OREANDA-NEWS. March 17, 2016. The CH2M team in Gilroy, California, partnered with Gavilan College to offer an operator internship at the South County Regional Wastewater Authority. CH2M was the first company to create such a partnership with the college, which offers a Water Resource Management Degree.

The 20-hour-per-week internship runs for a two-year period and provides the expertise and experience required to obtain a Grade 1 Operator Certification by the California Water Boards. The program has been such a success that the team recently hired their first intern as a full-time CH2M employee!

“Filling operator positions has been difficult for us in the past. The internship was developed to assist us with having a trained work force. We are fortunate to have a college providing water resource education and a client that supports our efforts,” said Jan Guy, plant manager.

In response to the successful partnership, the college introduced CH2M to Water Career Pathway Consortium, a program dedicated to addressing the skilled worker shortages facing the Bay Area Region’s water industry. The program requested a tour of the wastewater treatment plant for the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s Advanced Placement Environmental students.

CH2Mers provided a three-day educational tour for 40 AP students each day. To best accommodate the group, students were divided into three small groups and visited three different stations for 20-minute demonstrations. The stations included site projects, a process and facility tour, and lab and compliance reporting.

Patricia Call, program coordinator for the Water Career Pathways Consortium, said, “Our commitment to promote the water industry as a career destination could not be fulfilled without the leadership and collaboration from entities like CH2M.”

CH2M has operated the SCRWA’s 8.5-mgd wastewater treatment plant for 90,000 citizens of the cities of Gilroy and Morgan Hill since 1984.