The Construction Confederation has appointed Kurt Calder as external relations manager. 'I have a wide-ranging brief from media relations to speech writing. One area is to raise the perception of the construction industry, which is suffering from a lack of recruitment,' said Calder, who will report to the director of public affairs Stephen Ratcliffe. The former journalist joins the CC from the Tarmac group where he was group media relations manager for three years. He is also former chairman of the Society of Editors for the Midlands region. The CC represents over 5,000 construction companies.