Terry Whitworth, District Operations superintendent, and Tim Sweat, Job Safety and Training director, serve on the Advisory Committee for the North Georgia Technical College Lineman Training Program.  

Whitworth and Keith Johnson, Human Resources director, met with 11 participants who completed the Electrical Line Worker Apprentice Certificate course.  They discussed the current state of job placement and various opportunities while encouraging them to remain optimistic about their future in the electric industry.

Since the program's inception, 163 students have graduated, with 96 employed in the field and 24 employed in related fields. 

Lanier Tech’s Oakwood campus offers a new program designed to launch a career in the electric utility industry.

It’s an associate degree (or diploma) program in Electrical Utility Technology, and it trains participants to work as technicians at electrical utilities. Graduates qualify for employment as engineering technician, engineering representative, substation maintenance technician or electrician, meter technician or generator technician.

The program comes at a critical time, when then electrical utility industry is eagerly seeking a new crop of achievers to fill important positions. “We need to get the best and brightest, because half of the work force is getting ready to retire,” says Neil Matheson Jr., the lead instructor for electrical utility technology and electronics technology at Lanier Technical College—Oakwood campus. “We need to get some new blood in here.”

Two Jackson EMC employees teach classes in the program. Doug Smith teaches courses in substation and distribution, and Ken Brand teaches Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). Students also take field trips to Jackson EMC in Jefferson to see their class work in action.

The program—just two years old and graduating its first students this academic year, provides a solid stepping stone to a rewarding career. “The power industry has a retention rate of about 97 percent,” Matheson says. “Once people get hired on, they stay.”

For more information about this program, visit www.laniertech.edu or call Lanier Tech at (770) 531-6300. 

Commerical/Industrial Marketing Representative Todd Evans has been selected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce. Evans’ term begins in January and he will be the first Jackson EMC Employee to serve on this Chamber Board since Neese District Manager Kenny Beck served back in 2002.

Evans has been in his current position at Jackson EMC for seven years. However, during his academic career at the University of Georgia in 1992 and 1993, Evan’s served as an intern for the Athens Area Chamber. Evans says “to go from being an intern to sitting on the Board seventeen years later is a big thrill and I look forward to working with my fellow board members to help improve an organization that I care deeply about.”  

Shawnmarie Budde, work order accounting clerk in the Corporate Office, plays Gwendolyn Pigeon in  the Jefferson Community Theatre's upcoming dramatic production of "The Odd Couple," which is also being directed by Keith Johnson, director of human resources. 

The Odd Couple, performed at the Jefferson High School William Duncan Martin Performing Arts Center, is the second production for the Jefferson Community Theatre, which began performing in 2009 with "Steel Magnolias."  This is the first acting gig for Budde and the directorial debut for Johnson, who was "Steel Magnolias" assistant director. Future plans include a spring murder mystery and dinner event, followed by a summer performance of Neil Simon’s "Brighton Beach Memoirs."