NMTI courses for CUC employees set to begin April

Training for qualified employees of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. through the Northern Marianas Trade Institute will begin next week.

According to CUC human resources manager Andrew Orsini, they are now targeting to start classes on April 4.

“This is the first ever of its kind,” Orsini said.

Initially, CUC targeted February to begin training but it has been pushed back.

“There’s a lot of logistics they didn’t understand was required particularly for the off-island trainees,” CUC acting executive director Gary Camacho said.

“We want to get housing for them, in that way they stay throughout the whole process and then return certified,” he added.

The training will be open for Saipan, Tinian, and Rota and about 15 trainees per class will be selected.

Orsini said a written test will be administered to select final participants to the training and to gauge the level of knowledge of the participants. They are mostly targeting new employees of CUC for the program.

He added that part of the curriculum, which would deal with power generation, are hands-on training.

Previous discussions of the curriculum planned to include introductory craft skills such as basic safety, construction math, hand tools, power tools, construction drawings, basic rigging, as well as communication and employability skills.

The power generation staff development program is a CNMI Department of Labor-recognized course.

“We want to encourage employees to avail of this program and that those who want to enrich themselves and advance themselves further, we highly encourage them,” Orsini said.

Orsini said CUC will subsidize the cost for the training of its employees, and at the same time, they will get paid.

“They will go through this like an educational [program], it’s almost an upgrade for them, at the same time they’re also working with the corporation. So they will be learning at the same time working,” Orsini said.

Camacho said they are happy with the collaboration that they have with NMTI and that they are also encouraging people who might be considering working for CUC to reach out.

“We encourage anybody out there interested in working for CUC to come down and see what’s available and submit an application,” Camacho said.