ANEW Joins the Keep the Lights On Washington

Keep the Lights On Washington is pleased to welcome ANEW — Apprenticeship & Nontraditional Employment for Women — as the latest organization to join the Keep the Lights On coalition in support of the Cascadia Ridge Resiliency Energy Storage Project. 

ANEW's support for Cascadia Ridge reflects a straightforward reality: reliable energy infrastructure creates jobs. Projects like Cascadia Ridge require skilled tradespeople to build, commission, and maintain them. When Washington invests in grid infrastructure, it's also investing in its workforce. 

ANEW's stake in this project goes beyond job creation. Their members and program graduates live and work across the region. They depend on a reliable grid to power job sites, run training facilities, and support the communities where they've built their lives. A modern, resilient energy system built to rigorous safety standards isn't just an economic issue. It's a workforce issue, a community issue, and a quality-of-life issue. 

ANEW has spent more than four decades opening doors to family-wage careers in the skilled trades for people who have historically been left out of those opportunities. Through pre-apprenticeship training, apprenticeship readiness programs, CDL licensing, and workforce development initiatives, ANEW has helped thousands of Washington residents build stable, well-paying careers in construction and related industries. 

We're proud to stand alongside ANEW and the growing number of labor, community, and clean power supporters who understand what's at stake. Clean, reliable power requires real infrastructure, and building it is exactly the kind of work Washington's skilled trades workforce is ready to do.