Robert Hartman sees his future with a clarity that some might consider unusual for a 22-year-old.
A graduate of North Jackson High School in Stevenson, Ala., he now lives in Fort Payne. He’s employed by Chattanooga-based Adman Electric, but spends most weekdays working for Adman at Scottsboro’s Vulcan Materials Co. plant.
Hartman’s plan is to spend two evenings for each of the next four-and-a-half academic years honing his craft at the Chattanooga Electrical Apprentice Training Center (EATC).
“It makes for some long days,” he says, “but toughing it out now means it’ll be better – and more money – later on.”
A joint enterprise of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 175 and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), the EATC has been training electrical apprentices since 1949. Kenny Smith, the center’s longtime training director, estimates the center has turned more than 2,000 apprentices like Hartman into “journeyman wiremen” in the past 70-plus years.