Lone Star CTT

Rebecca Reyes spent nine years in the U.S. Air Force, working with her hands a lot, then came back to see if she could work in the electrical field. When we filmed, she was a recent pre-apprenticeship graduate of Lone Star Construction Trades Training (CTT), the subject of this video for City of San Antonio Workforce Development.

“A lot of people don’t understand the process of how to get into an apprenticeship program,” says Rebecca Young, Lone Star’s founder and an electrician who had 33 years in the trade at the time. She describes an apprenticeship as typically “anywhere from three to five years.” A pre-apprenticeship, she thinks, “really gives people that option to see if they’re gonna like it or not.”

Rebecca Young, who is also an instructor, says part of it, for women, is seeing a woman instructor and knowing it’s a realistic possibility: “if I could do it, somebody else could do it.” Rebecca Reyes says, “My daughter’s 16, she finds it really cool that one day I’ll be out there serving the community again.”

Kim Arispe, director of economic stability at Family Service, Lone Star’s partner on the pre-electrical program, says Family Service handles case management for all of the pre-electrical students and does eligibility for the city’s Ready to Work program. Employers should engage with local pre-apprenticeship providers and with Ready to Work, says Allie Perez, founder of Texas Women in Trades and a DOE RAMP fellow. “The name of the game is Engage.”