Kyle Sheehan worked Wednesday with other L& B Electrical Contractor employees wiring high-end condominiums on Munjoy Hill in Portland.

“There’s a fantastic view (of the ocean) on the top,” Sheehan said.

He attended Lewiston Regional Technical Center when he was a Lisbon High School student and graduated from Washington County Community College.

At age 19, he’s employed full time as an electrician.

“I love it,” he said.

Sheehan expects to become a master electrician when he has enough hours of experience, which could come by age 22.

Sheehan said he became interested in studying electricity when a guidance counselor came to his high school English class and talked about Lewiston Regional Technical Center programs. Lisbon High is one of six schools served by LRTC.

He knew another student in the program. “I thought it was cool,” Sheehan said. “I tried it out.”

His summer job in school was working for L&B Electrical Contractors of Lisbon, under the direction of an electrician.

Attending LRTC “made a huge difference,” he said. “Knowing all the basics going into college, and going to work,” Sheehan said. His teacher, Greg Cushman, was a role model, he said. “He’s one of my favorite teachers.”

L&B Electric owner Jim Lamson said he’s hired several electricians who studied at LRTC.

“They do a good job of preparing them, getting them ready,” Lamson said. “We can handle the on-the-job training. The big thing is they come out of there with the education portion wrapped up.”

Sheehan is “the kind of worker every business would like to have,” Lamson said. “He wants to work, wants to learn. He seems to enjoy what he’s doing.”

Kelly Morris is another who attended LRTC. She studied pre-nursing.

Today, Morris, 22, is a junior at St. Joseph’s College in Standish, majoring in nursing and minoring in biology.

She remembers her LRTC teacher, Jacqueline Kelly. “She was so funny,” Morris said. “She did this big presentation on what to expect. She made us all feel comfortable.”

In addition to learning about nursing, pre-nursing students took field trips to nursing homes and hospitals. “It got me really involved in nursing and helping people,” Morris said. The program helped her get into St. Joseph’s nursing program, she said.

In college, she’s taken two nursing trips, one to Haiti and Guatemala. “It opened my eyes,” she said. “It’s so different. We were solely responsible for vaccines and basic health care. Parents can’t afford it.” They lack the means to buy items such as Tylenol and Neosporin for their children, Morris said.

She plans to become an oncology nurse.

“My aunt had cancer. I loved the nurse who took care of her,” she said.

Her LRTC program also helped her narrow her career choices. “I didn’t know if I wanted to do research lab work or nursing. As I explored nursing, I fell in love with it,” she said.

Declan Doyle also attended LRTC. He completed two years of automotive study and graduated from the Universal Technical Institute outside Boston.

Today Doyle, 20, is a mechanic for Mercedes-Benz Prime Motor Cars in Scarborough.

His LRTC program made a difference, he said. It involved some lectures, “but then you get to see how things work and experience it for yourself,” Doyle said.

Like other LRTC students, he competed in Skills USA and earned a national certificate in his field of study. Without the program, he may have still become a mechanic, he said, but not as fast.

“Going to LRTC put me way ahead of other students who started at UTI,” Doyle said. “Some kids didn’t know anything.”

Within a few weeks of graduating from UTI, “I had the job,” he said.

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Experts: High school career-technical centers working

LEWISTON — Law enforcement instructor Andrew D’Eramo watched as his students practiced speed handcuffing Thursday at the Lewiston Regional Technical Center.

Scott Marshall demonstrated by handcuffing Natalie Bonneau.

“I’ll grab her fingers so she can’t move her hands around,” Marshall said. “I’ll go in, one,” he said as the handcuff closed and clicked. “Two,” he said, as the handcuff clicked again. “Tightening from the outside,” he said.

Knowing how to speed handcuff is important, said D’Eramo, a former Lewiston deputy chief of police. An arresting officer wants to get the cuffs on as quickly as possible before a person resists, he said.

Down two floors, students worked on robots they built in Mark Richards’ mechanical and manufacturing engineering class.

Engineering touches everybody’s lives,” Richards said. “Everything you do, an engineer was involved with it somewhere, somehow.” Most of his students go to college and study engineering, he said.

Nicolas Dunn worked on his “clawbot,” a robot that moved like a remote-control vehicle and picked up objects with its claw. Tyler Crook and Mohamed Musse worked on their robots, which moved and picked up balls.

In five years, Musse hopes to have graduated from college and be working as an engineer. Crook wants to use his skills in the military.

Statistics on what happens to high school graduates after leaving the Lewiston Regional Technical Center programs please Director Robert Callahan.

Students who completed mostly two-year programs have a 98.9 percent placement, according to the Maine Department of Education. Most continued their education at post-secondary schools or went to work in their fields of study; a few joined the military.

The placement numbers aren’t a new trend for LRTC, which has 1,150 students from six area high schools. Seven years ago, the rate was 95 percent; in 2012-13 it was 98 percent. “We work really hard to make sure kids leave with a plan,” Callahan said.

He attributes the high numbers to students who are motivated about what they’re learning, faculty who are experts in what they teach and enthusiastic support from local employers.

Nationally, as more young adults are saddled with college debt and working at jobs that don’t pay what they used to, interest in technical careers has grown, experts say.

“It’s not your father’s vocational education,” Callahan said. “Career and technical education has really reinvented itself.”

Motor technicians work with electronics and computers. Vehicle maintenance requires workers to read technical diagrams and run diagnostic tools that interact with car computers. Those kinds of high-tech changes have occurred in most programs.

Training students with skills employers need is a hot topic in every high school and college discussion, educators say.

“Developing partnerships that remove barriers to create seamless pathways is crucial,” Callahan said. “Everyone in education understands that. We’re being backed by the employer community. We’re at one of those perfect storms of opportunity.”

In Sanford, voters in January approved building a $100 million high school with a state-of-the-art career and technical center to help keep pace with the demand for more career programs. Sanford Regional Technical Center Director Kathy Sargent expects when the larger center opens in 2018, enrollment will grow from the current 285 to 800.

More programs are being added, she said, to meet the demands of students and the labor market. New programs include auto collision, fire science, emergency medical services, business and cosmetology. Those will be added to existing programs that include welding, auto technology, electrical and pre-nursing.

When Auburn eventually builds a new high school, there’s interest in incorporating more career programs. This past fall, the Auburn School Committee heard a presentation from a team of teachers who visited a career and technical high school in Worcester, Mass., that is considered one of the best programs around.

Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors said more people realize “the importance of introducing our students at as early an age as possible to career possibilities.”

The service economy is begging for electricians, welders and other specific trades, Connors said. “Not every one of us will get a Ph.D. or a bachelor’s degree.”

High schools and colleges are doing more to connect programs with real-world experience, said Chip Morrison, Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce president. “You can’t have enough practical application of education for students of all ages.” Businesses that hire LRTC students are “pleased with the discipline students bring to their businesses,” he said.

More students are considering career and technical programs, recognizing that such studies can give them an edge when applying for jobs or colleges, Callahan said.

Students and parents ask what they will get out of two years of training. The answer, Callahan said, is not only the hands-on ability to do a specific skill and get a job, but national certification, early college credit “and a very healthy sense of who I am as an employee, a contributor to the community.”

Maine has 27 regional technical programs that serve sending high schools. Lewiston’s program serves high school students from Lewiston, Edward Little in Auburn, Lisbon, Leavitt Area in Turner, Oak Hill in Wales and Poland Regional. Its programs include automotive, business management, carpentry, culinary, early child care, electricity, engineering, health care, hospitality, information technology, law enforcement, marketing, mechanical manufacturing, medical science, multimedia technology, nursing and welding.

Directors of other high school career and technical programs say their graduates also do well.

In Mexico, high school students have had meaningful part-time jobs such as working with the local fire department, said Brenda Gammon, who heads the Region 9 School of Applied Technology.

“A lot of them go into some secondary education and community colleges,” she said. Students who earn certificates in their fields gain “a step above.”

In Paris, former Oxford Hills Technical School students work as welders, nurses, foresters and automotive technicians, said Director Shawn Lambert. “Our certified nurses’ assistant program serves as a stepping stone” into medical careers.

Students who sign up for career programs are motivated, he said. “School doesn’t just happen to them.”

When a high school student tries a program and doesn’t like it, that’s still a success, Lambert said. “I’d rather them decide then, rather than when they’re 30 years old with a mortgage.”

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Directors: Not enough students can take programs

Employers like hiring students who’ve had career and technical training at Maine’s high schools.

Students say the programs help them get good jobs or get into post-secondary schools.

What’s not to like?

Lack of access.

Because of barriers, too few students can take career and technical programs, directors say.

Every Maine high school student should have the opportunity to attend one of the state’s 27 career and technical education centers, Maine Department of Education spokeswoman Samantha Warren said.

In some areas the demand is greater than the number of slots available, Warren acknowledged. Gov. Paul LePage’s administration has increased support and access, “not just because it’s good for many kids but because it is critical to developing skilled workers,” she said.

Director Robert Callahan of the Lewiston Regional Technical Center said several of his programs have waiting lists. And lots of students can’t enroll in his programs “because of a multitude of scheduling conflicts. These are elective credits,” Callahan said. “In my perfect world, they would count toward high school graduation.”

Every Lewiston High School freshman must take an LRTC technology course to learn computer skills. During that course, they’re exposed to LRTC programs. But not all schools do the same kind of job of informing students of career courses.

In other cases, students have to travel long distances from their high schools to a career-technical center.

Forty-five percent of the students at Buckfield High School and Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris attend Oxford Hills Technical School, which is on the Paris high school campus. The reason for that high percentage is good access, Director Shawn Lambert said.

“The program is part of the high school,” he said.

But in the community where he lives, Gray-New Gloucester, “kids have to go to Portland.” The distance, Lambert said, is a barrier.

The Portland Arts & Technology High School serves 22 high schools.

LRTC accepting applications now for fall: The Lewiston Regional Technical Center is now accepting applications for fall enrollment, director Rob Callahan said. The program is to students from six sending schools, Lewiston, Edward Little, Poland, Leavitt, Lisbon and Oak Hill.

“All of our students have to apply online at Lewiston.mainecte.org . It takes about five minutes, Callahan said. Getting in is competitive, he said. Students accepted need to have good grades and attendance. “We can’t train them if they’re not here,” Callahan said. “And they need a willingness to engage in some things that are a little different.”