Utilities across the nation face a shortage of skilled workers and trained professionals to meet a growing demand. In response to this trend, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) launched the PowerPathway program to ensure the training and development of the next generation of utility workers.
Program Details
PowerPathway is a collaboration between local colleges, the public workforce development system, and unions to enlarge the talent pool of qualified candidates for entry-level opportunities. Together, they are expanding into new geographic areas and new job classifications, as well as reaching out to military veterans who are transitioning into the energy sector.
Programs developed by PowerPathway and PG&E’s training partners are designed to help both new and experienced workers grow and develop along several skilled craft and apprenticeship career paths in both gas and electric operations.
Results
Since the program’s inception in 2009, 600 people—including 300 veterans—have graduated, with more than 80 percent having been hired by PG&E or the utility industry.
PowerPathway and PG&E’s work with getting unemployed veterans back to work has been acknowledged and backed in various ways:
- During a visit to a PowerPathway training class in Oakland, CA, on April 10, 2015, Vice President Joe Biden recognized how the program has set “the framework for other big companies, not just utility companies” for workforce development.
- PG&E’s support of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act has benefited successful public/private partnership training programs, like PowerPathway, by allowing these partnerships to apply for federal funding to enhance the opportunities to provide trainees the skills employers need.
- PowerPathway also has been recognized by the National Commission on Energy Policy as a best practice program, by Clean Edge Clean Tech Job Trends as an organization to watch, and through PG&E’s new partnership with the White House and Skills for America’s Future initiative.
- On April 21, 2015, PG&E received the Faraday Award, which recognizes its successes with the PowerPathway program, during the 18th annual Electric Power Conference in Chicago. The award honors corporations that have successfully connected, employed, and engaged veterans to become long-term employees in the power industry.
- PowerPathway was featured by the National Journal in a series of stories last year about programs trying to tackle America’s unemployment crisis.
