Apprenticeships: IBEW Local 1547: lighting up the state.

• Author: White, Rindi
• Position: WORKFORCE TRAINING

From the wires that snake through the walls of most buildings to the lines glistening with frost between power line poles, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) members' hands light up the state.

With the largest union organization in Alaska at roughly 4,700 members, IBEW Local 1547 also boasts the largest apprenticeship program. One in five apprentices studying in the state is part of the IBEW Local 1547 apprenticeship program.

"The apprenticeship program is an avenue for people in the state of Alaska to learn a trade they can use all their life and work in the industry," says Dave Reaves, assistant business manager of the Anchorage office of IBEW Local 1547.

In cooperation with the National Electrical Contractors Association, or NECA, IBEW Local 1547 runs a statewide apprenticeship program, with training taking place at the union's training facilities either in Fairbanks or in Anchorage. The union also has offices in Juneau and Ketchikan and apprentices across the state, but apprentices travel from the outlying communities to Anchorage or Fairbanks for the seven- or eight-week training sessions.

"We took in about one hundred [apprentices] in the last twelve months," says training director Jon Medaris. "Most of that was during the summer."

Medaris says apprentices are accepted throughout the year. When a union member retires or a new position opens up, an apprentice gets a spot and begins training and working toward his or her journeyman status.

"We take them in as fast as we can put them to work," he says. "If we have an opportunity to put someone in a job, we'll take someone in."

It's not an easy program to get into, he says.

"We had over four hundred applicants this year. It's a competitive process. There were a lot of good applicants that didn't get into the program this year," Medaris says.

He says he encourages the applicants to keep trying. Once in the program, they generally have a thirty-year career ahead of them, he says, so a couple years spent waiting for an apprenticeship slot to open isn't a big deal in the long run.

IBEW and NECA, Partnership for the Future

The training program is jointly coordinated by IBEW Local 1547 and the Alaska Chapter of NECA. The Alaska Joint Electrical Apprenticeship and Training Trust, or AJEATT, administers the program. NECA Alaska chapter executive Larry Bell says NECA represents the companies that employ IBEW members.

"NECA is an association of electrical contractors that are...