Western Pennsylvania residents will have the opportunity to participate in the nation’s first-ever electric vehicle technician apprenticeship program this December.
The one-year program — created through a partnership between the Department of Labor’s Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship and local groups — was announced Thursday in Pittsburgh, before the committee’s quarterly meeting.
Participants will complete 185 hours of technical instruction and full-time, paid on-the-job training in dealerships. Classes will be held at the Community College of Allegheny County’s West Hills campus. Program graduates earn 15 college credits and certification as electric vehicle automotive technicians.
Thursday’s announcement came at the PA CareerLink Pittsburgh Downtown Office, one of many employment centers across the state. In his opening remarks, Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey emphasized how apprenticeship programs can transform careers and lead people to family-sustaining wages.
“People walk in here, and they have no hope at all,” Mr. Gainey said.
“But at the end when they get that check in their hands — you see that gleam in their eyes and how it changes immediately. And that’s the power of workforce development — the ability to make people see what they couldn't see before they met you.”
Local partners behind the program include the German American Chamber of Commerce’s Pittsburgh chapter and the Greater Pittsburgh Automobile Dealers Association.
German American Chamber of Commerce Pittsburgh Chapter President Rachel Mauer said the program’s curriculum is based on one that has been in use across Germany for over a decade. The Automobile Dealers Association developed the on-the-job training plan.
Partner4Work, a nonprofit workforce development organization in Allegheny County, also helped to create the program. The group’s CEO, Robert Cherry, serves as board chair of the Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship, a 30-member national board that provides recommendations to the acting secretary of labor about how best to use training programs nationwide.
The committee held its quarterly meeting in Pittsburgh to recognize the city’s status as one of five White House Workforce Hubs, obtained in 2023. The nation’s Workforce Hubs, designated by the Biden-Harris administration, help to form partnerships that connect people in different regions to quality jobs.
The committee also chose Pittsburgh to recognize its multiple apprenticeship programs — including the new electric vehicle technician training program.
According to Ms. Mauer, the electric vehicle apprenticeship pilot has been in the works for two years, and program developers picked Pittsburgh as its home because of demand — for both electric vehicle technician skills and training programs.
This is the fifth apprenticeship program that the German American Chamber of Commerce has registered in Pennsylvania. And Pittsburgh currently operates the largest electric vehicle fleet in Western Pennsylvania, with a goal to operate a completely fossil-fuel free fleet by 2030.
The new program is funded by a Department of Labor Green Infrastructure Grant, as well as grants from the Hillman Foundation that supported the creation of a new electric vehicle lab at the Community College of Allegheny County’s West Hills campus, where program instruction will take place.
The lab will contain training systems and equipment to teach students how to operate electric powertrains, battery systems and other electric vehicle technologies. Training systems are completely simulated and not specific to any brand of vehicle, Ms. Mauer said.
The Community College of Allegheny County also contributed funding obtained through various grants, according to Ms. Mauer.
“I think what's going to empower these students [and] what they're really excited about is, we're bringing these training systems in where they can actually learn these skill sets in a safe environment, to bring down that fear of the electric vehicle,” Ms. Mauer said.
The program’s first cohort will be small. Ms. Mauer expects to enroll practicing vehicle technicians and students already participating in automotive programs at career technology centers — agencies across the state where high school students receive technical training.
By summer 2025, she hopes to roll out the program to a broader scope of participants.
Career technology center and community college instructors will staff the program and receive training this November. The first group of apprentices will begin working in dealerships the following month, and enter the electric vehicle lab for technical instruction in January of 2025.
This program comes amidst increased statewide investment in apprenticeship programs.
Gov. Josh Shapiro has more than doubled Pennsylvania’s apprenticeship program funding, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry Apprenticeship and Training Office Director Tara Loew said during a panel discussion of apprenticeship programs following the announcement.
Ms. Loew added that her department has increased staff from two full-time employees in late 2020 to 25 today.
And over the past two years, Partner4Work has supported five other new sector apprenticeship programs. That includes PIT2Work, a five-week pre-apprenticeship course on trade union careers at the Pittsburgh International Airport that has received national attention.
Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship members visited the airport Wednesday to see the program in action, part of a multi-stop tour of local apprenticeship programs in celebration of National Workforce Development Month.
Increased state funding for workforce development comes alongside historic federal investment in sustainable infrastructure. The Justice40 Initiative of 2021, Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and other recent legislation doled out unprecedented funding for the country’s energy transition.
Panelists on Thursday touted these initiatives and emphasized the importance of coordinated local, state and federal efforts to connect everyone — especially underserved communities — with training for jobs in emerging industries.
“A successful apprenticeship system is much like a mechanical system — a mechanical system that many of us work with — in that each gear is imperative to keeping the ecosystem moving and producing,” Ms. Loew said.
There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Community College of Allegheny County’s West Hills campus’ new electric vehicle lab on Oct. 31. Instructors will begin their training to start teaching the program’s first cohort of apprentices shortly after that date, Ms. Mauer said.
First Published: September 13, 2024, 12:30 a.m.
Updated: September 13, 2024, 12:15 p.m.