Ann Randazzo Interview
Ann Randazzo is Executive Director, Center for Energy Workforce Development
PUF's Steve Mitnick: What is the purpose of your organization as it's evolved?
Ann Randazzo: This is the Center for Energy Workforce Development, or CEWD as we call it. It started back in 2005. We were incorporated in 2006 and we had a pretty singular mission at that point.
The energy industry was in the middle of a construction build, and saw the aging workforce coming upon us. We knew that we needed to do something to address those issues. We needed more people and we also needed to bring in younger people to replace some of the experienced workforce that was leaving.
We believe in the saying, you can do something better together than you can do it separately. So, the industry came together to share what they were doing to address the aging workforce issue. That concern led to the development of the center.
We have, now, most of the electric and natural gas utility members, along with the major trade associations: the Edison Electric Institute, the American Gas Association, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the American Public Power Association. That really covers the waterfront in terms of utilities.
Most recently, we have had contractors who are beginning to join. We had a big effort in the last year doing some strategic planning.
We were focusing on our tenth year.
Our contractors and their need for a workforce continues to come up.