Naperville, Geneva joining forces to train power line electricians

When the city of Geneva lost one of its power line electricians, it posted the vacancy nationwide and got two applicants.

The one with the qualifications to be hired came from Nebraska.

When the city of Naperville tried to fill six vacant positions among its line electrician crews, utility directors struggled to compete with the higher pay and overtime offered by ComEd and electrical contractors.

"There's definitely a challenge in finding linemen now," said Hal Wright, superintendent of electrical services in Geneva.

So the cities plan to collaborate on an apprenticeship program to train their own workforce anew. Pending approval of an intergovernmental agreement, the program will allow apprentice employees to work in both towns during a nearly four-year program to develop all the skills to maintain municipal electric infrastructure.

Put simply, "we're going to work together on some training," Wright said.

It's not uncommon for municipalities that run their own electric utilities to have apprentices along with fully qualified line electricians, who earn a designation called "journeyman," said Tom Bruhl, electric services manager at the city of St. Charles. It helps ensure there will be new people ready to fill vacancies when older workers retire.

But it is unusual for two towns to partner their apprentices so they can share the training opportunities that present when various types of work need to be conducted in each town. If the partnership works well, Bruhl said he'd like to see if St. Charles can join.

"It's an exciting opportunity," he said.

To become a journeyman, a line electrician needs to learn how to climb electric poles, work on overhead and underground power lines and deal with energized and deenergized wires, said Lucy Hynes, deputy director of Naperville's electric utility.

In Naperville, 93 percent of power lines are underground, so work on overhead infrastructure comes up rarely. In Geneva, about 30 percent of power lines are overhead and in St. Charles, the proportion is about 25 percent. If St. Charles joins the partnership later, Bruhl said its main role could be to offer opportunities to work on overhead lines.

Geneva and Naperville both plan to hire their apprentices from within, posting the jobs internally to city employees and only advertising externally if they aren't filled. Geneva already has two apprentices, one who started in 2015 and one who's new, while Naperville plans to hire two apprentices now and two next spring.

"Then we'd have some good people who know the work and are dedicated to the city," Hynes said.

Each apprentice will complete 500 hours of classroom learning and 7,000 hours of on-the-job training during the next four years.

Their classroom experiences begin with a three-week class in Ohio hosted by the American Line Builders Apprenticeship Training program. Local electric utility directors call it a "climbing school."

Classroom learning then continues one weekend a month through the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 9 as apprentices work during the week for the city that hired them.

Cities like Naperville, Geneva and St. Charles don't offer the "nearly unlimited" overtime as ComEd does while working on $2.6 billion in infrastructure modernization authorized in 2011, said Mark Curran, director of Naperville's electric utility. And in St. Charles, finding qualified workers is made even more difficult by a 30-minute radius of the city in which all line electricians must live, Bruhl said.

But the hope is the new apprenticeship program will provide qualified workers who can handle the heights, the weather, the math and the risk of the electricity to keep power flowing throughout the suburbs.

Because line electricians, Hynes said, are "the guys that are keeping the lights on."