ABC Carolinas Celebrates Graduates of Four-Year Electrical Apprenticeship Program in Charlotte and Triangle
ABC Carolinas recently celebrated the graduation of 24 electrical apprentices enrolled in the chapter’s four-year Apprenticeship & Craft Training Program at a Durham Bulls game in Durham, N.C. and at El Thrifty Social in Charlotte, N.C.
Participants in ABC Carolinas’ educational program work full-time during the day and attend evening classes – two nights per week each semester – at either the Charlotte or Triangle (Raleigh, N.C.) campus. The program uses standardized curriculum developed by the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER). In addition to their education, apprenticeship students are certified by ApprenticeshipNC while receiving full-time on-the-job instruction with an ABC member company.
“2021-2022 was a challenging year,” said Sara Breeggemann, ABCC’s Director of Workforce Development. “Between resuming all in-person teaching, to online testing, the learning curve was steep. However, our instructors and students persevered! Our instructors learned new ways of teaching the material to ensure the best way for the students to learn, and the students figured out they needed to put in much more study time outside of class. As much as we all may have fought against the changes by NCCER, I believe those changes did serve to strengthen the rigor of our apprenticeship program. We finished the year with 16 graduates in Charlotte and 8 graduates in Raleigh. The South Carolina group will have two graduates this year.”
The Valedictorian for the Charlotte Class of 2022 was Ilya Siamenikau with Adams Electric Company and for the Triangle Class of 2022 was Robert Schram with Bryant Durham Electric.
A full list of the graduates include: Mohammad Abdulkareem, Robert Walling, and Raechelle Fields all with Gaylor Electric, Brian Bacon with Excel Electrical, Kevin Boney, Andrew Rapasai, Jesse Repchick, and Ronnie Trammel all with Adams Electric Company, Guillermo Morales-Sanchez, Branden Ortiz, and Cristofer Silva-Garcia all with Watson Electric Company, German Pena-Espinoza with Hard Hat Workforce Solutions, Chase Stinnard with IEG USA, Wallace Murphy and Mitchell Neal with Howard Brothers Electric, Nicolas Averitt, Juan Gomez, Marco Gomez, and Garrett Lawrence all with Bryant Durham Electric, Ronald Barillas, Ezekiel Hernandez, and Alexy Lopez all with Code Electric, Inc.
Congratulations to this year’s graduates! (Main photo at top of page: Triangle graduates. Charlotte graduates pictured within article.)
ABC Carolinas is expanding the Apprenticeship Program for the 2022-2023 with a Carpentry program in Charlotte.
For information on the ABC Carolinas Apprenticeship and Craft Training Program, please contact Sara Breeggemann, Director of Workforce Development, at sara@abccarolinas.org.
