College trains teen to be lineworker
After Hurricane Irma left his Puerto Rico home battered and without power, Derick Santiago packed up and left for Florida.
But the 18-year-old would like to return to help keep the electric grid up and running. Five months since the storm, more than 155,000 people in Puerto Rico are still without power, including his grandfather.
Santiago is learning to climb utility poles and repair transformers in Lake-Sumter State College’s electric utility lineworker program in hopes of following his father and brother into a field projected for faster-than-average employment growth over the next decade.
“My uncle found the college,” said Santiago, who relaxes by playing NBA 2K on his PlayStation. “He told me if I have a certificate, I can help, so I came.”
Coming out of Lake-Sumter with an electric distribution technology certificate, Santiago will be able to earn about $20 an
hour. The job’s importance was highlighted by major damage and power outages caused in September by hurricanes Irma in Florida and Maria in Puerto Rico.
“Our industry average is right around $40,000 out of the box,” Lake-Sumter President Stanley Sidor said. “But they earn significant overtime. It wouldn’t be uncommon for a student to earn $70,000 a year — but out in the field means you’re out at 2 in the morning.”
Employment for electrical power-line installers and repairers is projected to grow 14 percent through 2026 — faster than the average for all other occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Elsewhere in the region, the Northwest Linemen College in November 2016 opened a campus in Edgewater to train lineworkers. The college — which also has campuses in California, Idaho and Texas — has a 15-week lineworker program. Graduates can land a number of utility jobs, such substation technicians and equipment operators, according to the college website.
Lake-Sumter, which has two campuses in Lake County and one in Sumter County, recently tweaked its program to churn out graduates faster, cutting it from two years to just one semester.
“Looking at our program performance, we knew that our students weren’t completing our program,” Sidor said. “And when we looked into it, we discovered they were going to work after just one semester. There’s such a shortage in the line industry, they were hiring them right away.”
Students now may enroll in an eight-week “boot camp” course starting this summer at Lake-Sumter, Sidor said. Students will earn 24 credits toward an associate degree and receive a basic certification.
About 50 people, including Santiago, are enrolled in the program that can funnel into jobs with school partners, such as Duke Energy, SECO Energy, Florida Power & Light and the Pike Corporation — which does construction, repair and engineering work on distribution and transmission power lines and substations.
Duke, for example, supports two energy programs at Lake-Sumter for relay techs and lineworkers and has given $1.5 million to the school over the years to bolster them, Duke spokeswoman Peveeta Persaud said.
But Santiago said he wants to work at one place only: B & B Electrical and Utility Contractors Inc. in Puerto Rico, with his dad and brother.
The day after Irma hit Florida, nearly 20,000 restoration workers from 30 states were on the ground in the state. After Maria clobbered Puerto Rico, however, only 400 such workers were on the island after a month — and many couldn’t work because of a lack of basic tools, according to a congressional letter and report that alleged corruption at the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
“My dad told me they don’t have the tools … they don’t have what they need,” Santiago said.
He moved to Winter Haven, where his mother lived, just weeks after the storm. His grandfather refused to budge.
Now Santiago is commuting 80 miles each way to escort dummies down power lines at Lake-Sumter’s Sumterville campus on the path to returning to Puerto Rico as a lineworker.
“If I can get back,” he said, “maybe I can help.”