Partnering through PowerPathway™

PowerPathway’s vision is to offer a portfolio of programs aimed at building capacity within California to produce the skilled workers needed by PG&E and the energy and utility industry.

A recent report from the National Commission on Energy Policy stated that the United States faces a critical shortage of trained professionals to maintain the nation's electric power system and to design, build and operate the next generation of power systems. In its research, the Commission studied PG&E's PowerPathway™ as a model workforce development program.

With a large fraction of our own employees reaching retirement eligibility in the next few years, we continue to use a "systems" approach with our PowerPathway program by working with community institutions whose purpose is to better prepare local talent for future energy jobs. By working with established public education systems, we help advise curriculum that will build their capacity to deliver the workforce needed.

We expanded the reach of our PowerPathway model in 2009 by moving into new geographies and welcoming recently discharged military veterans. With help from a state grant, course participants enhanced their academic, physical conditioning, technical, job specific and soft skills to become more competitive for jobs in the energy and utility industry.

In 2009, major program highlights included:

• Three PowerPathway "bridge to utility worker" classes of recently discharged military veterans graduated from City College of San Francisco and Fresno City College.
• PowerPathway graduates qualified for PG&E's Physical Test Battery pre-employment test at a rate of 94 percent—a 20 percent improvement over the prior year's average. The diversity among those who test-qualified averaged 57 percent.
• More than 62 percent of last year's graduates were hired by PG&E, other utilities or utility contractors into positions such as utility worker, apprentice lineman, SmartMeter™ technology installer, power plant technician and gas service representative. These 42 graduates earned wages ranging from $19.50 to $35 an hour.

These results reinforce the fact that the PowerPathway model can serve as a blueprint for other utilities for training the next generation of entry-level employees and helping to meet their future workforce needs.