Electrical apprentice Ethan Duquette on Making Apprenticeship Simpler

Intro

Welcome to another instance of our Making Apprenticeship Simpler interviews, where we ask stakeholders from all corners of the apprenticeship sphere how to make apprenticeship simpler. Today, we're thrilled to have our first apprentice join the conversation, Ethan Duquette, an IEC apprentice based in Austin, Texas. Ethan shares his personal journey from high school graduate to embarking on a rewarding apprenticeship in the electrical trade. He highlights the pivotal role of mentorship and the simplicity of the application process, while also discussing the challenges of visibility in apprenticeship opportunities.

Highlights

• Ethan is introduced to apprenticeships by his girlfriend's father

• To apply, he calls IEC, fills out application, and he received a quick response from a company

• Ethan had no trade experience -- just dedication and certainty about career choice

• Ethan's high school experience: strong college-oriented approach, lack of awareness about apprenticeship

• Outreach strategies: having trade and apprenticeship representatives in schools

Transcript

Patrick Cushing:

Ethan, really appreciate you joining me. As I mentioned, going into this, we're doing these conversations with folks involved in apprenticeship all over the country. Super excited to have you on, talk about your perspective as an apprentice and how we can make things simpler. But before we do that, we'd love you to just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit more about yourself, your apprenticeship, how you kind of got involved, how you found the apprenticeship in the first place.

Ethan Duquette:

Sure. So my name is Ethan Duquette. I got involved with my apprenticeship last year after I graduated high school. My girlfriend at the time, her dad actually went through pretty much the same program. So he told me about it, explained, you know, the basics, gave me a phone call, and then that was pretty much it. I started from there.

Patrick Cushing:

Cool. And, how did you apply? How did you get into it? Tell me a little bit more. All right, so you found out about it. Happen to know somebody. It's great. How did you actually, get from finding out about it to becoming an apprentice yourself?

Ethan Duquette:

I pretty much just called the IEC and said, hey, I just graduated. I'm looking to get started in the trade. Where do I start? They told me to come down. I filled out an application. They put my name on their website, and then within a week, my company had called me and wanted to hire me.

Patrick Cushing:

That's awesome. And, I'm just curious, I don't know if you had any sort of trade experience or electrical experience? What was the interview like? What were they looking for from you?

Ethan Duquette:

I think mostly they were looking for dedication, someone who was sure this is what they wanted to do that wasn't just going to flake out on them, like, two or three weeks into it. That was kind of the vibe I got. They really wanted people who knew this is what they wanted to do.

Patrick Cushing:

Yep. Awesome. And remind me again where you're based.

Ethan Duquette:

I'm in Austin. Cool. All right.

Patrick Cushing:

So from Austin, Texas, then one question I asked everybody. Oour company mission is how to do things simpler. We're really curious to hear the perspectives. What is the one thing do you think can be made a lot simpler in the apprenticeship world? How do we make apprenticeships simpler across the board?

Ethan Duquette:

I think from a retrospective standpoint, it's probably visibility, because by the time I graduated high school, my school was very college based. You got to apply, you go to college, you've got to get a degree. And at the time, I really. It's not that I didn't want to, but I didn't have any aspirations in college. I couldn't really see a future for myself there. And it kind of felt I have two options, the military or college. And I had to pick. So I sat on it for a little while until I ended up being introduced to the IEC, gave them a call and kind of went from there.

But, yeah, I think having the option of an apprenticeship program or some sort of trade is nice to know that it's there.

Patrick Cushing:

Yeah. So, you know, I think in some circles, people refer to apprenticeship as, the best kept secret in workforce, which is absurd. We should make it so it's shouted from the rooftops. Everybody should know these exist. In countries that do this really well, it is thought of as a parallel path. You know, it's right up there. Because you go to apprenticeship, you go to college, doesn't really matter. So I'm curious, if you had a magic wand, right, and you could address this problem, how would you make apprenticeships more visible? How would you make sure that you're not relying upon someone happening to be dating somebody whose dad was an electrician. How do you solve this problem from your perspective?

Ethan Duquette:

Probably from an outreach standpoint? At our school, we had people from different colleges come in and talk to us, tell us about their campuses and whatnot. We had a military recruiter come in. They talked to us, the senior class. They told us all about the military. And that was interesting, but that was it. Those were the only two pathways they offered to us. So I think having somebody from the trades or from an apprenticeship program come out to different schools, especially ours, I think would have been a really nice thing to have offered to us.

Patrick Cushing:

That's awesome. I think, you know, there is some movement, we have seen some movement where more employers get involved, more state folks get involved, obviously not to the level where everybody knows about it. It's still a bit of a secret. So increasing visibility in apprenticeships, fantastic perspective. That's all we've got today. Like I said, we keep these nice and short, so thank you, Ethan. Really appreciate your perspective. And you have a good one.

Ethan Duquette:

Thanks. You, too.