Richard Francis, an electrician, stands next to his truck and waits to hear where everyone will be headed when the meeting ends. Today, he’s off to Bear Creek, along with the other three electricians, to get the rodeo arena ready for Precinct 4’s Winter Festival.

In the nearly seven years Richard has worked for the Precinct, no two days have been exactly the same, which is how he likes it.

“One minute you’re digging a trench, putting some underground (cable) in and the next minute, you could be at a park working on the stadium or ballfield lights,” said Richard. “And there’s 100 things in between that you could do at any given minute.”

An apprentice’s trade

Richard has been a full-time electrician for 38 years, but he’s been doing electrical work since before he started high school. He didn’t have the typical apprenticeship that many tradespeople take on, but he started learning the way many people pick up new skills: from their parents.

“It’s a family business,” Richard said. “My stepfather was a master electrician here in Houston and worked for one of the largest electrical companies during the 80s. During high school, he wouldn’t want (my brothers and I) to stay home, so he said, ‘it’s time to go to work.’ So, we started out with summers, and we’d work in the warehouse, and he would give us odd jobs to do.”

By the time he reached high school, Richard was going to school for the first half of the day and working the second half through a co-op program where he earned school credits. At that point, his father had started his own electrical business, and he put Richard under the care of a journeyman electrician who worked for the business, and, like many apprenticeships, it was with the journeyman that he really honed his skills.

Although Richard’s apprenticeship looked a bit different than someone who may not have direct access to someone in the trades, he still advises people interested in learning a trade to look for an apprenticeship. There, he said, they will learn under professional journeypersons, like he did.

After finishing high school, he worked for a number of private companies, including his dad’s, for over 30 years. Eventually, his younger brother convinced Richard to join him at Precinct 4.

“He kept telling me, ‘That’s a good, stable place to go. It’ll always need electricians, always has and probably always will,’” Richard said. “So, he nagged on me enough so that when there was finally an opening, I decided to go for it, and I’ve been here ever since. I’m not going anywhere.”