Utilitrain

Three Cecil County Seniors Awarded $24,000 MEAF Grants to Train as Lineworkers

CECIL COUNTY — Three local high school seniors are trading caps and gowns for hard hats and climbing gear. Over the past two weeks, Darrell Russell of North East High School, Christopher Lawrence of Rising Sun High School and Drew Marcinkevich of Perryville High School were each awarded a $24,000 grant to attend Utilitrain, the regional lineworker trade school, and begin careers powering the communities they grew up in.

The awards were funded by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF), which supports programs that help young people build pathways to meaningful careers. More information about the foundation is available at us.mitsubishielectric.com/en/sustainability/greater-community/meaf-top.

The checks were presented jointly by Dr. Heather Handler, who authored the $100,000 grant proposal that secured funding for Cecil County, and Luke Granger, president of Utilitrain and a graduate of North East High School.

A $100,000 bet on the trades
Dr. Handler wrote the $100,000 grant with a simple proposition: students should be able to choose a local trade school whose rigor matches their program of study, and that choice should be funded the same way a four-year college might be. Her proposal asked Mitsubishi to back students entering programs of varying lengths and intensities — from heavy equipment operation to the more demanding lineworker certification — so that the level of investment matched the level of training required.

Over the past two years, that pitch has put a total of five lineworkers and ten heavy equipment operators through training, all of them Cecil County students.

Handler and Utilitrain have been building toward this moment for years. Their partnership rests on a shared conviction that the trades and traditional schooling belong on the same team — that a senior bound for a lineman's apprenticeship deserves the same send-off as a classmate bound for a university.

“These students aren't choosing a backup plan,” the partnership has consistently argued. “They're choosing a career.”

Granger, who walked the halls of North East High School before climbing his first pole, said handing the awards to this year's recipients carried a particular weight. After years in the field, he is grateful for the chance to pass on what he has learned to students from his own community.

One of only two on the East Coast
Utilitrain is one of just two lineworker trade schools on the East Coast of the United States, which makes the school's local roots all the more unusual. Its leadership has leaned into that position, becoming the official business partner of North East High School and an advocate for the next generation of tradespeople.

For Russell, Lawrence and Marcinkevich, that advocacy now comes with $24,000 in tuition and a clear runway to a career. Each will report to Utilitrain after graduation to begin training as a lineworker, the men and women who keep the lights on across the region.