Hundreds of IBEW utility and outside construction apprentices will soon count Tennessee as a destination for learning, as work is soon expected to begin on a new Southeastern Line Constructors Apprenticeship and Training facility just east of Nashville.

“It made sense for the IBEW and our contractors to have another school where we could train our members,” said Tenth District International Vice President Brent Hall, whose jurisdiction covers Tennessee, Arkansas and the Carolinas.

SELCAT has one of the largest training programs of its kind in the IBEW, with nearly 900 apprentices from the union’s Fifth and Tenth districts receiving training at the original campus in Newnan, Ga., along with scores more at a second location near Florida’s Lake Okeechobee and at a satellite facility in Puerto Rico. Other large centers in the eastern U.S. include ALBAT in Medway, Ohio, and NEAT in Douglassville, Pa.

“It was just time to build another SELCAT,” said Hall, who was appointed a SELCAT committee advisory member when he became a Tenth District international representative in 2002. After he was made a committee trustee five years ago, he quickly stepped up his lobbying for another facility.

SELCAT’s governing partners — the IBEW, the Electrical Training Alliance and the National Electrical Contractors Association — approved Hall’s proposal and selected a 40-acre parcel near Lebanon in Wilson County for construction. “It’s somewhat rural, but it’s easy to get to,” Hall said.

“We looked at the map, and we saw that Lebanon was in the middle of the Tenth District’s jurisdiction,” said SELCAT Executive Director Danial Haddad. “What we’re trying to accomplish is not to inundate any particular SELCAT location and also make training more convenient for IBEW members who are working in these areas,” such as for Middle Tennessee Electric Cooperative, the state’s largest co-op, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, whose coverage area extends into six bordering states.

“Danny has grown our training programs incredibly, and he sees that our work just keeps picking up,” Hall said. “He’s a forward-thinking visionary.”

Initial plans for the facility in Lebanon include an indoor training yard, classrooms, dormitories and offices. There is plenty of space to handle future expansion, something Hall believes will be needed.

“We’ve been organizing very heavily,” he said. “Over the past six years, we’ve brought in over 2,200 linemen just in our four states.”

Electrical careers with the IBEW are attractive in part because of the union’s quality apprenticeships, which are funded by contributions from utility and outside construction employers based on the number of hours that IBEW members are on the job. “The more hours that are worked by our people, the bigger our training programs grow,” Hall said.

Training also is why the IBEW’s utility and outside construction members remain in such high demand to keep North America’s aging electrical infrastructure connected and functioning.

“Just fixing what we’ve got now is a lot of work for us,” said Hall, who’s encouraged by what he sees as growing interest among young people in the electrical trades.

“It’s great to hear kids say: ‘I don’t want to go to college. I like being outside. I like a challenge,’” he said.

It doesn’t hurt that graduating IBEW apprentices emerge from their training with no college debt, Hall said. “Since their first day, they’ve been getting a paycheck plus health care and retirement benefits,” he said. “They can easily make enough money to buy a house and raise a family.”

The SELCAT project in Tennessee received approval from the local planning commission, a crucial milestone supported by Wilson County Mayor Randall Hutto.

“He used to be a high school teacher and coach,” said Hall, who has known Hutto for years. “He’s pretty excited about SELCAT and the educational opportunities it will bring.”

Hutto said the new facility will be great for the area. “It’s about improving people by making them smarter and better and safer,” he said.

Now that the planning commission has given the project a green light, Haddad expects construction to begin shortly.

“We’re just trying to finish through the bureaucratic stuff, and we’re still working on things like engineering, sewer and sources of water,” he said.

Hall hopes to cut the ribbon on the campus’s grand opening sometime next fall. Meanwhile, he and his staff have been in discussions with the TVA, MTEC and others about training partnership opportunities at the Lebanon facility.

“It’s been my dream for us to have a SELCAT campus in the Tenth District,” Hall said. “This is a dream come true.”