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The Power Eastern Oregon Podcast explores topics which affect small towns and rural communities in eastern Oregon and beyond. With the help of business and community partners, we will discuss the foundations of healthy communities, innovative new technologies, and challenges we all face. We’ll also explore the value of cooperatives and member-owned utilities and how Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative contributes to the health and growth of our service territory.
Paige Witham:
Welcome to the Power Eastern Oregon Podcast,
where we highlight the people,
partnerships and innovations shaping our region.
I'm Paige Witham with Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative,
and joining me today are –
Doug Dalton:
Doug Dalton with BTI.
Paige Witham:
Wonderful, and –
Lea Hoover:
And Lea Hoover, director of member and strategic services at
OTEC.
Paige Witham:
Awesome. I'm so thrilled to have both of you on today as we
explore an exciting new workforce pathway that's taking shape
right here in Baker County, one that strengthens our grid,
grows our economy,
and creates life changing career opportunities.
We're going to kick this episode off like we always do with our
safety share.
So we want to take this time to remind you,
if you encounter a downed power line,
stay at least 50ft back. Treat it as energized and call 911 and
your utility immediately,
for those of you that are outside OTEC territory listening.
And if you're inside OTEC territory,
give us a call.
Safety is at the core of everything we do,
and it's the first value students learn at the APEX Elite Line
Academy.
Lea Hoover:
Ooh, Paige, we have a really awesome resource on our website in
our 360 virtual reality safety videos,
where there's a downed power line training.
That is an awesome resource for our members.
Paige Witham:
Oh yeah, I love that video. And what's really cool about it too,
is you learn so much more by it being interactive.
So take the time, go visit that at OTEC.coop/safety.
So we'll dive into Baker Technical Institute's role in hands on
career training and how APEX Elite Line Academy,
powered by BTI and supported by OTEC,
is helping prepare the next generation of highly skilled line
workers and utility professionals.
So, Doug, what's a local Baker City tradition or landmark that
always makes you or new students feel connected to the community?
Doug Dalton:
You know, our students, what they come back to all the time is
just where we live.
So it's not necessarily one landmark.
It could be the mountains. It could be the people.
It could be downtown. They might find themselves golfing,
fishing,
skiing. It feels like it's the experience more so than a
landmark.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, for sure.
Doug Dalton:
That's the feedback we get, and a lot of our students come from
communities that are similar size to Baker.
So it's always comforting when they come here,
but then they always attach themselves to it seems like something
outdoors, recreation, that type of thing.
Lea Hoover:
I was going to add to that too,
Doug, is that outdoor recreation,
the opportunities to spend your time exploring the mountains and
whether it's skiing and snowboarding or hiking and fishing or
hunting, we have it all if you're into any sort of outdoor
recreation.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, absolutely. That's I know my favorite way to spend my time
if I'm not here.
I am wanting to be out there anywhere I can be.
And that's actually what drew me to Baker City. I,
being from Georgia originally,
I landed here, saw the mountains,
and I said sold.
Lea Hoover:
Yeah, that drop in when you're coming on I-84 and you drop into
the Baker Valley,
there's nothing quite like it. It's some majestic mountains that
you can even see from the APEX Elite Line Academy.
Just right in the back, you can have the,
be climbing a pole and see those mountains in the background is
beautiful.
Doug Dalton:
It is. It feels like we're nestled right up against them,
so.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, that's awesome. And what moment made you realize that BTI
and the APEX Elite Line Academy could
truly transform Eastern Oregon's workforce future?
Doug Dalton:
Well, the exact moment, you know,
I go back to a conversation that I had with Les Penning from
OTEC, and it was in a gymnasium watching sports where we spent a
lot of time together.
And, I think from the first time,
the light bulbs went on and we said,
"You know, we really need, we really need a line school." And
when we say "we," we're speaking for the profession
for a lot of things, not just necessarily OTEC or the community
or BTI.
It was there's such a need. And we just looked at each other,
and it was a long time ago,
but I think from that moment forward,
we knew it was going to happen. We knew it needed to happen,
and we knew between both of our organizations we could make it
happen successfully.
I would probably go back to the very beginning right there.
And from that day forward, I knew it would change more than just
the workforce of the region.
But really the economics of the region.
I think it changes the workforce for a much bigger region,
but it changes economics.
It changes student opportunities,
adult opportunities.
Yeah. That day in the gym.
Paige Witham:
That's awesome.
Lea Hoover:
And after that, after that big idea of Doug and Les's,
which was fantastic,
we took a step forward with BTIN.
This was this is going back five,
six years ago.
I mean, we have a, this is a long standing partnership between
BTI and OTEC.
We took the first step towards testing the waters and launched a
utility safety training
program through BTI. And so they're all across the Pacific
Northwest,
helping utilities in their safety training,
which is the core of what any lineman does day in and day out.
And so it really built a strong foundation for what we were
planning on building with the line school.
And so this is all coming to fruition with this project.
It's very exciting.
Paige Witham:
I love that, and I love that we're able to kind of give that
insight to our listeners that,
you know, we may have all just heard about it recently,
but this is such a long standing hope,
dream, project, goal, economic driver,
you know, for our community.
It's great, and that we have tested the waters.
You know, it's awesome to hear. So our listeners might be asking
we've been saying "BTI" quite a bit.
Let's talk about what BTI is. Doug,
I'm going to toss this one to you.
Doug Dalton:
So BTI I mean, first and foremost,
we're a nonprofit technical college in the state of Oregon.
We're licensed by the Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
So that's the structure. But really what we are from really day
one is we were focused on supporting the skilled
trades and becoming a, you know,
an entity that which 15 years ago was unique.
It's still unique. But 15 years ago,
they really just weren't technical schools focusing on that
really in the northwest to the extent we wanted to.
So we felt that there was going to be a shortage in the skilled
trades back then.
You know, our board that we had was innovative,
entrepreneurial,
and they felt like, "Hey, we see this coming." And they,
you know,
right how right they were. You know,
was it luck or smarts or both?
But look at where we're at, it's well documented,
you know, the need for skilled trades.
So that's kind of our beginning.
I'm really designed to focus on giving people an opportunity to
get certified in jobs that
pay way – you know, they're not the average paying jobs.
They're not the living wage jobs.
All the terms that have been used in the past,
these are now jobs that are high wage jobs truly.
So over the last seven, eight, nine years,
because the demand is so high and the supply of workers is so
low, wages have increased again and again.
And so now we have wages at an all time high,
benefits at an all time high.
So that's what we're trying to support is get people into those
roles prepared for those roles as quickly as possible,
as employable and competitive as possible.
And that really is what makes a difference in a lot of rural
communities,
a lot of rural communities right here in the OTEC service
territory to be sustainable and to attract businesses and supply
workers. I mean, that really is the difference maker.
And so that was our mission was to try and be that entity across
the region.
And it has, it's grown. So now,
you know, we provide training throughout all of California,
Idaho, Washington, Oregon, you know,
and even now we're actually even traveling internationally,
training heavy equipment operators. So it's really it's grown.
No surprise, because every corner of the world literally that we
go to now all of these same careers are in super high demand.
And there's a lack of training,
and there's a lot of people that live in areas that just don't
have access to the training. And that's,
you know, kind of another piece of our core culture is that from
day one, we knew we needed to be mobile.
We knew we needed to be able to take the training to where it's
needed versus expecting people to always travel to one
location. It becomes a huge barrier for a lot of people.
So we've created a lot of programs that have this element of
mobility.
And, that's part of the reason we've grown so much.
So we offer programs from welding to we train electricians.
We have a culinary school, truck driving school.
Of course, our heavy equipment program has been our flagship for
a long time,
and that's really expanded into heavy civil construction in
general.
So we do a lot of just general construction training for heavy
civil construction,
you know. And now, of course, we have a safety program that Lea
mentioned,
and that's been growing quite a bit as well.
So, and now, lineman so natural progression into what's
potentially the highest paid CTE trade that's out there right
now, but very much in demand and high wage.
Paige Witham:
Absolutely.
Lea Hoover:
Natural progression, then also it really is supported,
the line school is supported,
by BTI's work in CDL and heavy equipment because those complement
each other really well.
And in fact makes the graduates of the line school even more
employable when they come to a utility with their
CDL and heavy equipment experience.
It's just a really powerful mix of different skill sets that the
graduates will have.
Paige Witham:
Yeah. That's awesome. I want to talk a little bit more about
that, because I don't know when a line worker typically would
graduate, would they have to go and again get a CDL,
or is that a part of the program,
all programs are structured that way?
Lea Hoover:
Not all programs are structured that way.
This is a differentiator for BTI that you can add on your CDL.
So it is an add-on to what the line school would be,
as would the heavy equipment.
But it's an opportunity that you don't have to leave campus and
go somewhere else to get.
So it's kind of a one stop shop,
if you will, for all of those different things.
Paige Witham:
I love that. And one thing that you mentioned,
Doug earlier, that I want to kind of come back and tie in
through, maybe another lens is,
growing up, I don't know if you guys felt this way,
but I was told trade school was like the other option.
Kind of almost in a negative light.
And really, that's not true anymore.
It is another option, but it's a great opportunity.
Like you say, the wages are great high paying jobs and everyone's
in need.
So if you want to spread your wings and fly,
you have that opportunity,
you know, wherever you're from. And we hope that you fly here to
Baker City.
Lea Hoover:
Yeah. And I'd add on that too, just the continued infrastructure
upgrades across the entire nation is going to
continue that drive between the drive to the employability of
people graduating from trade schools.
I will say that our board here at OTEC made the decision to
convert some of our academic scholarship funds into
trade school scholarships about seven years ago now,
and that's been a really competitive and
successful scholarship program. And so we have scholarships that
are the same amount,
$5,000. If you want to go, you want to go to a traditional four
year university or you want to go to a trade school like BTI,
and we send a lot of our trade school scholarships to BTI with a
lot of high success rate of those students.
Paige Witham:
That's awesome. I love to hear that.
So we talked about BTI, and I want to get into the APEX Elite
Line Academy,
and we've been talking about it quite a bit here.
But I want to know a little bit more in detail.
What is the APEX Line Academy? How does someone apply?
What does that process look like for new students?
Doug Dalton:
So I'll tackle the application process first,
and we'll talk a little bit more about the school in detail. So
we've tried to make the application process really easy.
APEXLineAcademy.com, our website.
You can get there from the BTI website as well,
but APEX has their own their own location.
All over that site you'll see an "Apply Now" button.
So as you're perusing through and you're trying to make decisions
about your career and where you want to train, you can hit that,
and it's a pretty simple application.
Fill it out online. And then at that point that comes into our
database back at BTI.
From that list, students are selected for an interview.
So we felt pretty strongly that every student interviews that
comes into APEX.
And so we'll have interviews with each student,
and then at that point,
there will be a communication back with the student about their
admission,
their placement, those types of things.
And then, we would begin with one of our student coaches or
enrollment specialists and start working with the students to
prepare them for line school.
Lea Hoover:
I see one competitive advantage of APEX Elite Line Academy as
being the class size,
which is, you know, is really driving,
you know, applicants in the small class size,
about 40 students. Is that about right?
Doug Dalton:
Yeah. I mean, 40 on the high side for sure.
Yeah. And I would agree with what Lea said.
So you know, you'd asked as part of your question,
you know, tell me about APEX and the admission process.
The about APEX portion is, it's 14 weeks of line training,
and then two weeks to get your CDL if
you choose to do that at our school. So that'd be 16 weeks in
total.
That does come with the heavy equipment certification as well.
And you know, when we go back, you know,
Lea says this has been a project for years,
and it has. We did our homework,
and we really looked at line schools across the nation.
How many are there? What is the demand?
What are they offering? What are they not offering? How big are
their classes? And then we talked to utilities and we talked to
linemen that do this every day. And we said,
"What are you seeing coming out of line school?
The new people showing up on the job,
is there a skills gap?
Is there a knowledge gap? What is there?" So we did this for a
few years really,
and we pulled that together. It told a story and the story was
they felt like the training maybe has been slipping
just in general really across a large region.
So we tried to figure out why that might be. And one of the
things we looked at was large class sizes.
And so, you know, we said we are really going to focus on quality
over quantity.
And we're going to have class sizes of 35 to 40 students.
We felt like we could go a lot deeper into the curriculum,
a lot more hands on with instructors,
create a really a rich environment for these students to learn
in.
So we think that makes us different.
And I think that's going to play out in a very positive way for
the student experience and for the outcome.
We truly want to graduate the best line students in the country.
And we say it, we're really serious about it,
and that's how we talk about it.
That's how our board talks about it,
and our partnership with OTEC.
That's the level we want to be at,
and so small class sizes are key for sure.
Paige Witham:
Yeah.
Doug Dalton:
That's one of the major components.
And then you know we've talked about this a little bit before,
but being able to add curriculum components because we already
teach it or because of our partnership with OTEC.
Whatever it might be, to just increase the amount of things that
we can train on,
not only go deeper into that, but just increase what we can
provide them,
so they graduate with a pretty comprehensive training.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, I love that. I love that in our own backyard,
we've got, like you said,
a comprehensive avenue of education for people to come out with
high paying wages.
I keep going back to that because I think it's so important to
know that you don't have to go off somewhere.
You can stay here and learn something incredibly valuable.
And, you know, I think it's really cool.
I kind of want to jump to the economic impact of people either
coming here or staying local to get their education right here at
APEX.
Lea Hoover:
Yeah, I'll start on that one. So when you see the in partnership
with OTEC portion of your introduction,
APEX Elite Academy represents some of OTEC's workforce
development investment.
We believe strongly that the investment in trade schools,
skilled workers in general,
but definitely in the utility industry,
is essential for the health and vitality of communities across
the, definitely across eastern Oregon,
certainly across Oregon and the Pacific Northwest.
So we want to keep that, you know,
keep that local, keep that investment local.
Part of what we looked at when we were making this investment is
the initial infusion from the employees that will work at APEX
Line Academy, the students coming in.
There will be three cohorts of 35 to 40 students,
and they're all coming in,
and they're spending not only their tuition here,
but their living expenses.
They're downtown. They're supporting local businesses.
And so that infusion of dollars,
we measured across the board, and we came up with about $4 to $5
million of annual economic impact.
And that's probably a conservative number.
I'd say that there's a lot of room for growth and opportunity in
how this type of school,
bringing outside students into the area,
is going to support local businesses.
Paige Witham:
Yeah. That's great. And so we talked a little bit there about the
jobs that are created through that.
Doug, would you like to talk about that a little bit more in
detail?
Doug Dalton:
Yeah. Well, you know, with the line school,
we're going to be hiring. We already are,
so it takes instructional staff.
And these are oftentimes people coming in from out of town,
potentially.
It's people that have been linemen.
They've been there, and we're actually doing a pretty wide search
for the instructional staff,
really trying to find the best of the best.
So there's those types of roles,
there's support staff roles, there's administration type roles.
There's specialty instruction, so there's topics that people come
in and instruct that that's all they do because they're
specialists in it. So yeah, there's quite a few roles that,
you know,
that turn into jobs and, you know,
and when they come into our community from elsewhere that drives
more, you know, more economic growth as well.
So, you know, I'll add too, you know,
what Lea is talking about with all the students and the
investment that they bring here.
We're also going to be hosting safety trainings in between
classes where we'll host,
you know, maybe upwards of 50 or more journeyman linemen from
around the Pacific Northwest that come in for training and stay
and get to experience our community.
And, you know, that's icing on the cake,
I guess, if you will.
That's just more people to be here and more investment in our
community.
And we're seeing, right now we're meeting with other partners
that supply safety material or equipment or tools.
They all want to donate to the community,
to our school, prizes for students.
They want to come spend time here themselves speaking with
students.
That's just another layer, again,
of investment into the program,
which turns into everything that's invested in the program goes
right back into the community,
so that's just more on top of that too.
Lea Hoover:
I'd echo that too, that there's a lot of industry support,
a lot of support from other utilities across the state,
and just a lot of excitement around the opening of the line
school.
Paige Witham:
And rightfully so. I think it's just so cool.
So we talked about the curriculum.
I kind of want to talk a little bit about BTI's use of
technology.
You talked about how from the beginning,
you guys kind of saw that that needed to be a mobile program for
some of your other heavy equipment and safety and things like
that.
So I want to talk about your technology aspect of your training.
Doug Dalton:
So for us, technology has been really key.
And you know, it really early on one of the first things we did,
one of the first schools that we opened,
was our heavy equipment operator school.
And back in the day, we had an advisory board that included
representatives from,
you know, Caterpillar, for example.
And the first thing they told us is,
you know, if you have a blank slate and you're creating a heavy
equipment operator school, you have to use technology.
And 15 years ago, that was simulators.
They were fairly new on the market,
augmented reality.
And they were right. I mean, they'd been using them for a while,
and they had realized the benefit.
And so from day one, we embraced technology.
And to this day, you know, we now have a strong partnership with
CM Labs,
who is our simulator provider of choice right now.
And I mean, you learn two and a half times faster in a simulator,
and then we move students to real equipment. So that's just one
example of,
you know, we try and use technology throughout our program
everywhere we can. We try and stay on top of it. It's moving fast
in all of the realms, whether it's healthcare,
truck driving, construction,
line work, any of that. It's moving fast,
and we do our best to stay ahead of it.
But to use it in education is paramount.
It really is, especially when we're trying to do this.
We want to expose students to it,
so they come out exposed to it,
but we also want to train them as efficiently as we can,
and you've got to use it.
So there will be some elements of technology in the line school
for sure.
We want to expose students to some of the latest technology
that's out there,
and it's moving fast. So we will continue with that as part of
how we do things really,
for sure.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, I love that one. When Lea alluded to it earlier with our
360 videos,
but we love using technology as an educational piece,
we have those 360 videos that we load into VR,
virtual reality headsets. And yeah,
just the statistics on how you learn and how you retain the
information through augmented, through virtual reality are just
incredible.
So, Lea, earlier you mentioned trade school scholarships,
which are really exciting and wonderful,
but I am even more excited right now to listen about the APEX
Elite scholarships that we have developed in
collaboration with APEX Elite Line Academy.
Lea Hoover:
Yep. So we at OTEC, we've always offered line school
scholarships.
We're shifting those into directly supporting our members who are
attending the APEX Elite Line Academy.
So after they're admitted to the program,
if they're a member owner,
they live in, you know, within our service territory,
they can apply for one of those $5,000 scholarships.
Our trade school scholarships can also be used for line school,
so there's actually two different routes that students could
take. We're really excited to offer that direct support of our
member-owners as they pursue a career in the line trade.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, I love that. And, Doug, I want to give you a little bit of
space here.
Is there anything that you want to talk to our membership or
listeners about that we haven't already covered today?
Doug Dalton:
You know, I think just echoing I mean,
I just have been at some high schools most recently,
so it's pretty fresh in my mind.
And across the service territory,
I'm talking to, you know, graduating seniors is a lot of the
audience that I'm talking to. And to see the excitement that they
have around this program.
They realize at 18 years old that this is an opportunity that
didn't exist for them before.
And as soon as I mention things like the scholarships that Lea
mentions,
and that creates the conversation of the the benefit of being in
the OTEC service territory and being a part of a co-op that
really gives back and creates opportunities.
It hits home to an 18 year old,
let alone their parents.
Paige Witham:
Yeah.
Doug Dalton:
Right, and so, it's a pretty amazing opportunity for,
you know, for the members and their children and their
grandchildren and for generations to come.
Hopefully this is going to be a pipeline to that.
So in fact, one experience we had a student that went through the
interview process most recently,
and we are early admitting students for the June 8th class,
which is our first class and the top 15% out of the interviews,
get an early admittance. We knew we were going to his high
school,
and so we showed up to talk to a whole group of high school
students.
His mom happened to work at the high school.
His mom shows up, the superintendent shows up,
the principal shows up because they all knew we were going to
announce that the student had been accepted.
And when we announced, we were able to give him a sweatshirt and
a hat with APEX Elite Line Academy on it.
Of course, mom's crying, superintendent's hugging the student.
All of their friends are cheering.
That's what it should be like. That's the celebration of when a
student enters a trade at a high school,
and it's call it signing day, if you will,
commitment day.
That's what I want to see over and over and over in all of these
high schools.
It's pretty cool moment, and that's how it should be celebrated
in my mind.
Going back to your conversation about trades,
maybe were viewed as the other route,
yeah. For the first time in all of our lives,
the skilled trades are now paying higher than the average
bachelor's degree. And that's what changes those moments that we
just saw in that high school.
And average lifetime earnings is now higher for the skilled
trades than the average bachelor's degree.
So I just want to keep seeing that over and over,
you know, and so.
Other than that I would say the only thing we really didn't touch
on is kind of what is the day or the week look like for a line
student? I mean, if you're not in the industry,
you might wonder what happens at this line school?
So we would love to have anybody that wants to come take a tour.
You know, after June 8th when we're up and running,
we would be happy to give tours.
And really, people ccould see this,
and we're going to bring in busses of high school students so
they can see what a career looks like and,
and things like that.
But for the most part, we have an indoor climbing facility,
which is really unique.
It's going to be kind of special.
We have an outdoor pole yard where they build distribution and
transmission lines,
and then we've got a climbing pit,
is what we call it because we climb,
we climb every day. So there'll be line trucks,
there'll be bucket trucks.
Students will be inside an interactive classroom.
They're going to be out in the shop. They're going to be climbing
both indoors, outdoors,
learning a lot of safety components. There's a lot of safety that
goes in, that's really your upfront training.
They're going to learn to construct and build lines,
to put together transformers to be able to run all of the
equipment, heavy equipment, line trucks.
They're going to learn to climb. They're going to learn to rig.
They're going to learn the mathematics and the physics behind all
of that, and it's a really dynamic thing.
They're going to be in teams. Linemen can be competitive by
nature.
And so we're going to have teams competing against each other.
And we're going to be rewarding that character,
leadership, work ethic.
We're going to give students a chance to lead crews,
develop those skills.
So I mean, it's going to be a fun,
competitive, really exciting environment every single day,
so.
Paige Witham:
I love that.
Doug Dalton:
Yeah.
Paige Witham:
I love that. Lea, did you –
Lea Hoover:
It's going to be fun. I can't, I can't wait to watch it.
Paige Witham:
Yeah, me neither. It's going to be great to be able to peek out
the window and say,
what are they doing out there today?
Lea Hoover:
Yeah.
Paige Witham:
Well, I want to give a huge thank you to our guests,
the BTI team,
OTEC partners and our listeners who continue to support community
driven education and innovation across Eastern Oregon.
Thank you both again for joining us today,
and we will talk to you next time on the Power Eastern Oregon
podcast.