Day 13: Communication Infrastucture and Tour of the White Marsh CI Warehouse/Technology Center

 Today I am exploring the Communications Infrastructure (CI) side of KCI! I get a tour of the White Marsh warehouse today. Excited to see another important part of this multifaceted company!

                                          

Counselor Connections:

• Most careers in Communications Infrastucture (CI) are entry-level! It is a growing business with lots of career opportunities.

• Entry-level workers in CI start as technicians and they can work their way up from technician 1 to technician 5 and from there they can work their way up to project managers. KCI will pay for their training and college tuition if they choose to go to college!

• Starting salary as a technician is $20/hour and project managers can make up to $100k per year. You can make a very good living in this field!

• There is also a need for Electricians in this field and KCI will pay for employees to get the training/apprenticeship.

• There are also administrative project assistant positions that work with keeping the staff organized, working on permitting, etc. These positions also don’t require college degrees. 

• I also met with an employee who does the financial side of CI and he does have an Accounting degree

• PTECH gives Dundalk students theopportunity to work at KCI full-time right out of high school!

Mike Motley, Director of Wireless Construction
2 years at KCI

 I arrive to the White Marsh warehouse, which is less than a 20 minute drive from my house so it was a nice commute today! I was supposed to meet with Arch Noha, the CI Discipline Manager, but he had important business to attend to in Texas. Busy guy! Luckily, I was able to meet with Mike Motley, whose office is right next to Arch. Mike was so incredible accommodating and was really willing to take his time and spend the whole day with me. I even got to see what his day-to-day is like with some of his meetings and phone calls, which was pretty cool.

Mike explains that he has been in the tele-communications industry for the past 30+ years. Interestingly, Mike does not have a college degree but has worked his way up to a leadership role with all of the experiences and expertise he has. I have come to find out that most KCI employees in CI do not have college degrees. A lot of them started in entry-level positions and have worked their way up to project manager positions. The starting salary is $20/hour and project managers can make up to $100k per year. You can make a very good living in this field! They probably make more than I do and I have a Master’s degree! And they’re not in college debt! Some of them have also taken advantage of the ability to go to college while working at KCI, with KCI paying 80-100% of the cost!

Mike said that entry-level workers in CI start as technicians and they can work their way up from technician 1 to technician 5 and from there they can work their way up to project managers. Mike says that if they are good with a wrench it helps but they don’t really have to know anything about the industry or have any prior experience before starting. They are taught everything at the job and learn from the upper-level technicians. They really act like “sponges” and are helpers when they first start out. Mike says that technicians are very hands-on and they are outside in the field all day and all year long. Mike said that technicians are doing everything from digging to going up in bucket trucks.

In addition to technician positions, there is also a need for electricians in this field and KCI will pay for their employees to get training. There are also administrative  project assistant positions that work with keeping the staff organized, working on permitting, etc. These positions also don’t require college degrees. I also met with an employee who does the financial side of CI and he does have an Accounting degree. So if you don’t want to work out in the field, there are lots of job opportunities within the office too! And technicians can transition to more office work if they prefer with more experience.

Mike took me on a tour of the warehouse/technology center- which is huge! There are so many supplies and equipment. I have learned that CI is one of the few areas of KCI where employees do the actual construction and installation so there are a lot of materials involved! Mike explains that there are 2 main parts to wireless telecommunication: large cell and small cell. Large cell are the cell towers that are built to ensure we can get service to our devices. Small cell are attachments on structures, typically light poles, which allow us to get the 5G and high-speed internet on our phones and allows us to stream and download lots of data. Above you can see me next to a light pole where they will be installing one of these small cells. These small cells are everywhere and now that I know what they are, I notice them all the time when I am driving around the city!

Some other things that I thought were neat were that the technicians will go out to sites where outdoor events and concerts happen and install temporary wireless communication equipment which enables us to use wifi when many people are congregated in one site. I always wondered how that was possible! I also thought it was cool that the CI team works on Electrical Vehicle (EV) charging stations, which I’m sure will become more of a need as more people purchase and use EV vehicles.

As we go on the tour, I talk to one of the technicians who actually made a career change from being a corrections officer in a prison to working at KCI. Pretty cool to see how you can make such a big career change! He was taking inventory of old equipment they were sending back to either AT&T or Verizon. Mike said that the old equipment is probably being sent to South America where their technology is behind. I think it’s pretty cool that companies repurpose materials to help out other countries in need.

Next, we move around the corner and there is another technician doing inventory and it is one of my former students, Shaylee Conde! Shaylee just graduated this year and she is in the PTECH program. Shaylee is a summer intern at KCI and she will be going to CCBC this Fall to earn her Associate’s degree in Engineering Technology through the PTECH program and she plans to continue working full-time at KCI after earning her degree. Shaylee is so sweet, mature, and such a hard worker. I am so excited for her and I know that she will be a great asset to KCI! Above is a photo of Shaylee and I! It was so cool to see one of my students in action at KCI. This was definitely a huge highlight of my entire experience!

We end the day by going to the yard down the road where they keep all of the KCI vehicles and other equipment that the technicians take at the beginning of each day and return at the end of each day. It was pretty empty when we arrived because everyone is out in the field. My favorite part was seeing this KCI truck that they had painted pink. I learned that one of the female employees had just battled breast cancer and they painted her truck pink to honor her. I thought that was so cool and had to get a picture next to it!

How would you describe your job to a high school student in a few sentences?

"We make things that make communication work!”

What advice do you have for a high school student?

"Be ready to work. you get out if it what you put into it."

What a neat day learning all about the CI part of KCI! From what I hear, CI is a booming part of the company. What started out as 4-5 employees, it is now up to 200 employees and growing! I’m excited learning more about CI tomorrow in the Sparks office…