by Jill Thompson
For 143 years, the Painting Contractors Association (PCA) has been the leading source of professional painting knowledge and expertise in the United States. Our archives contain everything from estimating guides from the 1960s and textbooks written in the 1800s about craftsmanship and excellence. When I took over as executive director in 2024, I wanted to understand how we could build upon that legacy to better serve the needs of today’s painting contractors.
One of the things that makes the PCA community unique is its collaborative spirit. New members and first-time event attendees are often surprised by how much information highly experienced contractors are willing to share with their peers, and even with their competitors — and that spirit extends well beyond in-person and social media interactions. What we found in going through the archives and talking to longtime members is that the most valuable knowledge our predecessors brought forward has always been contractor-led, volunteer-based, and developed in consultation with experts from across the industry. With that legacy in mind, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of the PCA’s newest initiative — the Painting Contractors Institute.
On one hand, the launch of our Institute represents the next evolution of education resources that many PCA members previously accessed through PCA Overdrive, including its library of dynamic video content. But the Institute is much more than simply a replacement for Overdrive. It is a comprehensive education hub designed to consolidate more of the training, resources, and tools painting contractors need under the umbrella of a single, highly accessible platform. These include webinars, business and painter training modules, on-demand professional certificate programs, downloadable resources such as e-books and standard HR forms, and an expanding library of video content designed to serve both contractors and their team members.
The guiding objective was to create an integrated framework of learning resources and professional development opportunities that respond directly to the needs of those working in the industry today, including owners, employees, and painters. It’s a new vision that takes advantage of the latest technology to build upon the PCA’s legacy of stewardship and service to the industry in collaboration with our vendor partners and experts from around the industry.
We are especially excited that the Painting Contractors Institute is a hub for learning for everyone, member and nonmember alike. While PCA members enjoy exclusive content and steep discounts on our training certificates and events, anyone who wishes to learn and grow through our resources can create a learning profile and learn through the Institute.
The Development Process
The Painting Contractors Institute was not created overnight. Over the past two years, we’ve engaged in a rigorous research process to understand the kinds of knowledge, information, and training that our members and the broader community need in order to make their businesses successful in the years to come, and how we can most effectively deliver that knowledge.
As part of that process, we hired nationally recognized education professionals to conduct an academic study. The team conducted interviews with PCA members and performed a benchmarking evaluation of education efforts from associations similar to ours. We looked at what has and hasn’t worked in other situations, and we thought carefully about how we could replicate and improve on the approaches behind some of the most relevant and compelling success stories. The results of that study informed our entire curriculum building process.
One thing became clear quickly: While the PCA already had an outstanding collection of educational resources, they weren’t as organized or user-friendly as they needed to be. That made it challenging for learners to find the content they were most interested in and to make progress in a way that enabled one lesson to build upon another, as they would in a proper curriculum. That’s where the Institute comes in. As part of this launch, we are restructuring our content into different modules to provide a more productive and cumulative educational experience for everyone who utilizes the resources.
The BrushUp Library
The BrushUp Library is our member-exclusive hub for learning that includes hundreds of hours of video content previously available through the PCA Overdrive, as well as a growing body of new content that will be updated monthly. Content in the BrushUp Library is organized into categories including Sales & Marketing, Craftsmanship, Finance, Product & Operations, and Technology & AI. These are just a few examples of the lessons currently available:
- Winning with General Contractors
- The Growth Blueprint: How One Painter Built a 500-Person Company
- A Comprehensive Guide to Spray Techniques
- Financial Analysis for Decision Making
- Introduction to High Performance Floor Coatings
- Getting Back Your Weekends (and Keeping Them)
The BrushUp Library will continue to grow each month, and contractors can expect to find a robust catalogue of educational content on everything from sales, marketing, and growth strategies to color theory and application techniques, along with recorded sessions from PCA Expo and other PCA events. PCA member companies are encouraged to make profiles for every member of their team so they can all access this growing resource.
On-Demand Professional Certificates
During the Institute’s development process, many of the contractors we spoke with emphasized a need for on-demand professional certification. So, we partnered with Benjamin Moore to introduce two new certificate programs: one focused on estimating and another on project management. These programs give business owners and their teams an opportunity to dive into the fundamentals of both subjects while also exploring more advanced skills and concepts. Participants who complete the courses will receive a certificate and credentials they can share with customers on social media. New certificates that cover technical skills and product application — including hands-on training activities — are already in development, and additional options will be introduced regularly, with all certificate programs available in both English and Spanish. For PCA member companies, the owners and every member of their teams have access to discounted pricing for these certificates.
Business and Painter Training
The Painting Contractors Institute is also home to a collection of cohort-style business training modules sponsored by Sherwin Williams. These three separate business courses — Business Foundation, Business Accelerator, and Business Legacy — are designed for learners with different levels of knowledge and experience. Participants can watch videos and access interactive content on their own timelines, then take part in six weeks of Zoom meetings with a facilitator and peers to complete the course. This gives contractors an opportunity to combine on-demand education with accountability mechanisms and a platform for discussion with other professionals facing similar challenges. The Legacy course is a free collection of in-depth conversations with experienced painting contractors such as Gina Koert of Shamrock Painting and Bell SPI, John Peek of Peek Brothers Painting, and Matt and Maggie Kuyper of Harpeth Painting. These conversations offer a more high-level view of the painting business as the experts walk through the evolution of their companies, from their earliest challenges through various stages of growth, offering tips along the way on everything from building an effective culture to determining which markets to compete in. PCA Painter Training course allows for unlimited free seats for PCA member companies. Nonmembers can also pay to access the exterior and interior courses as well.
Accessing the PCA’s New Learning Platform
From the beginning of the development process, we were determined to make these resources as accessible as possible. Contractors and their teams should be able to learn on their own schedules and on whichever devices are most convenient for them. PCA member company owners and teams can access the platform by creating PCA log ins, allowing for exclusive resources and member discounts for courses and programming. Log in at pcapainted.org and click Painting Contractors Institute in the top navigation bar to get started.
PCA members receive free access to the BrushUp Library, Painter Training, and the Legacy Series, along with discounted access to other training resources. Membership also includes unlimited seats within the institute, giving contractors’ employees access to painter training via individual sub-accounts. But all of the resources are available to nonmembers as well and some of the content previously available through Overdrive has moved onto YouTube so the broader painting community has an opportunity to learn from experts in the PCA orbit.
The Future of the Painting Contractors Institute
The most important thing to remember is that this is just the beginning. New certificates are under development and in production as we speak, and new content will be added to the BrushUp Library on a monthly basis. Over time, our vision is to create a more integrated educational experience that connects resources available online with the in-person learning opportunities at PCA events and the conversations taking place throughout our community, including at informal member gatherings and in the PaintED Facebook group.
The decisions we’ve made about the structure of the Institute reflect our commitment to stewardship and service to the industry, along with our goal of using technology to make its resources as accessible and useful as possible to those who need them. For nearly 150 years, PCA’s educational mission has been sustained by contractors who were willing to share their experience and expertise with others in the field. That spirit of collaboration continues to guide everything we do, and this exciting new chapter represents our latest effort to carry that tradition forward.
Jill Bader Thompson is executive director of the Painting Contractors Association and publisher of American Painting Contractor magazine. Before joining the PCA, Jill worked on political campaigns and as a press secretary in the U.S. Senate. She has spearheaded multimillion-dollar efforts to recruit, train and support first-time women candidates for political office, as well as run national membership campaigns for the Girl Scouts of the USA. When she’s not focused on the world of painting contractors, Jill and her husband are busy chasing their 3-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son around their home in Nashville, Tenn.