Skills for Sustainability produces potential recruits
President and CEO John Balliew speaks at the first cohort graduation at Western Tech.
Are you or someone you know searching for meaningful work with a sense of purpose? El Paso Water offers a unique career opportunity to do something meaningful for your community.
Our water and wastewater plant employees work at an internationally recognized utility with top-notch facilities, producing a quality product for El Paso. EPWater invests in the latest treatment technology for our water and wastewater facilities so we can provide valuable services to El Paso.
Rewarding partnership
I am pleased with our recent partnership with the Success Through Technology Education Foundation, Western Tech and the non-profit Trust for the Americas to prepare candidates from El Paso and Ciudad Juárez with introductory skills for jobs in water and wastewater plants. North American Development Bank, Microsoft and the EPA provided funding for the initiative.
If selected for the Skills for Sustainability Program, students qualify for six weeks of evening education, training and mentorship for free at Western Tech’s Northeast El Paso campus, 9451 Diana Drive. Students will study math, biology, chemistry and ethics in preparation for a potential career at our water or wastewater plants.
Program graduates may advance to apprenticeships as Utility Plant Technician Trainees and eventually may secure a plant operator position. A Class D Water or Wastewater Operators License issued by the state of Texas is required within six months of appointment.
Upon successful completion of six months of on-the-job training, the trainee will be prepared and eligible for a Utility Plant Technician position.
We are very thankful for training programs such as this one, which offers us a steady pipeline of job candidates. With future facilities planned, such as the Advanced Water Purification Facility, as well as retirements on the horizon, it always pays to be prepared with a pool of potential candidates looking for steady work.
The first cohort focused on the wastewater treatment industry and graduated 20 students in September at Western Tech. A total of 17 graduates applied for the position of Utility Plant Technician Trainee, but only 13 qualified. From these 13, we selected 11 – five of them are women. Our 11 new employees have begun their wastewater careers at all four of our wastewater plants – the John T. Hickerson Water Reclamation Facility, Haskell R. Street Wastewater Treatment Plant, Bustamante Wastewater Treatment Plant and Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant.
Investing in our workforce
We recognize that our employees are the key to EPWater’s success. Because they are valued collaborators, we have increased our investment in our team members. Some of our recent initiatives include:
Improved Utility Tuition Assistance Program (UTAP): We bumped up the annual tuition reimbursement for eligible part-time and full-time employees to $4,500 and $8,000, respectively. We now offer a $50,000 lifetime maximum of tuition assistance, double what the City of El Paso offers.
Salary adjustments: We reviewed and boosted pay for licensed, field and other positions through targeted increases. Included in these adjustments was a pay increase for the plant technician job family to address staff shortages.
Doubled emergency stand-by pay: We wanted to better compensate our employees who perform off-hours repair work during evening or graveyard hours.
EPWater knows our employees can make a difference. That’s why investing in their futures makes good business sense.
If you or someone you know is ready to make a difference by serving our community, new candidates are urged to register quickly for the next cohort that focuses on water treatment. Classes are expected to begin in early January.
On the Water Front is a publication of El Paso Water.
Contact Christina Montoya at 915.594.5596 or cmontoya@epwater.org with any comments or questions.
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