Firelands Electric Co-Op offers career exploration opportunity for high schoolers

BRILLIANT — As the white tour bus pulled into the gates of the Cardinal Power Plant, the high schoolers occupying their seats were restless.

“Are we in West Virginia?” asked Carter Bursley, an Ashland High School freshman.

The bus had passed a bridge displaying the sign for the border minutes before pulling into the gates of the plant. Bursley had hopped on the bus at the Ashland County-West Holmes Career Center’s Adult Education Center.

He registered to attend the field trip — hosted by the Firelands Electric Cooperative — because his father is an electrician. It’s a career Bursley’s considering for his future, though he hasn’t completely narrowed it down yet.

“You’ve gotta learn what you want to do (when you’re) young,” Bursley said.

The freshman, who said he’s in a career-based intervention program at school, is also interested in criminal justice, and wants to do a stint with the U.S. Marines.

He had to apply to take the trip to the Cardinal Power Plant, according to Tracy Gibb. Gibb serves as the communication and member relations specialist for the Firelands Electric Cooperative.

The cooperative, which provides power to parts of Ashland, Huron, Lorain and Richland counties, is owned and operated by member-owners.

According to Gibb, Firelands has long offered tours of the Cardinal Power Plant facility to its members. Those have typically happened twice a year — once in the spring, and once in the fall.

But the tours for students remain a relatively new undertaking, Gibb said.

According to Gibb, those tours are ones the co-op began offering just a couple years ago. Thursday’s tour included about 15 students from Ashland County high schools and New London High School.

Students on the tour saw the plant, learned how it operates and heard about possible careers they could have at the Cardinal Power Plant.

Taking the tour

Students started the tour with a video giving an overview of the plant. It talked about the Rural Electrification Act, part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s.

That act aimed to bring electricity “out of the cities and onto the barn,” the video stated.

Then, the video detailed the processes that happen and how the plant provides power to Ohio residents.

It also highlighted changes the plant has undergone thanks to new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency. The video claimed the Cardinal Power Plant is “one of the cleanest power plants in the world.”

Afterwards, students split into two groups and saw the power plant’s facility, getting a behind-the-scenes look at its operations.

Throughout the tour, guides also shared about the job opportunities at the facility. Those ranged from mechanical engineers and environmental engineers, to accountants, to electrical linemen.

The takeaways

Tate Landis, a New London student, said he’d been on the tour before yesterday. Currently a junior, being an electrician isn’t a job prospect he’s actively thinking about.

But, he has considered it in the past, and considers the profession an important one.

“We use (power) every day,” Landis said. “It’s something we take for granted.”

Kaylin Patton, another student on the trip, said she came because her great aunt recently passed away, but had worked at Firelands Electric Co-Op for years.

She has several family members who have worked at Firelands Electric Co-Op. For her, the trip combatted misconceptions about the plant. She used to think coal was simply rocks, but didn’t realize it was ground up in the process.

Patton also thought she’d be sitting in a room and listening to lectures at the tour. She was surprised by how active the tour of the power plant was.

She’s hoping to go into culinary in the future, but said she appreciated learning more about what her great aunt worked for.

“It was a way to honor her,” Patton said.

This independent, local reporting provided by our Report for America Corps members is brought to you in part by the generous support of the Ashland County Community Foundation.