Rocky Coastal Electric, a small electrical contracting company in the Lewiston-Auburn area of Maine, has committed to keeping a permanent spot on its crew for someone new to the electrical trade. The company, founded in March 2023 by Master Electrician Corey Hunt, is structuring a mentorship track that pairs inexperienced hires with licensed electricians on real jobs, tracks their progress toward licensing, and holds regular one-on-one check-ins. The move matters because it offers a replicable model for how small businesses in the skilled trades can address the persistent shortage of qualified electricians without waiting for larger workforce programs to fill the gap.
Hunt's own path into the trade began as a helper on solar installations in Massachusetts in 2014. He later worked for a company called ESM before earning his Master Electrician license and joining the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, where he traveled the country working with different union locals. Each step, he said, depended on someone willing to let him learn by doing. That experience shaped his decision to create a formal structure for something he had already been doing informally: bringing people onto his crew who are new to electrical work and teaching them on site.
The mentorship track has three parts. First, new hires are placed directly with an experienced electrician on every job, not just for a training period, until they can run smaller tasks on their own. Second, Hunt tracks each mentee's hours and skills against what Maine requires for advancement, so the work they do counts toward their progress. Third, Hunt meets one-on-one with anyone in the program to discuss what is working and what needs more attention. The approach is a work assignment, not a classroom program, and mentees shadow licensed electricians on panel work and service calls around Lewiston-Auburn.
Hunt is direct about the limits of the program. Rocky Coastal Electric is not a large company, and there will not be a large class of trainees at once. The commitment is to keep the door open consistently for the area rather than to run a big hiring push once and stop. He plans to add a second mentee position once the company's workload supports it. The goal, he said, is not just a bigger business but one that gives other people in the area the same kind of start he had.
The implications for the region are significant. Maine, like much of the country, faces a shortage of skilled tradespeople as experienced electricians retire and fewer young people enter the field. By embedding mentorship into daily operations, Rocky Coastal Electric shows that small contractors can develop talent without a formal apprenticeship program. The model could encourage other small businesses to create similar standing positions, turning individual hiring decisions into a broader community standard for workforce development. For homeowners in Lewiston-Auburn, the effort could mean a more reliable pipeline of qualified electricians for years to come.
