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The Next Generation
SVEC Shows Students the Lineworker Trade at Build My Future Event
As Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative’s Director of Operations, Mark Mosley knows as well as anyone that the job lineworkers do cannot be taught in a classroom alone. That’s why the cooperative participates in events like Build My Future, where local students can learn about opportunities in the trades while getting hands-on experience with different aspects of the job.
“It gives us the chance to show students different avenues in the trades or learning a craft,” he says. “There are a lot of benefits and places you can work that pay extremely well and don’t require a college degree. Build My Future is a way to give them a 40,000-foot view of this type of business.” The Build My Future concept started with the Builders Association in Springfield, Missouri. The event brings together businesses and vendors in local trades to demonstrate their work so students can get a feel for what a career in those fields could be like. When Columbia County Builders Association President Bryan Zecher heard about it, he knew he wanted to bring it to Florida.
“Our masons, electricians, and other people in the trades are getting older, and we need that younger generation to come in behind them,” Zecher says. “The goal is for students to work with their hands and really get the feel for a particular trade by working and feeling it.”
This year’s event included 160 students from three counties and more than 25 vendors. Students split into groups of eight to 12 and rotated between vendors, spending about 15 minutes with each one.
SVEC has participated in the Columbia County event for the last three years. This year, the team set up a short piece of line to demonstrate the work electric lineworkers do on a daily basis, complete with a transformer to help students learn how distribution lines work.
“Those that are interested have a lot of questions and they’re very thankful for the opportunity,” Mosley says. “Those kinds of comments really make the time worth it. It’s four days of work setting everything up and doing the demonstrations. But it’s exciting because you get to answer a ton of questions from these young people who show interest in the lineman business.”
Each year, SVEC’s team has taken those comments and tried to improve the next year’s demonstration. Moving forward, Mosley hopes to include a plexiglass display showing the inside of a transformer to better answer students’ questions about how electrical equipment works.
“Any time you can help young folks decide on a career path, it’s very rewarding,” he says. “We all love what we do. Being a lineman is a great career, and anybody who begins it usually sticks with it their whole life. It’s a great path, so why not express that and help somebody else get started in it?”
SVEC brings bucket trucks and other equipment to demonstrate the work they do on lines across the system.
