This special NETA section of the magazine is a compilation of interviews conducted at the 2023 PowerTest Conference where we interviewed board members and thought leaders with great insights into NETA as it embarks on several strategic initiative, including adding the “I” for International. When I attended my first NETA conference over a decade ago, I have been impressed by the way members, who are often competitors, come together in a more collaborative way to make our industry better, safer, or reliable and resilient.

Alan Ross:
Bob, tell me a little about your perspective of the Apprenticeship Program?

Bob Sheppard:
The way that we envision the program working out is NETA will own the master document, and NETA is not going to administer that document like the IBEW would or NEC or somebody like that. The individual NETA accredited companies or realistically, anybody that wants to say, “We recognize this is a Department of Labor thing, we want to be a part of that.” You wouldn't necessarily have to be a part of NETA. It's just that it's focused around being the electrical test technician standards that need to be developed.
However, as the companies, this becomes available, there'll be an announcement, and we'll try to involve as many people as we can because it's a big, important deal. It is. And what happens is the individual companies will then go to NETA and say, “We want to adopt that program as our own”. So they don't have to reinvent the wheel. And they manage that document. They manage their people. They manage the process by themselves with the assistance of NETA as an ad hoc process.

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