PENDLETON JOURNEY ENDS IN SEMIFINALS SPORTS/1B TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2018 143rd Year, No. 25 One dollar WINNER OF THE 2018 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD MISSION CTUIR hires new executive director East Oregonian Staff photo by Kathy Aney Since Doug Wagner trained as an electrician, four other family members followed suit. Flanking Wagner (middle) are son-in- law Jeremy Kile, daughter Angie Kile, wife Pat and grandson Cody Kile, who is apprenticing as an electrician. Family of electricians shares high-voltage career Apprenticeship program eases shortage of electricians and other skilled workers By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian lectricity courses through Jeremy Kile’s family tree. Kile is an electrician. His son, Cody, is apprenticing as an electrician. His wife, Angie, works as a locomotive electri- cian for Union Pacific Railroad. Her father and mother, Doug and Pat Wagner, are semi-retired electricians. At holiday dinners, it is hard to avoid shop talk, try as they may. “The conversation always turns to electricity eventually,” Jeremy said. In addition, another Wagner daughter, Laura Stone, works as estimator and managing partner at Hendon Electric in Hermiston. This Hermiston family of electricians is a window into a E Staff photo by Kathy Aney Cody Kile checks the voltage in one of the electrical panels at Good Shepherd Medical Center during time as an electrician apprentice with Gordon’s Electric. profession that is very much in demand. “Right now, because the economy is on a high note, there is a lot of construction,” Jeremy said. “And where there is con- struction, there’s a need for elec- tricians. There’s a nationwide shortage, not just of electricians, but in all trades.” “The recession really hit the trades hard,” said Jennifer Hills, who manages the apprentice- ship program at Blue Moun- tain Community College. “A lot of little employers went away during the recession.” Electricians are especially in demand. They come to Uma- tilla County from as far away as Mudder mania Portland to fill the gap, Kile and Hills said. Regional Economist Dal- las Fridley said electricians made the list of the top 20 dif- ficult-to-fill vacancies in Oregon in 2017, the latest data on the topic. The construction industry in general showed vacancies in every region of the state. “There were an estimated 627 vacancies for electricians in 2017, and 502 (85 percent) were difficult to fill,” Fridley said. Kile’s son, Cody, 20, will enter the ranks of licensed elec- tricians as soon as he success- fully completes four years of classroom training at BMCC and an apprenticeship with Gor- don’s Electric. The second-year student, who grew up helping his dad do electrical projects around the house, remembers one day when he and his father readied a friend’s home for an appraisal. “We were redoing the out- lets and cover plates — doing a trim out,” Cody said. “I remem- ber being a 16-year-old and my See ELECTRICIANS/8A PENDLETON Coalition nears clean slate with Rivoli interior By ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian Staff photo by Kathy Aney Starter Wade Miracle waves a driver forward to the start line during Saturday’s Mudfest at the Eastern Oregon Trade and Event Center. More photos of the Mudfest on 8A. Following a candidate search that’s lasted well over a year, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation announced that it has hired Ted Wright to become its next executive director. According to a press release from the tribes, Wright has 15 years of experience as a chief executive for tribal governments in Alaska, Washington, and California. Wright got an endorsement from one of his future bosses, Board of Trustees Chairman Gary Burke. “The BOT is pleased Dr. Ted Wright has accepted our offer to be the new Executive Director,” Burke said in a statement. An enrolled member of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska, Wright will be responsible for managing the day-to-day opera- tions of the tribal government and administration. Wright has a master’s degree in educational administration and a Ph.D in education theory and pol- icy from Pennsylvania State Uni- versity, where he focused on tribal political dynamics and economic development. In addition to his experience in government, Wright has also been the manager of the American Indian Leadership program at Penn State and the vice-president of Haskell Indian Nations University. When Wright starts the job on Dec. 3, he will be the tribes’ first permanent executive director since early 2017. After former Executive Director Dave Tovey resigned in Februrary 2017, former deputy director Deb Croswell assumed his duties on an interim basis while they started the job search. Croswell stayed on until at the end of 2017, when she resigned and took a job with the tribally owned Cayuse Technologies, causing the CTUIR to appoint Communica- tions Director Chuck Sams as the next interim executive director. The tribes made another tempo- rary switch in March, when they assigned Sams back to his previous role and named Natural Resources Director Eric Quaempts to the top position.. Sams said Quaempts will revert to his natural resources director position when Wright takes charge. The Rivoli Theater in Pendleton is a shell of its former self, but that’s the way the nonprofit overseeing its restoration wants it at the moment. Since 2017, the Rivoli Resto- ration Coalition has contracted with Kirby Nagelhout Construction Co. of Bend to gut the historic theater at 351 S. Main St., as the coali- tion moves toward transforming the vacant movie theater into a modern performing arts center. By Friday, it was clear that Kirby Nagelhout was successful in mak- ing the Rivoli into an open-floor plan. Mostly gone were the balcony and the network of rooms near the entrance, the outlines of stairs on the walls one of the only visual reminders of the structure that once stood in the spot. Jason Terry of Kirby Nagelhout said as many as four workers with heavy equipment have been on-site to demolish the interior. But on Fri- day, a two-person crew was dis- mantling the last bits of the balcony and first-floor rooms. Terry said they were aiming to complete the demolition by the end of the month. Like a game of Jenga with higher stakes, Terry said the crews had to work intelligently and pains- See RIVOLI/8A