The following is a transcript of the Feb. 9, 2026, episode of Public Power Now. Learn more about subscribing to Public Power Now at Publicpower.org/Podcasts. Some quotes may have been edited for clarity.
Paul Ciampoli
Welcome to the latest episode of Public Power Now.
I'm Paul Ciampoli, APPA's News Director.
Our guest on this episode is Robin Schoettlin, Recruiting and Outreach Senior Specialist at Nebraska public power utility Lincoln Electric System.
Robin is here to discuss the utility's new program called Power Pathways.
The initiative aims to provide high school students with a structured opportunity to observe, learn from, and interact with professionals in a real work environment.
Robin, thanks for joining us.
Robin Schoettlin
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to share details about our upcoming job shadow program, Power Pathways.
Paul Ciampoli
So Robin, just to get our conversation started, I thought it would be beneficial for our listeners for you to provide an overview of Power Pathways and also what prompted LES to develop the program.
Robin Schoettlin
We are hosting three upcoming power pathway days. Each will be a half day session designed for high school students who want to come and explore careers in energy. Each day we will have a career pathway focus.
So our first one we're going to kick off here in February will be engineering. March will be technology and April will be skilled trades.
During each event, we'll welcome students and give a general overview of Lincoln Electric System. Talk about safety, what and why it's important to our industry. And then we're going to break out the students into groups to explore different stations.
So for our engineering pathway day, we'll have 5 stations, asset management and planning, substation, system operations, transmission and asset planning, and projects engineering.
Each engineering department has designed a presentation or a hands-on activity to present to the students so they can have a firsthand experience of what it's like to work as an engineer in a power company.
So after the exploration stations, students will grab lunch and while they are eating, they'll have the opportunity to listen to and ask questions of our career panel.
So we've selected some folks to sit on that career panel that will really talk about their career journey and be available to answer specific questions from their students.
And then the last piece really of our program is to provide students the opportunity to talk with local colleges that have engineering programs.
We have three schools represented that will have information for students regarding academic programs required for these careers and so you had asked a little bit just in regards to how did we come up with this or what prompted us to develop the program.
It was probably a couple of things happening at the same time.
Our public school system here in Lincoln has a curriculum for 11th graders that require those students to complete a job shadow program experience as part of their curriculum so every student has to find a job shadow.
So over the course of the semester, we typically would get these requests from students and pair them with experts based on their interest area.
So that was something that we had been doing on an ongoing basis, but only able to really accommodate a small group of students.
And each student request took up three to four hours per student as they would come and be on site for that job shadow experience so this program was designed to streamline those requests and connect more students at one time.
About the same time, we were kind of thinking, okay, how could we streamline this process?
We had an inquiry from one of our executive team members who happened to have a high school student, and he was asking if there was any opportunity for his son to come and explore careers in energy.
And that request had landed on the desk of our creative learning and development team -- she dreamed up the framework of the model of Power Pathways Day.
And so when she presented it to the recruiting and outreach team, we got really, really excited. And so worked on the program a couple months and here we are ready to launch it in a couple weeks. So we're super excited.
But when you look at the data, and you think about the forecast for our workforce into the future, this is something that we really need to explore as an industry.
Often students decide what they want to be when they grow up as early as middle school or elementary school or the other extreme, students don't have the opportunity to explore a variety of careers. And they don't really feel like they have much direction after graduation.
So we're hoping this program meets both needs. If a student can be inspired early on and be shown the pathway to get there, it just jumpstarts that process. I believe it will bring what they're learning in the classroom to life, and then they get to interact with industry professionals.
So perhaps they can see themselves doing the same work in the future. We're just really excited for the next generation of students to know how cool our industry is, how it works, and who makes it happen.
Because they're using their phone every day, they're turning on the light switch, they're using Wi-Fi, and this just really brings to life what is happening behind all of that.
Paul Ciampoli
You went into some detail in terms of seguing to my next question, which was you provided specifics in terms of those power pathway days. But one question did occur to me as you were responding just now.
So you talked about the specific roles at LES where there'll be a shadowing of professionals.
In terms of like engineering, for example, and the other roles, is that something where you anticipate it would be similar to say next year where this program continues or is it possible that other roles might be incorporated into this program?
Robin Schoettlin
Engineering…is really a high demand job [and] we do struggle to fill those roles, so engineering, we wanted to give the broad spectrum of every type of engineer you could possibly be here at LES. But then that also sparked the conversation of doing our technology day as well as our trade skills day.
So as we've kind of evaluated and said, okay, what would we like to highlight as industry? That's typically how we have picked those specific roles and those departments to be involved.
Paul Ciampoli
I wanted to pivot to my next question, which is if you could describe the ways in which the utility is getting the word out to the Lincoln community with respect to the new program?
Robin Schoettlin
I think engagement with our community is really a core value for us and we have really leveraged those relationships that we've built over the years to launch this.
We partner with Lincoln Public Schools for a variety of events. Our education team is in their classrooms and helping build curriculum and things like that.
So we had the opportunity to engage the curriculum director, the Take Charge program, that classroom that requires that job shadow.
And so we were able to give our ideas and give feedback back and forth to say, okay, what could this program look like and how do we meet the requirements that you as a school district are also requiring of your students.
So we wanted to make sure that we were incorporating everything. So we've pushed that out to Lincoln Public Schools initially, but then we've also extended the invitation to parochial schools and neighboring school districts here in the area as well.
And then our last strategy is to share this on social media so parents can also be aware and possibly nudge their students to participate if they feel like maybe their student would be a good fit for this type of career, or they've expressed interest in one of these career paths.
Paul Ciampoli
And then my last question -- I kind of want to take a step back a little bit and give you the opportunity to talk about if another public power utility that's listening to this episode would consider pursuing a similar program, what would you say are the key steps it would need to take in order to successfully develop such a program?
Robin Schoettlin
I think this is a really good question and I think for us, just involving our industry experts that perform and do these jobs every day is really the key for us to making this work.
Asking them to step away from their regular work responsibilities and create presentations and hands-on activities for high school students is a little bit out of their normal day-to-day, but I truly believe that was the secret sauce to kind of get this going.
As recruiters, we can talk all day about jobs and have those conversations with students, but hearing firsthand and seeing the jobs come to life is something that we can't do.
Each industry expert really has their own story to tell, how they chose their career path, what challenges that they have experienced and overcome, and then them being able to share what they love about their jobs today is really what we want to provide students the opportunity to engage with as many industry experts as possible.
So I think getting their buy-in initially and kind of presenting to them that there would be value in them taking the time to do this with us would be important. And then once we have that buy-in from folks here at LES, I think it was really mapping out the program.
Again, like we talked previously of identifying those positions and those career paths that we wanted to highlight. And then what specifically did we want students to learn while they were here?
And then what could they take with them to consider for their future after they've left the event?
And then the third prong that we really addressed and we wanted to make sure was that we engaged our community partners that have academic programs tied to these careers.
We wanted students to come in to see that there was a pathway after high school, that there was a plan that they could put in place. So I think they know that college and trade schools exist and they're an option, but maybe there's not that connection between school and careers and how they collide.
And so we reached out to, again, our community partners and we're going to plan to have two to three schools represented here on site for each of the power pathway days.
Paul Ciampoli
Okay, great, Robin. Well, thanks again so much for taking the time to speak with us.
As you know, workforce is obviously top of mind for public power utilities these days, so I'm sure that our listeners will get a lot out of this discussion. So thanks again so much for taking the time to speak with us.
Robin Schoettlin
You're very welcome. And again, I just reiterate that we're really lucky to work in an industry that's as inspiring as it is and so to get to pull off a program and share this with folks that don't know about what we do is pretty exciting.
Paul Ciampoli
Yeah, definitely.
And also I just want to extend an open invitation -- obviously, I'm sure you're working on a lot of interesting activities at the utility, so I'd love to have you back at some point in the future to maybe revisit this or other topics.
Robin Schoettlin
Yeah, I appreciate the conversation and I appreciate the time.
Thank you.
Paul Ciampoli
Thanks for listening to this episode of Public Power Now, which is produced by Julio Guerrero, Graphic and Digital Designer at APPA.
I'm Paul Ciampoli and we'll be back next week with more from the world of public power.
