Hunter Williams

I first became interested in on-site power generation during vocational school. I was looking to combine my interests in engines and my background in electrical.  While looking through a Penn College programs catalog, I discovered the program and knew that is exactly what I have been looking for.

I chose Penn College for the top of the top tier labs, small class sizes, and instructors that came from the field.

What I enjoyed most about the program was the internship. During the internship is where you get to see the skills and concepts that make it to real world applications. You can come out of the internship with new skills and connections that can be applied during the completion of the program.

The internship allows you to work side by side with professionals in the field.  You complete daily jobs from preventative maintenance to larger repairs.  You gain valuable interpersonal skills of customer relations and teamwork.

My favorite project is the one that has challenged me the most on a technical level.  The project was for a critical customer that could not lose power at any point during the upgrade.  The customer had two generators that parallel together that would feed the site if one of two separate utility sources were to fail.  The job was completing panel upgrades on the two generators along with replacing all process components inside the switch gear. At no point could they be down more than one generator or one utility.  It was very rewarding to organize, complete and test at different stages of the project.  To complete and handover a project of that size was extremely satisfying.

Data centers will have a positive effect on me and my career.  It is creating a more competitive market that will reward high producing technicians.  There are more growth opportunities now.  Leadership roles are going to become a lot more common in this field.  The field before a project at this scale was very individualized and you might go a month without seeing co-workers.  Now I am lead on a project that has twelve technicians.

I have seen a lot of growth in the last year with data center growth.  I see this growth impacting the next generations of power generation in a very positive way.  For upcoming professionals, they are going to have multiple career paths to pursue.  For example, before this project and industry came to this area there were only limited career paths. You were a technician and had opportunities to move to management or sales.  Now I see plenty of positions that I can move into.

I am looking forward to another industry coming to PA.