Rick Labon, WECA’s Senior Education Advisor and Curriculum Development Lead, is celebrating his 20th working anniversary with WECA this year!

Before beginning his WECA career as an instructor at our San Diego training facility in 2005, Rick gained extensive experience in the electrical industry, from apprentice to journeyman, to foreman, supervisor, and electrical contractor. Altogether, Rick has worked in the industry for over 40 years—but his interest in the electrical field all began in his junior high school electronics class, when he took a particular interest in three-way and four-way switching.

Rick was instrumental in the opening of WECA’s Riverside training facility in 2010, and was our first Lead Instructor at that location.

In his current role as Senior Education Advisor and Curriculum Development Lead, Rick creates all manner of learning content for WECA’s Apprenticeship, GetWired Electrician Trainee, Journeyperson Continuing Education, and Industry Education programs. Rick’s role has a heavy emphasis on the development of interactive e-learning content for engaging online courses and simulations.

“In the coming years, I hope to incorporate ever more interactivity for our learners,” says Rick. “Being an electrician is a hands-on trade, and designing courses that require learners to build or wire equipment in a virtual scenario helps reinforce the concept of why we do what we do as electricians.”

Michelle Gilkey, WECA CGO/CINO, says “Rick is always pushing the envelope on electrical industry education. If you've ever seen any of the excellent original technical illustrations in our curriculum, those were created by Rick. He taught himself extended coding skills for our eLearning development platform so he could gamify our learning activities and assessments. He’s been a mentor to so many of his team members, and not a week goes by that I don't hear someone asking for his insight and guidance.”

Rick surmises that WECA’s greatest asset is its ability to adapt as the electrical trade continues to evolve and its focus on implementing new technologies into its training programs. “Our highly knowledgeable instructors provide our students with the most current and up-to-date information on electrical building trends. This includes using job site management tools for real-time collaboration and digitized documentation management via mobile apps,” says Rick.

Rick reports that his favorite aspect of his role is having the ability to take a concept, create content based on code or theory, create illustrations, and bring to life “why we safely do many of the things we as electricians do every day.”

Rick reflects that one of the most memorable moments of his WECA career was when his former student, 2018 WECA Commercial Electrical Apprenticeship Valedictorian Demi Zayas, gave a moving and memorable speech on her motivator to excel as an electrician—her daughter.

When not working—which Rick’s wife, Sherry, says he does too much of—Rick enjoys playing the guitar (his heroes are Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana), non-edible gardening, riding his motorcycle, and spending time with his seven grandchildren.

Speaking of Sherry, Rick thanks her for “giving me the confidence to become an instructor when WECA asked me to join the team.”

WECA would also like to thank Sherry for giving Rick the confidence to join WECA. Rick’s contributions to WECA over the course of his (thus far) twenty-year career with us have been immeasurable, not least of which includes his involvement in making WECA’s electrical apprenticeship and training programs the best in the industry.

Thank you for everything, Rick—cheers to twenty years, and many more!