Tech Recruitment Programs Growing Gallons, Propane Workforce

(Georgetown, Del.) has developed a program that will give students a close-up look at the workday of a propane service technician. The program also will give the company a chance to recruit, mentor, and perhaps hire a new generation of techs.

A subsidiary of Chesapeake Utilities Corp., Sharp Energy distributes propane in Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It is also a partner of Alliance AutoGas. In this new program, the company is partnering with a local high school and two community colleges: Sussex Tech High School (Georgetown, Del.), Delaware Technical and Community College (Dover, Del.), and Wor-Wic Community College (Salisbury, Md.).

In a part of the program that will be offered for the first time this summer, students will work full time, shadowing a technician. Two students from each of the three schools will be offered this summer internship. The idea is to give students the hands-on experience they need to earn a certificate; give schools an opportunity to place students in jobs after graduation; and give Sharp Energy a chance to evaluate the performance of interns before offering them a job.

“When they graduate after a successful stint in the program, we hope to invite them to come to work for us,” says Andy Hesson, vice president of Sharp Energy, who developed the recruiting and mentoring program. “It’s not a sure thing, but we hope they will.”

“We have a pretty compelling story,” he adds. “This is an opportunity for people who are not going to college. For students who like working with their hands, this opportunity is out there.”

The program has been in the works for about a year, Hesson says. Like other companies in the propane industry and other industries, the company has found it increasingly difficult to find and hire service technicians.

“There has been an overall change in the last five years or six years,” Hesson says. “People used to line up to work in jobs like these. Then we couldn’t find people and we had to pay top dollar for those we could find.”

“For people who have grown up with computers, field work is something they are not familiar with,” he adds. “It’s an unknown what propane technicians do.”

When Hesson took the idea of the internship to administrators at the schools, he explained to them the industry and the opportunities it offers. “The first time we met with them, they asked, ‘What does Sharp Energy do? What does a propane field service technician do?’ We had to sell what our company does and what our industry does.”

The company made a video that includes this information. It has shown the video at schools and job fairs. The schools it now partners with also play the video between classes as students are walking around. “Anything to get our message out,” Hesson says.

“Our message is that we care about the future of students and for those with aspirations of having a fulfilling career, this can be that opportunity,” he adds. “We have had service technicians go into management, engineering, business, and analyzing. We have a service technician now managing our Dover district. He was a technician, then a service manager, then a district manager. These are real-life examples.”

The company’s partnership with the schools has already resulted in one hire. “We had one student who had been studying auto mechanics come to us,” Hesson says. “It was a great transition. That is one of the industries we are competing against for talent. People with a hands-on, mechanical mind get up to speed in half the time.”

The video Sharp Energy uses to introduce the company and the propane industry to school administrators and students—“Who We Are”—is available for viewing on the home page at sharpenergy.com. — Steve Relyea

(Copyright: Butane Propane News, June 2019)