By Annalise Frank – CRAIN’S Detroit Business 6.3.21

·  Detroit-based utility aims to train 200 tree trimmers by 2024

·  Six-week program partners with Focus: Hope, city of Detroit, union

·  Wages range as training progresses from $16-$29 an hour and higher

DTE Energy Co.

Detroit-based DTE Energy Co. plans to train 60 tree trimmers this year for union IBEW Local 17’s apprenticeship program. Trainees are pictured while practicing climbing during training.

DTE Energy Co. partnered with a union, a nonprofit and the city of Detroit to make a new job-training program for tree trimmers.

The Detroit-based utility company plans to train 60 people this year in its new Tree Trim Academy and 200 by 2024, according to a Thursday news release.

Detroit’s job training and employment agency Detroit at Work, as well as Detroit-based Focus: Hope, are helping recruit trainees. Focus: Hope is also providing services often needed in tandem with employment opportunities, including child care and transportation, during the six-week Line Clearance Tree Trimming program.

Trainees get $50-a-day stipends for two weeks then $100 a day for four weeks, the release said. Then they go on an apprenticeship track, entering IBEW Local 17’s bootcamp and then making $16 an hour to start. Pay and benefits increase the longer workers are in the field. Once a tree trimmer has their journeyman card, they’ll start at $29 an hour with union benefits and with experience can get to upward of $100,000 a year, DTE said.

Tree trimmers clear up areas around electrical lines; downed trees and branches are often responsible for power outages.

The first cohort of 10 students in DTE’s new academy started April 12.

“Detroit has a need for jobs and DTE has a need for tree trimmers,” DTE Energy CEO Jerry Norcia said in the release. “Our Tree Trim Academy will create more diversity in our workforce while creating jobs for Detroiters — and at the same time, help us to continue to improve electric reliability as trees account for 70 percent of the time our customers spend without power.”

Applications are open on DTE’s website. Applicants must be at least 18 years old, have a GED or high school diploma, have a driver’s license and pass a drug screening. The program is “felon-friendly,” per DTE’s site.

The need for jobs — specifically accessible middle-wage jobs that allow more Black Detroiters to access the middle class — has risen during the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit Detroit hard. The city’s unemployment rate wasn’t expected to fall to pre-pandemic levels until 2025, according to University of Michigan experts as of February.