Ceres High school students are receiving training in electrical technology for the first time ever thanks to a sizable investment made by a Ceres electrical industry business and the tenacity of Ceres Unified School District administrators to get the program off the ground.

As part of the school’s Building & Construction Trades pathway, students travel to Access Electric part of four days a week to train alongside instructor Lonnie Gollihare and CUSD teacher Jordan Dahlin, gaining experience that directly applies toward in-demand electrical careers. A building on the Foundry Court site has been designed as a hands-on learning center where students learn electricity technology knowhow as CUSD takes learning beyond the classroom and into a real-world setting.

At a special presentation held Thursday, CUSD’s Career Technical Education team and CHS students Jonathan Anerson, Yesenia Mejia-Bravo and Jael Mendoza hosted a program presentation before the Stanislaus Partners in Education Board of Directors.

“What we’ve tried to do is be different … as it pertains to having a purpose in doing something that really matters,” said Gollihare. “I think what we do very differently is the mix of hands-on training that we have, with the classroom manager.”

Dahlin, himself a trained electrician, is the class’s assistant instructor.

Approximately 17 Ceres High students spend a portion of Monday through Thursday at Access Electric at training stations to learn various aspects of being an electrician. Students are shown various aspects of an electrician’s job, like pulling wiring through conduit and wiring equipment.

Friday has Gollihare at Ceres High School.

Yesenia Mejia Bravo, one of the students in the program, said she has found hands-on instruction as the best way for her to learn.

“The hands-on part was a good for me, because I tend to learn little bit slower as in just the ordinary … but being able to hands on switch between reading and doing that, I tend to catch things faster,” said Mejia Bravo, who was originally challenged by the difficulty of wiring a motor starter but now feels confidence in knowing how.

She’s even found practical uses at home, learning how a light switch is wired.

She has been encouraging Dahlin to expand the program by introducing it to third-graders at the Farm to Factory event hosted each year by the district.

Mejia Bravo said learning basic electrical knowledge will help her if she realizes her goal of becoming an auto mechanic.

“This has really taught me a lot of things that I didn’t even think I would know or didn’t really I piqued my interest but I’m actually getting more into it and enjoy it.”

The class has also sparked her interest in learning about solar panels.

“In the time that I’ve been in this class, I’ve learned about several branches in the electrical field and have been drawn towards engineering,” said senior Jael Mendoza. He was especially enticed for the job opportunities and job security that would avail him along with great pay.

“My career trajectory has not changed very much since the beginning of the school year,” said Mendoza, “but I am now more open and exposed to other career options in electrical fields. I would probably enjoy being an electrician as well, and throughout this class I’ve learned the basic level of electrical work that will give me a head start if I did end up pursuing this career. In addition, the fact that there are job opportunities at the end of the year is something that my peers should definitely consider and take advantage of. However, I’ve already established a vision about where I want to go in the future and the steps it takes to get there.”

After graduating, he hopes to study electrical engineering at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.

CHS student Jonathan Anerson, who recently applied for admission to Northwest Lineman College in Meridian, Idaho, said the class sparked his interest “because I’m not one of those kids who want to sit at a desk and work for 60 years.” He also started workshops with Gallo Winery this week.

“It’s definitely the career path I want to take,” said Anerson, who has observed his father perform electrical work. “There’s always going to be electricity and there’s always a demand for electrical workers.”

Gollihare said he receives motivation from his students.

“We learn a lot from them at the same time that we’re supposed to be teaching them,” he said. After seeing what they’re capable of it was very humbling coming into this because I thought that it would be one direction and it’s not. It’s definitely a two-way street. We get a lot of feedback. We get a lot of motivation from the kids. They’re not shy about asking questions.”

He also said the students are very good to each other.

In its inaugural year, the program is dynamic and subject to change, Gollihare said.

“This is a prototype for us. We’re guinea pigs, they’re guinea pigs, We’re shifting gears constantly and finding better ways that we could do things as we go along. So we’re not set on one particular roadmap. We’re focused on all road maps. And that’s how we want to be regardless of whether it’s our first year or our last year.”

The goal of the program is to allow students to explore a career field which may or may not be suited to their interests in life.

“None of it’s for everybody,” noted Gollihare. “Even if it’s not electrical, our goal, really, is that they find what they want to do, because I wouldn’t want anybody working in any field if they didn’t enjoy it. The reason why I’m still here is 62 years old and have no end in sight, is because I love what I do. This is a playground for me. So I never go to work. I go to my playground every day. And so I enjoy this. And I want all those students to enjoy where they’re going as well. If they don’t enjoy where they’re going for work, then we need to figure out a different pathway for them. And we’re going to help them do that.”

Access Electric was started in 2002 by Walter Resendes, its president, with the desire to build a training facility. After expanding its Foundry Court plant with a new industrial building, a training lab was built. Resendes hired Gollihare and soon there was a desire to offer training to high school students. 

“Back east in Connecticut, they had technical high schools,” Resendes said at the presentation. “So you could go to high school and you could say, ‘I want to be an electrician.’ And you’d enter the electrician program and you go through your four-year apprenticeship in high school. So when you got out of high school, you’re employable because your (electrical) theory is done and now you just need your 8,000 hours of hands-on training and all that before you can get licensed. And I thought, that’s fantastic, why doesn’t California do something like that? But we don’t have that. And so that was the pitch to Scott (Kuykendall, superintendent of Stanislaus County Schools).”

That led to Access Electric contacting Ceres Unified School District, which has blazed a trail for career training programs.

Emily Harry, CUSD’s director of Technical Education, said she encountered resistance getting the program approved due to concerns about liability.

“I’m not gonna sugarcoat it,” Harry admitted. “It was very difficult to try to get this type of program approved. One, we’ve never done in Ceres Unified. Not a lot of other school districts have done something like this and our district lawyers and district insurance, they were really quick to say no in the beginning, just because it’s kind of unheard of. So it took a lot of persistence and I’m really persistent so that helps. And when it comes to the kids and offering this kind of experience, there was nothing that I think we wouldn’t do to make it happen.”

Adding to the struggle to get the program off the ground was that Gollihare was required to earn a teaching credential in order to teach high schoolers.

“A lot of industry people would be like, ‘No way, I’m not doing that,’” Harry said. “At first maybe he was hesitant, but he took that challenge on and we’re so thankful just for the business, and for Lonnie willing to do that.”

Gollihare took the group on a brief tour of the training facility which also provides lab time for maintenance crews connected to community partners like Gallo, Foster Farms and Superstores, Inc. The stations, equipped with safety devices, are designed to replicate what electricians would find in the real world.

“Walter, out of his own pocket, invested a lot of money into this place because that’s how committed he is to this,” Gollihare said of Resendes. “If we ever see that money back I don’t think that’s our priority.”