While many 18-year-olds are still weighing their future options, Derek Bailey is already doubling down on his career goals.
By day, he works as a full-time service technician for C5 Industrial Automation. At night, he’s using a Northeast Tech 13th Year Scholarship to attend class as a part-time student in the Electrical and Electronics Technology Program.
“It’s amazing because I can work and make money throughout the day, while still getting to learn three nights a week,” Bailey said. “It allows me to learn a lot more in a shorter span of time, so it’s just a true blessing.”
While balancing work and school has kept him busy, Bailey has a clear end goal after the program ends.
“I’m in the process of getting my apprentice license right now, but I’m looking to go all the way to obtain my unlimited contractor’s license, which will be 12,000 hours of total work.”
Bailey’s curiosity in electrical and automation work originally began at home, listening to his father, an instrumentation technician at Siemens Energy.
When his own time came, Bailey enrolled in Northeast Tech Pryor’s Electrical Controls and Instrumentation Program with Instructor Jesse Gilmore in 2025.
“Mr. Gilmore’s class prepared me for the real experiences I would have in the industry,” Bailey said. “It advanced my knowledge of the complexity of this field. I’m much farther along than those just coming into it.”
It was also Gilmore who pointed Bailey toward what was then a pilot course happening in NT Pryor’s backyard in 2024 — the Electrical and Electronics Technology Program at MidAmerica Industrial Park.
Currently in its second year, the nine-month EET program is a partnership between MidAmerica, NT and Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology. It gives recent high school graduates and working professionals access to micro-credentials in areas such as industrial electrical systems, electric motor controls and instrumentation applications — all through hands-on training designed to meet the needs of local industries.
The partnership also expands tuition assistance, including NT’s 13th Year Scholarship, which gives students up to one year after high school to earn 1,000 tuition-free training hours.
“Mr. Gilmore and I talked about what steps I wanted to take after high school, and he knew the EET program was taking off,” Bailey said. “He suggested I apply for a 13th Year Scholarship so I could attend EET after high school. The program and the scholarship have been huge game changers. If I had to pay for those classes out of pocket, it would have been rough. Now, I just go to classes and learn.”
Bailey joined the program’s second cohort in fall 2025, which also opened the door to his position at C5 Industrial Automation.
“At C5 we do all sorts of automation work. Processes that would normally be manually controlled are automated and controlled by a computer,” he said. “We make plastic molds for things like gas cans, car parts and oil pans with big machines where you just push a button. My job as a service technician is to troubleshoot if something goes down and calibrate machines when needed. The more you learn, the more you get to do. And who knows, maybe it’ll take off and I’ll have my own company one day.”