BUSINESS RECORD: New Registered Apprenticeship Seeks Career Climbers

One of Iowa’s newest apprenticeship programs will enable participants to experience what it’s like to work hundreds of feet off the ground. Murphy Tower Service LLC, a Carlisle-based company, has developed a registered apprenticeship program to train telecommunications tower technicians. 

“We have really struggled to fill our open positions the last several years, so we decided to create an apprenticeship for tower techs that would allow a young person to see exactly what they would be doing, how much they could earn in their first year and what a future in telecoms could look like,” said Pat Murphy, an owner of Murphy Tower. 

Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg will tour the company today to receive an overview of the new program as part of a weeklong series of visits of registered apprenticeship programs for National Apprenticeship Week. A nonprofit program for underprivileged high school students, Iowa Jobs for America’s Graduates, is also partnering with Murphy Tower to offer a pre-apprenticeship program in the career to its students. 

The tower technician program is one of three new registered apprenticeship programs in the state. During her weekly news conference Tuesday, Reynolds announced that Wells Fargo & Co. and Tyson Foods will each begin offering registered apprenticeship programs in Iowa. 

Wells Fargo will offer apprenticeships in four occupations: bank branch manager, operations management, project management and risk consultations. 

Tyson Foods will offer a registered apprenticeship for mechatronics technicians. The multidisciplinary field includes a combination of mechanical engineering, electronics, computer engineering, telecommunications engineering, systems engineering and control engineering.