Best Practice: Utility Industry Certificate, SSVEC (Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative)
Focus Area: Career Awareness, Workforce Development/Education
Target Audience: Cochise County, AZ, high school seniors and young adults
Summary of Best Practice:
This one-year certificate program was designed to train local skilled utility workers in order to lower turnover rates for apprentice linemen.
The program is delivered at Cochise College in order to recruit people with local roots who would stay in the area long-term. Because SSVEC, a small co-op, did not hire sufficient numbers of workers each year to sustain a program on its own, it partnered with other utilities and industries (including natural gas and telecommunications companies) and made the program more broad-based.
The Utility Industry Certificate includes seven courses, including Introduction to the Utility Industry (taught by employees of partner companies); Blueprint Reading and Estimating; Business Communications; Technical Math; Construction Safety; Computer Essentials; and Field Experience in Business Construction Technology, a paid three-month summer internship with one of the utility partners.
Some of the courses have been adapted for instruction at the high school level, though high school students are not eligible to earn the certificate. Graduates from the community college program are eligible to apply for entry-level positions at SSVEC and other partner companies. Graduates typically apply for apprentice linemen positions, but may be eligible for other positions as well, such as engineering or warehouse jobs. The skills covered in this certificate align with the lower tiers of the CEWD Energy Competency Model.
Through this program, over the past four years SSVEC has been able to successfully hire 50 students into its internship program and 12 into full-time jobs.
Partnerships Utilized:
· SSVEC
· Arizona G&T Cooperative
· Southwest Gas
· Apache Nitrogen
· Cochise College
· Southeast AZ Workforce Connection
Resources Required:
· A community college to offer the courses.
· Instructors from each partner. SSVEC uses one of its journeymen lineman foremen, who is paid a regular hourly wage, to teach the course. Each partner guest teaches 1-3 sessions of the 16-week course. A community college professor facilitates, tests, and instructs in the off sessions.
· Internship opportunity from each partner.
Steps for Implementation:
· Meet with other sector partners to determine who has hiring needs and what types of skills they need taught.
· Meet with the community college to see if a program can be offered.
· Select courses from the community college catalogue, in conjunction with the school, to put together an appropriate program.
· Determine if additional courses are needed and if so, develop them in partnership with the community college and other business partners.
· Recruit students for the program.
· Set up the internships.
· Provide instructors for courses as needed.
· Preferentially recruit from the program for jobs at the utility.
Contact for learning more about the best practice:
Jason Bowling, HR Manager, email: .