POWERGRAMS

20 EDUCATION A St. Clair County student arrived at Alabama Power's 12th Street Crew Headquarters in Birmingham with plans to be an engineer or an accountant, but le thinking a career as a lineman may be beer. Those thought processes are music to the ears of some 50 company volunteers who helped stage LEAP Career Day 2019. The Linemen, Engineers and Apprentice Programs invited students from local schools for hands-on demonstrations of what engineers and Power Delivery employees do. About 100 students from Ramsay, McAdory, Pell City and St. Clair County high schools rotated through three exhibit stations staffed by engineers, linemen and trainers showing how to make electricity, how substations work, how to be safe around electricity and various jobs in Power Delivery. "I can show videos in the classroom all day long," said Pell City High career coach Shelley Kaler. "But for students to actually get to speak to experts who do these jobs makes all the difference in the world." "Any exposure they get to careers they don't realize exist is a positive," said Leann Ford, career coach for the St. Clair County School System. "They know about being a fireman, or policeman or other traditional jobs. But they didn't know what Alabama Power has to offer, until today." Indeed, one of the students Ford brought to LEAP Day had a career change of mind. "I have one with me who wants to be an engineer or an accountant. But when he put the (safety) gloves on and talked to the lineman, he said, 'I didn't know what linemen did. But now that I know, I might want to do this.'" The day started with a motivational speech from Anthony Hood, director of Civic Innovation and associate professor of management in the Collat School of Business at UAB. He detailed how he squandered a full-ride scholarship at Tennessee State University, and as a student at the University of Alabama, by skipping classes, playing cards with friends and socializing. "School is serious business," Hood said. LEAP is Alabama Power's volunteer mentoring and recruitment organization aimed at making high school students aware of career opportunities in engineering, technology and skilled trades – which account for the majority of jobs at Southern Company – and how to prepare for those jobs. LEAP's strategy is spot on. "On the way back, I asked the kids, mainly seniors, what I could have done to help them make up their minds about careers," Ford said. "They told me 'more field trips to see what people really do and less PowerPoints.' They want industry people in their schools, talking to them about what they do and how to get there." Learn more about LEAP at readytoleap.org. By Gilbert Nicholson High school students visited 12th Street facility in Birmingham, where linemen and engineers talked about their jobs. Multiple exhibits detailed career opportunities.

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