An Alternative Path for Houstonians Looking for Job Security

On Saturday, July 24, IEC (Texas Gulf Coast) will honor 131 graduates who have completed its required four-year apprenticeship training program this year. During a time where many in our country are out of work and deep in school debt, these local IEC graduates along with hundreds of others across the U.S., offer a counter-narrative - receiving a diploma with a guaranteed job, in a secure industry with zero post-secondary education debt.

The ceremony will be held at the Bayou City Event Center with Janet Martin, IEC Board President delivering the keynote commencement address. The graduation ceremony starts at 11:30 EDT.

The electrical contracting sector represents a stable, sustainable opportunity for all job seekers: graduating high school students, military vets, women, minorities, and people seeking to make a career change. And people are catching on to this unique opportunity, particularly during what many are calling a “She-cession.” IEC Texas Gulf Coast alone has 631 current students starting this fall semester.

The benefits don’t stop with the graduates, they carry over to the contractors that employ them. For this year’s 131 Houston graduates, 56 IEC contractors are employing them. “It’s a win-win,” says IEC Texas Gulf Coast Executive Director Helene Webster. “The statistic is that for every year an apprentice has formal education his quality of workmanship increases by 8.6%-10.1%. This not only adds to the contractor’s bottom line, but to the apprentice’s value and the industry quality as a whole. Typically, well-trained apprentices make more money and move into more valuable roles at a quick pace.”

Electricity is at the heart of every technological advance, which translates into career security and living wages well into the future. Advanced levels of workplace safety technology are rapidly evolving in areas as diverse as Smart Buildings and homes, drones, artificial intelligence, 5G, 3D Building Information Modeling, image recognition and prefabrication. All this leaves no question that it is electricians who will power this new world.

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About Independent Electrical Contractors
IEC is a nonprofit trade association federation with 52 educational campuses and affiliate IEC local chapters across the country. We represent over 3,600 member businesses employing more than 80,000 electrical professionals throughout the United States and educate over 14,000 electricians and systems professionals each year across America. Since 1957, we’ve trained close to 300 thousand apprentices in the U.S. IEC contractor member companies are responsible for over $8.5B in gross revenue annually and are some of the premier firms in the industry. Learn more at www.iec.org.