The Oneonta Job Corps Academy unveiled two new telecommunication towers for students to train on Wednesday, Sept. 13.
“It’s a great day to be a Bulldog,” Thayne Bodenmiller, Oneonta center director said. “I have been anticipating this moment for weeks and it’s everything I’ve ever hoped it would be.”
Bodenmiller said people had traveled from all parts of the state as well as Kentucky, Boston, North Carolina and beyond “to celebrate the extension of this prestigious overhead line program.”
The two metal towers — a 100-foot tripod-style tower and a 75-foot mono pole — will serve as training stations for the advanced overhead line, underground residential distribution, and smart meter and instrumentation students, a media release said. Oneonta Job Corps and local employer partner Pro-Tel LLC worked together on the project. Pro-Tel employee Armindo Ortiz Bailon is an Oneonta Job Corps graduate. He helped build the new towers and connected Pro-Tel to the project. The towers will allow students to get used to working at heights above the standard 35-foot and 45-foot wooden poles used in the dome and training yard currently at the campus.
“We’re here today 10 years in on the overhead line, underground residential distribution and smart meter technician advanced training program, and we’re here to celebrate the expansion of the cell towers that have been added to the program” Brian Fox, education and training resources president and CEO, said. “This is the only Job Corps center in the nation, all 121 centers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, to have this advanced training program.”
Fox also spoke about the history of the nationwide Job Corps Academy and the Oneonta site and the history of the overhead line training program and who was instrumental in making it happen, including former director Chris Kuhn, who is now ETR executive director.
Kuhn said instructor Steve Brown came to him and suggested the towers be built, so the “next generation of climbers” could be trained. He said the suggestion stayed with him and he thought, “Let’s be the Job Corps that trains workers at height.” He said employers started coming to the Job Corps to recruit students. “Pretty soon we had employers who wanted to hire the whole graduating class,” he said. “We’ve had 100% placement many times.”
Kuhn also acknowledged some of the alumni in the audience, including Marion Moonysh, who was hired as the first female journeyman at Long Island Railroad as a climber.
Brown, who moved from the Ottumwa Job Corps Academy in Iowa to teach, said there are 16 students in each 16-week class and there are three sessions each year. There is an indoor and outdoor area with wooden poles, plus the two cell towers for students to train on.
“Students can attend from any Job Corps site in the U.S.,” he said. It is one of two overhead line programs in the nation. The other one is in Gary City, Texas. Once students graduate, they are accredited in 20 different industries and can get jobs in electrical, facility maintenance, urban forestry, network cable installation and other fields. “A lot stay locally,” he said.