The Telecom Workforce: Real Issues. Real Solutions. with Cesar Ruiz of Learning Alliance Corporation

Nationwide broadband access initiatives face a significant challenge as the telecom industry grapples with a widening skills gap. The combination of an aging workforce and lack of interest among young people presents a formidable hurdle. However, the Learning Alliance Corporation is at the forefront, working diligently to bridge this gap.

On this episode of 5G Talent Talk, we’re joined by the President and CEO of Learning Alliance Corporation, Cesar Ruiz, to discuss how workforce development programs are reshaping the telecommunications industry. Offering innovative, hands-on training courses and structured apprenticeship programs, Learning Alliance Corporation is bringing new talent to telecom through education. 

Listen as Cesar shares how Learning Alliance Corporation built their academic services that now receive around 1200 applications every month. Learn more about LAC’s role in combatting the workforce crisis, as Cesar shares invaluable strategies on employee retention, offering a glimpse into his distinct approach to strategic partnerships.

Don’t miss this engaging episode that explores the challenges of the telecom skills gap and highlights effective solutions. Tune in now!

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The Telecom Workforce: Real Issues. Real Solutions. with Cesar Ruiz of Learning Alliance Corporation

I’m happy that you’ve joined me. We have an exciting episode for you. My guest is Cesar Ruiz. He is the President and CEO of Learning Alliance Corporation. Cesar is the President of LAC, but let me tell you a little bit about it. They provide over 50 national apprenticeships in high-skilled, high-wage targeted occupations in telecommunications, renewable energy, wind and solar, IT and manufacturing.

The Learning Alliance has been awarded a five-year contract by T-Mobile and other telecom industry leaders of $2 million per year to support diversity and career laddering within the industry. The purpose of this initiative is to bring 150 new diverse technicians per year into the industry in order to address the massive workforce shortage while engaging and providing a diverse workforce for the future. Cesar, thank you for joining me.

Carrie, nice job. You sounded great doing that.

Thank you. I practiced.

If I ever need anyone to give us any more constructive feedback like that, you’re going to be the first person I call.

I love it. I’ll give you a big discount, too. Cesar, let’s jump right into this because there’s a lot to cover here. I know that you work with just under 500 employers, just in telecom alone. You hear a lot from these leaders. What are their biggest challenges right now? What opportunities are you seeing in the industry for them?

Carrie, prior to the slowdown that we’ve had here in the industry over the past few months, I cannot find enough skilled employees. That skilled workforce is definitely an impediment. Unfortunately, as we all know, within the industry, we’re in a little bit of a downturn. The rollercoaster of the industry and wireless is in a bit of a down dip. Right now, it’s more of the stress and the pressure of, “How do they keep the lights on? How do they keep their workforce?” For so long, they’ve had to hire just to meet the demands. Now, when the slowdown has taken place, how do we retain our workforce without losing everything that we’ve invested to train, and really educate on the best practices of the industry?

I believe some of the challenges that I’m seeing is we’re so dependent on the wireless component that as the ebb and flows occur, we’re constantly in pressure going to either having to right size or having to upskill accordingly. That’s something that I think, as an industry, we are struggling with right now. One of the opportunities that I think is directly in front of us though, Carrie, is that with the BEAD funding that is coming down from the infrastructure bill, this just might be the right time for us, as telecom employers, to really diversify, increase the number of clients that we support so that we have a little more flexibility to really support our businesses, our employees, the families who have dedicated their careers to us, while also making sure that we are providing a value proposition to the industry.

Telecom is a lot broader than it used to be. The moment that I saw NATE change from the National Association of Tower Erectors to a much broader encapsulation, I believe that, as an industry, we almost have to follow suit. They are an incredible association that is really leading the way. When you see them do something like that, it’s because they’ve now had to add other employers because broadband telecom is much broader than just the macro site and the 200-foot surrounding that tower.

I just believe that many of the employers that we support already have trucks. They already have the human capital. They already know the employees that they do have and their skill levels. There is an investment in the capital to buy the fiber, whether it’s the splicing or the OTDR or the cleavers or all of those other pieces. There might be an opportunity for these employers to truly look at who the recipients of these awards are on the BEAD side because they don’t have to be the recipients. They could literally be one of the contributors.

If you are a contributor and you expand your business and you limit some of your risk, I believe that the opportunities really do exist, specifically at the end of this month when some of the BEAD funds are going to start to get awarded, will be released. That’s when, as an industry, we’re going to be able to look at, “What would it take for me to diversify my existing workforce also to support some of the middle mile, last mile, fiber requirements, truly this infrastructure bill opportunity through BEAD, and what steps do I need to take in order to ensure that I can cross-pollinate my staff? Even if I have someone that might be burning out or someone that I have a vertical that’s slowing down on the macro side, maybe I can put them on the fiber side so that we can continue to conduct business, provide services, stay in business and thrive.”

How big of a lift is that? Obviously, there are quite a few people on the wireless side that are available right now. What would it take to upskill, re-skill, make that transition from the wireless to the fiber side? Is it simply taking one of your courses, or being trained internally? How heavy of a lift is that?

Depending on the employer. Let’s say you have an employer that has twenty trucks. They already have, let’s say, 100 technicians or 50 technicians, whatever the case may be. I believe those organizations, if they can really look at, “Do they want to make the capital investment? Do they want to go for a 7(a) loan that allows them to obtain the capital to buy the assets because it is an asset-based expansion?” The moment that they quantify how much of an investment they want to make, it’s really seeing who they can serve. For example, I know that on the wireline side, if you work with MASTECH, I know that they have a training program that allows them to take their technicians, work with MASTECH, and have them trained up so that they can then become a vendor.

There are a lot of other organizations, not just MASTECH, that do that. For those organizations that don’t have a vertical in place, we’ve created a boot camp for experienced men and women in the industry to come to a three-day boot camp here in Tampa, Florida, where we’re going to house them, we’re going to feed them, directly from the employer. Remove that cost from the employer. We’ll take that on.

As long as they fly in their employees, we will train them in a three-day boot camp. We’ll give them the necessary skills to understand the structured cable requirements. Then equally as important, focus on the splicing, the testing, and the enclosures. It is a three-day program that’s 12 hours a day. It’s very aggressive. They have to pass all their competencies. They have to do all their enclosures, all their trays, X number of splices at under 0.2 dBs of loss.

At the end of the day, it’s just a framework that minimizes the amount of downtime for the technician so that the employer is not incurring tons of opportunity loss. For every day that an individual is not billing, it is truly an opportunity loss for the employers. We made it just as a very aggressive, intensive, hands-on program to provide that opportunity.

I am hoping that employers within the wireless space are really keeping their eyes open for that because these opportunities are going to continue to increase. They’re going to become a lot more available. You’re going to notice that from BEAD, each state has a broadband office that’s now creating subcommittees within different regions to represent that state that will then be providing the RFPs that we can participate in. If you have a brick-and-mortar in a specific city and state that you identify from your broadband office exactly what committee represents that region so that you and your own backyard can support that BEAD infrastructure uplift that’s going to be taking place. It’s a good opportunity.

Employers within the wireless space should keep their eyes open for various opportunities happening around them. These will only continue to increase as time passes.

It feels like a potential solution to our workforce crisis, especially on the fiber broadband side. Excited to talk more about that.

It would be just so amazing for some of our employers. I have really good friends right now in the industry, Carrie, where I’ve now known them for five years, entering our fifth year here at LAC supporting telecom. We’ve made great friends. Some of these men and women are the reason why we’ve gotten to where we are. They’ve given us feedback. They’re part of our curriculum committee teams. They’re the ones that tell us the academics what’s right, what’s wrong, what needs to be adjusted.

I’m seeing a lot of my friends suffer where they’re questioning, “Do I do the reduction now?” This is now the second time in five years, Carrie, I’m starting to practice insanity. I don’t really want to see my friends practice insanity. There has to be a resolution to these peaks and valleys, rollercoaster experience because it’s a phenomenal industry.

I would just love to see my friends and the families that they serve not be in such a pressure-cooking situation, where they are stressed out about, “Do I make a decision to riff people to right size?” I don’t know how long this storm will last. I’m hoping that this discussion between you and I will create a little more awareness for people to pay attention to. Where are those BEAD funds going to come from? Do I know anybody at my broadband office and the state that I represent? Do I know the committee within my state that represents my area? If they haven’t done that, hopefully, they’re taking notes right now, making that an action item that they take.

Carrie, I’m also supporting this with an article with Inside Towers under the NATE committee that will be released, I believe, in September 2023. That will actually go into this in even greater detail. This is our opportunity to shine and diversify. I just don’t know if we’re going to get another opportunity. Again, it’s not a silver bullet, but it is a star.

You’re in the academic world. How is it changing? What’s transforming there? I know that you have a vision, and we’ll talk about that and how you’re scaling your company to a national footprint. What’s happening in academia?

It’s interesting because it’s evolving. The one thing that we’re seeing a lot right now is on the workforce side, things are becoming a lot cleaner and clear because of the competencies that are associated, whether it’s on the small cell, the fiber, or the macro side. Academically speaking, the labs, the equipment, the hands-on experiences, the virtual reality, it’s a little more fine-tuned.

What we’re seeing a challenge right now is really on the workforce side in identifying, educating, and providing that career exploration to men and women that are not in the industry to support the fact that we do have an aging workforce. Outside of LAC, I do know that there is a bit of an impact in trying to retain people. Many times, when they leave, they may not be staying within the industry. How do we attract people into our industry when unemployment is under 4%? How do we attract people?

We’ve had a great deal of success with veterans, but there have got to be other ways to attract other individuals in different areas, which is where the T-Mobile NextTech Diversity Program has been a big opportunity. We’ve been able to go to economically challenged areas, which, unfortunately, are predominantly supported by Black and Brown individuals. We’re going to those communities, letting them know that there is an opportunity in telecom.

When I see academia and the workforce, the academic component now seems to be very consistent. We have to be as flexible as tin foil. Every quarter when I meet with our committee, we have to take their advice. We have to take their opinions into account, make modifications to our content to meet those requirements. Many times, the interpretation of what we think needs to be provided and what the industry states are totally different.

Academically speaking, thanks to our employers, they give us the necessary feedback for us to change our content accordingly, but we’re still struggling right now with really enticing people into telecom as a whole, because it’s not easy work, Carrie. This is difficult. It’s working in the elements, it’s working at heights, it’s working in teams, in extreme heat, extreme cold. It is not the most attractive. We’re trying to get now into the youth, academically speaking. We have 65 young men and women that are juniors and seniors in high schools here at our facility for the week. They’re doing a four-day 5G career exploration class. They’re getting a lot of a hand.

I love that.

In our community, Carrie, here in Tampa Bay from Pasco-Hernando, Pinellas, and Hillsborough, we’ve got young men and women here. They’ve declared that they don’t want to go to college, so they’ve come here. We’re showing them. By the time they leave tomorrow, they’ve already spliced, they’re learning how to use an OTDR. They’re getting some of the basics to understand, “Can I see myself doing this?” They can then go back and tell their parents. They can then tell everybody else about it. We’ve got to get the word of mouth to everyone, including our youth, to make that happen.

On a national footprint, LAC, we’re here. We have a location in Dallas. We’re going to have a location in Seattle here shortly. I believe that academically, some of the community colleges and state colleges, I would love to see them continue to evolve. Some of their big impediments, Carrie, will always be for them to hire an instructor to go get the equipment. It’s a very expensive deliverable.

Something that we’re doing academically is by the end of this quarter, we’re going to have an academic program already created, where a two-year community college can basically say, “I want to add a telecom 5G program.” Most of them are landlocked. They’re tied to their county like we are here in Tampa.

Hillsborough Community College doesn’t step place in Pinellas County because that’s not their region. That’s the politics of being a public entity. However, I don’t necessarily know whether I have enough jobs here in Hillsborough County to support a 50-person graduating class, 200 people a year here in Tampa. If I spread it out into all three programs, I’m going to be running three classes of five here just for Hillsborough County. It’s not financially sustainable. Does that make sense?

Right.

With our program, it allows them to basically look at an end-to-go methodology, where we are the delivery agent for them. It becomes a revenue share. You don’t have to worry about getting the equipment, hiring the instructors or anything because they’ll be able to leverage us. They will be the school of record, and we will be the academic provider. We provide the instructor, the virtual reality, the curriculum, and we can then support their ecosystem so they don’t have to take on any expenses but just support the requirements of the employers in their community.

That’s scalable?

Yes, ma’am. It is. If you put a $500,000 price tag on setting up a Tower Fiber Program, and an academic institution does that, and within the first five years they don’t get the right throughput of attendance, that program will die. If you look across the country, there have been many academic institutions that have attempted that, and they haven’t been very successful because it’s expensive.

If you put a huge price tag on your academic program and it doesn’t get the right throughput of attendance within the first five years, it will die.

First, it’s hard to find an instructor that meets all the academic requirements. Then, you’ve got to retain that individual. Then you’ve got to go recruit the individuals in their community to try to fill those jobs. You’ve got to be blessed enough to have employee relationships in order to keep that going. That’s just a massive undertaking.

Let’s talk more about finding the people, the students, the people who have an interest in the telecommunications industry. Where do you find them? Where do you go? Are there any interesting, creative strategies that you’re using? That’s another thing we struggle with, even with unskilled labor. You have the model, you’ve got a phenomenal opportunity here, but we still have to have the actual people.

We receive about 12,000 applicants a month. Out of those 12,000 applicants, we have to vet through them all. The goal is to identify typically about 1,000 men and women that are truly interested.

You get 12,000 applicants?

Inquiries, every single month.

I’ve got to know what your marketing plan is. This is awesome. That’s great.

It’s phenomenal. We may be an educational organization, but we’re really heavily focused on our marketing, not just our point-per-click campaigns, not just PPC, but a lot of our backlinking that occurs in that space. We’ve also had a lot of success working with faith-based institutions in a lot of the different areas that I believe in. You know the area where we live in. Right, Carrie?

Yes.

There’s the St. Pete area. In the St. Pete area, there are a couple of great pastors that have an incredible flock. What’s really crazy about it is the level of diversity that is associated with that flock. We’ve been able to go through some of those areas, identify some key leaders, and then really engage. Right now, a lot of the nonprofit organizations, the Urban Institutes, there are a lot of great organizations out there that are serving. There are many workforce development boards. We collaborate very closely with many of them from housing authorities, to workforce boards, to faith-based institutions to then traditional marketing campaigns.

The goal is to really cover in a blanket format a very simple message. What we’re trying to do is create the greatest amount of awareness, just enough of a message to say, “That’s interesting. Don’t know what that means, but I want to know more.” Then just engage in that, so that we can provide them through trip campaigns, information about the different types of jobs. If at any point they’re willing and able to click and learn more, they can see the curricula and videos. We’re very blessed to have an incredible association that provides so much content. They provide videos with the movie that they put out, incorporate them.

It is incredible. We just use that. We use that as a platform to demonstrate to people that our phones don’t work from pixie dust. There are brave men and women that climb towers, get on top of buildings, or use bucket trucks to actually do the setups. It’s creating awareness. There are 12,000 interests a month. We talked to about 1,000 of them, and that’s how we historically gained our 100 students a month.

I know when we’ve spoken before, you mentioned something about people transitioning from prison. Speak more about that. Is that an opportunity as well? How do we get there from here?

Carrie, I’m struggling with a couple of things there. If I’m being very sincere, I believe that when men and women do their time in prison, whatever it may be. Let’s say it’s a non-violent crime. It’s just an individual that has hit bottom that now wants to be a sustainable member of our society. The concern is that when they come out, they still have to serve a seven-year sentence because they can’t pass a background check. If we don’t want romanticism, we’ve got to figure out a way in policy to try to help those men and women obtain high-skilled, high-wage careers that allow them to be self-sustaining.

There’s a great opportunity for us to focus on the re-entry population. I am very excited. There are three different opportunities that I have right now for the great State of Florida for us to support that re-entry population. I’m afraid to move forward with it because unless we get support from the carriers and the tower owners that they will support a system that does not require them to pass a seven-year background check, what is the point of us serving and training men and women to get their hopes up in a high-skilled, high-wage targeted occupation, only to know that when they come out of prison, they try to gain employment, and no one will give them employment because they cannot meet the seven-year background check?

If there is a way to fix that, I would be all ears. If anyone is reading this and they have a resolution to that, or they want to participate in how we can lobby to make that change happen, so we can build the right policy, I will stand in my soapbox, and I will support that for as much as I can. I will tell you firsthand, we are a second-chance employer. We have multiple employees that served their time.

There is no point in training people from prison for a high-wage occupation, only to find out later that no one will give them employment because they cannot meet the seven-year background check.

As crazy as it sounds, they have turned out to be great individuals because they’re grateful for the opportunity. They’re grateful for the ability to have not a job but a career where they can sweat hard enough and see that there is a future that allows them to serve their families financially, to put food on the table.

It gives them hope that whatever they did to get them to where they were is no longer a path that they have to take because there is a path directly in front of them. Carrie, I think policy is the next impact. Right now, I’m lacking the confidence to communicate that opportunity to someone that’s incarcerated with clear knowledge that they’re not going to be able to be employed.

I totally understand that, and it happens. With us in staffing, we have someone who was transitioning, and then they have a background, and then we have to tell them, “No, you’re not able to have this job.” It’s tough, especially when we’re in the middle of this workforce challenge, crisis, whatever you want to call it, especially on the fiber side. It’s tough. We need people. It is a challenge, but again, it’s a big mountain to climb, especially with the bigger companies who have very strict policies in place across the board. It’s definitely something to start talking about, start having dialogue about, and like you said, get the message out, get the word out, and that’s what’s important.

To take that a little further, though, we went from having roughly around 1,400 job openings on the macro side. Now, we’re roughly 350 openings. When the employers basically come on board, they’re letting us know what their requisitions are so that we know exactly where they need them, so that we can engage in our marketing campaigns to attract the talent, let them know about the careers, bring them in, train them, certify them, and then give them to the employers. On the macro side, that has shrunk from that 1,400-ish a month to roughly around 350.

When you look at the fiber side, on a national footprint, we went from maybe 150 to 200 potential openings a month. We’re now slightly under 1,000. That has tripled in demand. At the end of the day, we are having some impediments on the macro side, and a lot of our friends are feeling it. The opposite end is, in that same requirement, they need people.

If we cannot come up with an incarceration solution to allow those men and women to work, we’re never going to really fix the problem. We’re just going to be robbing Peter to pay Paul. The competitor’s going to call, talk to your employee, offer them a dollar more, and we’re going to lose a skilled workforce member, a critical member of our team, just because there’s no funnel. There’s something to be said there.

I just have to say amen to that. I love this. Speaking about losing someone to a dollar more an hour, what are some retention strategies for technicians and field workers? What makes them stick and stay?

We’ve seen a great deal of success through the apprenticeships, Carrie. Apprenticeships have really been a key piece to retention from what we’ve noticed from our alumni, since we’ve had a significant amount of alumni now in the industry. We tried to do an analysis of how many men and women are still with their employers and why they left. You’d be surprised. The story of somebody leaving for a dollar, maybe slightly less that is a fact. We were able to confirm that from our alumni. That is a scary component. When you asked them why they left, the key answer was because they had no idea when they were going to get their next increase and what they needed to do, skills or competency-wise, in order to obtain that.

When you look at the apprenticeship framework, what’s successful is you can grab someone, put them as an apprentice, and you know that over the next 2,000 hours, which defines the next work here for them, “These are the skills, the competencies that you need to achieve. This is the related technical instruction. I’ll give you 74 hours of this learning. You specialize in X, Y, and Z. In exchange, as you achieve these milestones, you also get a wage increase.” That’s really been a big component of opportunity. It has been that opportunity to provide clarity and transparency between the employer and the employee on exactly where they are and where they’re going.

What we do here at Learning Alliance is provide a success coach. We provide mentors, subject matter experts, and the system so that we have one individual that’s managing the apprentices, contacting them on a biweekly basis, making sure that they’re progressing in the apprenticeship management system, doing their RTI, logging in their hours on the OJT. Working with the mentors to ensure that “Johnny needs help in blueprinting. That’s the next competency. Let us identify a work order that allows them to practice that, so that we can apply it and support it.”

We support that ecosystem of we’re always constantly learning. We’re always constantly developing. In exchange, all parties win. You as an employee, you get better, you get wiser, you become better. You truly become a skilled individual. When you check off the competency, the reason why the Department of Labor requires 2,000 hours is because you have to master that. You may be able to do a splice now, but you need time in order to master it.

Through a lot of these apprenticeship structures, it’s just a one-year milestone. It’s a perfect where an apprentice can sweat hard enough and see a year down the road and know that they’re going to get a $1 at the six-month mark, another $1 at the one-year mark. If I’m at $20 an hour, I’m a greenhorn, I just came in, and I know that I’ll be at $22 an hour at the end of year one. I’m not going to leave because Johnny down the street is offering me $1 more because I’m at $20, and I have no clue or understanding that I’ve got $22 in the bag.

That’s what the apprenticeship does. It tells them that there’s $22 in the bag. If you do what you need to do, you show up on time, you get your job done, do your RTI, and complete your on-the-job training, you’ve got $2 in the bag. That makes it a lot harder for someone to poach your employees. It also becomes a tool, by the way, Carrie. If you’re an employer and you have an apprenticeship program, that should help you attract more talent.

Tell me more about how you partner with companies. Let’s go a little deeper there.

Again, very blessed to work with 480 employers, just slightly in our 500, and we’ve got multiple ways that we support them. One is if they’re in a very difficult area to attract talent, a lot of Michigan, those states where it’s extremely cold and hard to find someone that wants to climb in the middle of the winter. We work in many different ways.

Let’s say that someone wants to be in the industry but they’re not a veteran, so they don’t have a GI Bill. Let’s assume that they’re not a minority. Therefore, they don’t qualify for the NextTech Diversity Program. Let’s assume that it’s just an individual that wants to come into the industry, but they don’t qualify for any of our funding programs.

They can work with our financial institutions. We’ve raised over $8 million with financial institutions in order to provide credit to students. If an employer says, “I’m looking for a tower or a fiber tag. I’m willing to pay the $6,500 for the fiber program.” As a retention tool for the student, they don’t pay the monthly payment associated with their tuition. Let’s say the monthly payment is $140. The employer states, “I will take care of that $140 payment every month when you come on board. For as long as you stay as our employee, we will take care of that monthly payment as a retention tool.”

Those are some of the creative ways that we’ve been able to work to attract people into the industry, and then get them employed, and then have a relationship between the employer and the employee where there is a retention mechanism. It is outlined with an apprenticeship program so that that individual earns while they learn. If they didn’t have the financial ability to pay for their tuition, there is a financial institution with an $8 million raise that we’ve been able to do to provide that as a backup, with the employer making the payment as a retention component. That’s been very successful. Those are some of the weird, crazy ways, Carrie, that we’ve just figured out a way to support the industry, support our employers.

We do so many things for employers. We’re doing everything from providing them with a learning management system, an apprenticeship management system, a single sign-on API so that when they onboard an employee, automatically their credentials are created via single sign-on. We’re providing a credentialing system, which is a digital passport with all their certifications that they could be at a job site or they could show up, they click on a QR code, and all their credentials are readily available.

We’re providing a mentor-apprentice methodology for them to track and submit a ticket so that if Cesar is really failing with his closeout packages, I can go in there. My mentor can go in there and say, “Cesar’s got to work on closeout packages because he’s got a 10% closeout package failure rate, which impacts my ability to bill, which means everybody loses.” How to create that system that empowers apprentices, employees, mentors, or top hands or foremen to communicate on best practices in a very healthy format that does not require people yelling at each other or being upset with one another.

Cesar, I hear so much about our workforce challenges. When I talk to you, I just hear solutions. I hear strategies, and it’s so inspirational. What you’ve created, I want to congratulate you, not just for what you’ve created, but your heart is in it. You have a purpose, you have a mission, and it’s way bigger than business. It’s such an inspiration. Every time I’m with you, I feel like jumping on a whiteboard and start creating something amazing to solve all the problems in our industry.

Let’s collaborate. That’s what we should be doing, Carrie.

Let’s do it.

Let’s begin and collaborate. What I do like is that it wasn’t just us, Carrie. There are a lot of great companies out there that we partner with. There are a lot of really great people that have supported. This wasn’t just because Cesar or LAC did anything. This was truly a significant amount of employers that put in their effort or time, and gave us feedback. We weren’t always this clean. We started a program that was two weeks long. Now, we’re five weeks long. We started a program that didn’t really have guys climbing at height. Now, they’re climbing at height. We were having them climb at the end of the program. We learned that that’s not the right time.

There’s been a lot of cause and effect, and we’ve learned quite a bit. I really do pray that we can continue to get the industry to continuously talk about the things that we don’t want to talk about or that may seem a little confrontational. As soon as we create that awareness, for better or for worse, we bring it to light. When things are brought to light, they can be addressed.

I don’t believe our workforce situation is going to be fixed anytime soon. I pray that we, as an industry, academic institutions can build a sustainable ecosystem. I do believe we have to get better at diversifying ourselves so that we’re not a one-trick pony just doing wireless with only maybe three customers. I believe we have to diversify that.

I believe that it only makes sense for us to cross-train our employees and our workforce so that someone that may be tired of climbing for seven months straight can maybe go do some small cell installation or fiber middle mile, or last mile. There are many ways that we can collaborate and talk out loud so that the ugly can be brought to light, and then it can be addressed as a future resolution. That’s what I’m hoping that we get out of all of this.

Cesar, where can we reach you and your website? I’m sure there are many people in the audience that are saying, “I want to know more.”

I would say go to MyLearningAlliance.com. I know, horrible domain, insanely long. Trust me, I know that now. That was then, and this is now. Go to Contact Us, and then there’s a feedback form. If someone puts in their email address, first, last name, and then in the message, put in there what they’re interested in. Are they interested in the workforce component? Are they looking for the apprenticeship solution? Are they looking to identify their next generational workforce? They want us to identify their next technicians. Do they want us to help with their retention components? What are they seeking? How can we serve?

There’s a lot of information, not just about our programs, but our apprenticeship solutions, and then our non-credit programs, our non-academic programs that are through continuing education, that can also support a lot of their learning and development. If they want to basically minimize waste and rework, and they want to enter one of our diploma programs that are focused on Lean Sigma to minimize waste, rework, and efficiency in scrap.

A lot of the methodologies that we’re applying to are closeout package classes. Let us know what is your biggest pain. If you’re reading this, tell me what keeps you up at night. Let us know how we could serve an area of opportunity. Fortunately, we’re surrounded by great people here, Carrie. They believe in the mission. They believe why we’re here. We serve the industry. We support one another. As long as they let us know and they click the submit button, they will hear from us within historically 48 hours. At that point, we can engage in intelligent conversations to determine how we can serve them best.

I just had somebody that submitted about a few weeks ago, and we were able to identify them to participate in one of our grants. Grant season is starting. Most state budgets begin on July 1. For those that don’t know, over the past several years, we have been a grant-writing firm. We’ve written over 350 grants. We’ve received millions of dollars in awards, and that’s how we’ve served our employers.

There are some pretty key timelines. July 1 forward is a state year. October 1 forward is a federal year. Whether it’s federal or state, basically, a lot of those funds are going to become available in the next six weeks and forward. Again, whether it’s in the grant space, workforce development, retention, or upskilling, go to the website, put in the information. Let me know how we can serve.

Cesar, thank you so much for having a conversation with me. This has just been fantastic. You make a difference in the industry and in the world. Thank you.

So do you, Carrie. I appreciate you having me. I appreciate you having this show and bringing in so many different organizations and opinions on how things are taking place. Maybe in the future, we can bring one of our employers in so we can talk about what we’ve done has impacted their organizations. Maybe they can talk about what workforce development is for their companies.

That’s a great idea. I love it.

Maybe you can also serve them with staffing because even in this environment, everyone is still needing that one individual. Just let me know how I can serve, Carrie. I will be at a moment’s notice. I appreciate you for everything that you do. Thank you for having me on this show. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Cesar. We will talk very soon. Thank you.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Learning Alliance Corporation
• Contact Us – Learning Alliance Corporation

About Cesar Ruiz

Cesar Ruiz is the President and CEO of Learning Alliance which provides over fifty (50) national apprenticeship in high-skilled / high-wage targeted occupations in telecommunication, renewable energy (wind/solar), IT and manufacturing.

Ruiz leadership has focused on two dynamic issues that have led to fast-paced national growth of Learning Alliance. First is a focus on the importance of bridging the gap between academic learning and Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAP) to create a student/employer learning plan that is cost-effective and can be achieved in under 7-weeks. Via Florida Department of Education approved programs, students earn front-loaded pre-apprenticeship Learning Alliance credentials which articulate toward a Department of Education approved diploma and paid apprenticeship placement. Currently over 1,200 students have completed the LAC pre-apprenticeship diplomas with an opportunity to articulate paid apprenticeship solutions that align to credits toward a college degree.

Ruiz is a firm believer that access to middle class wages can be achieved if students are provided training that mimics the daily world of work, and where the cost-benefit is clear to students. Out of this belief, Ruiz created the NextTech Diversity Program with T-Mobile to provide scholarships to low-income students and is proud of the 146 students that have graduated with no debt and are currently working as apprentices and earning a middle-income salary. Ruiz has also overseen the creation of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) systems that mimic daily world-of-work and empower apprentices to learn anywhere at any time.

Learning Alliance has been awarded a 5-year contract by T-Mobile and other telecommunication industry leaders of 2 million dollars per year to support diversity and career laddering within the industry. The purpose of this initiative is to bring 150 new diverse technicians per year into the industry in order to address the massive workforce shortage while engaging in providing a diverse workforce for the future. “There’s not a lot of people that know we have a 20,000-job void and we can fill people almost immediately and we need to make sure there’s the support structure, that there are loan programs, apprenticeship programs. So, I’m proud of the work that teachers are doing here and of the LAC organization.”, said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr.

Ruiz currently sits on the Small Cell & DAS Committee and Workforce Development Committee with the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) and the Wind Workforce Standards Committee with the American Clean Power Association. Ruiz was also awarded 2022 Veterans Champion of the Year by G.I Jobs Magazine.