: some of the Gelder Group’s apprentices talk about their experiences
Steve Gelder recently celebrated the milestone of 25 years since he founded his construction business – the Gelder Group. After leaving school with no qualifications, he became a bricklaying apprentice and obtained a City & Guilds qualification. He set up his own business at the tender age of 22 and took on his first employee as an apprentice.
Today the Gelder Group is a £40 million business that employs 300 people and has trained more than 250 apprentices across a range of sectors, including construction, business administration and horticulture.
Alongside the apprenticeship programme, Steve recently set up an academy that offers practical, construction-based courses to prisoners at HMP Lincoln. He also has set up a ‘Virtual School’ onsite at the Gelder Group, where children from the local community who are not in mainstream education can complete their studies in context of a real employer environment.
In the video below, Steve and the Gelder Group’s training team explain how apprentices add to the business.