At FirstEnergy, building relationships with colleges, universities, and other educational organizations are essential to us. We strive to have a workforce that reflects the communities we serve to better meet our customers’ diverse needs. We are making strides toward this goal through FirstEnergy Ambassador Network (FAN).

Ambassador Network Lead, Terry Malone, is excited to see where 2023 will take the program. With more than 400 participants, the group continues to focus on sustaining and refining the program.

“FirstEnergy has a great story to tell. We learned early on that the best way to tell that story is to get our employees involved in the work to get students interested in our industry and recruit for FirstEnergy,” Terry said. “With 12,000 employees, we effectively have 12,000 ambassadors telling our story.”

The Ambassador Network was developed in 2019 and allowed us to recruit from a diverse talent pipeline while also giving employees another way to contribute to the success at FirstEnergy, both near-term and long-term.

Through these efforts, we hope to inspire students – especially in the field of STEM – by exposing them to career opportunities at FirstEnergy.

Recently, the Ambassador Network connected with the University of Akron to participate in Innovate! Invent! Inquire! Sponsored by FirstEnergy and had an outreach effort to 175 local students.

Chrissy Todd, General Manager, Transmission Operations Support, and engineering business lead for the University of Akron FAN, says they are proud of the Ambassador Network’s reach.

“We are proud to have extended our ambassador partnership with the University of Akron through sponsorship of Innovate! Invent! Inquire! which introduced engineering and innovative thinking to 6th-10th graders. It was an incredible experience to be surrounded by many bright and curious young minds full of questions and passion for learning new things,” said Todd. “This event wouldn’t have been possible without the endless support of our exceptional Ambassador team and the dynamic group of volunteers who not only helped build the hands-on activities over two days but, more importantly, inspired students by sharing their personal experiences.”

Eleven FirstEnergy volunteers supported the event and helped the students build their robots. FirstEnergy Supervisor, Compliance and Procedure and US FAN volunteer Abdel Laaouaouda led the build to schools in the Akron & Canton areas, building a walking robot and wooden airplane. Other ambassadors were on hand to assist students with their build.

Terry, a keynote speaker at the event, said students enjoyed building their robots. The most enjoyable part was seeing the excitement on their faces when they tested and saw their robot walk.

“FirstEnergy had an opportunity to engage a lot of middle school students to share with them the great benefits that could come out of pursuing a STEM career. It was a fantastic event; we had several FirstEnergy employees across the company involved in activities we conducted with the students,” Terry said.

The Ambassador network will continue reaching out to colleges and universities, professional organizations, and local school districts to develop relationships within our communities to build our talent pipeline.

Jason Lisowski, vice president, controller and chief accounting officer and executive sponsor of the University of Akron FAN relationship, is looking forward to continuing to develop and enhance sustainable relationships with the university.

“Sponsoring an event like this is a great opportunity to strengthen partnerships with our talent streams and leverage our talented-dedicated employees to inspire students to pursue exciting careers in STEM-related fields at companies like FirstEnergy, “said Jason.

For more information on the Ambassador Network, visit the Ambassador Network SharePoint site to see how you can get involved.