They’re on a power trip

Dangling by a rope and belted around a telephone pole, Ryan Adams put into practice all he’s learned the last 10 weeks in Glendale Community College’s first-ever Verdugo Power Academy.

The 20-year-old lowered a cross arm, a wide wooden bar that supports transistors and wires, and yelled, “Unbelted.”

He began his roughly 30-foot descent from the towering telephone pole. He hopped down after a little more than 10 steps, momentarily taking off his hard hat, and catching his breath in a glaring November sun.

“It went well; I got it up and got it back down,” he said. “You learn every time you go up.”

And you learn who’s afraid of heights, said Anthony Sylvers, the academy’s instructor and an electrical line mechanic for Glendale Water & Power.

“This is what we do every day to restore power,” he said.

Adams’ telephone pole is 45 feet, but professionals sometimes climb up to 90 feet without a harness.

“It’ll be second nature to you,” Sylvers said. “It’s a different feeling in a quarter-inch of wood.”

The academy graduates its first class Jan. 15, and the 18 unemployed students will have been retrained with the basic skills and foundation of electrical infrastructure. The students, many of whom lack electrical and previous utility work experience, will graduate with a climbing certificate, utility line experience, 17 college credits and about 600 hours of classroom and hands-on education.

Graduates may not all choose the exhausting and physically demanding line work, but are being exposed to career opportunities as electricians or technicians at utility substations and elsewhere in the power grid.

“It’ll give them a leg up on other applicants,” said Patrick Riley, an electrical superintendent for Glendale Water & Power. “They won’t learn everything . . . but it’ll get them experience. If they’re accepted by a utility, they go through another pole-climbing course.”

The Verdugo Power Academy is funded by a grant from the federal stimulus and recovery bill that passed in February. Don Nakamoto, a labor market specialist for the Verdugo Workforce Investment Board, which approved the grant, said the academy helps satisfy a shortage of utility workers.