Ken Adams, president of Pace Electric, New Castle, DE, has been elected to serve as national chairman for Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) effective Jan. 1.

He has devoted more than 20 years of service to ABC, on both the local and national levels as a member of the board of directors, chairman of the National Management Education committee and on the National Electrical Contractors council.

He was president of the Delaware Chapter in 1991 and president of the Construction Education Foundation of Delaware in 1992. Adams was chosen by 1999 National Chairman David Bush to spearhead ABC’s program for emerging contractors.

“I am a product of the merit shop. For more than 30 years now, I have not only supported the merit shop philosophy, I have lived it. As national chairman, I will tenaciously defend ABC’s free enterprise principles. I recognize that it is the members across America that own this association, and I want to keep ABC working for them,” Adams said.

Adams has been involved in the Delaware electrical construction industry since 1963. Beginning his career as an apprentice electrician at an early age, he advanced through various positions, eventually becoming vice president of an ABC member firm.

He later started the merit shop electrical subsidiary of a large unionized construction firm operating through the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

He founded Pace Electric Inc., in 1986, which is an industrial and commercial electrical contracting firm based in New Castle, and operates in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.

ABC is a national construction association representing approximately 23,000 member firms in more than 80 chapters. ABC is the only organization in the United States devoted exclusively to representing the interests of merit shop contractors.

For more information, call 703/812-2000 or visit www.abc.org.