September 01, 2022
Meet 2022 Cadet Engineers: Chris Perez & Kyle Lippman
In the summer of 2022, HG&E welcomed two new cadet engineers onto our team, Chris Perez and Kyle Lippman. Both graduates of Holyoke High School, they spent their summer arriving to work at 7 am and learning about the important work happening at HG&E and throughout their community. From the fishway to gas service, and the meter department to power supply, these recent high school graduates were exposed to a variety of HG&E career paths as they became oriented to their new roles.
Chris Perez will be attending Worcester State University this fall, majoring in Electrical Engineering. Since he was a young boy, he always excelled in mathematics and had an interest in hands-on work.
“I have enjoyed working with all the divisions here at HG&E, especially gas distribution,” said Perez. “The team is very hands on, super busy, and always problem solving.”
Perez gives a lot of credit to his algebra and precalculus teacher at Holyoke High School, Mr. James Stanley. He helped sort everything out for college and was always there when Perez needed a helping hand. Perez and his classmates, had a few challenging years going through high school during a global pandemic.
Perez chose to major in electrical engineering because he knows there will be opportunity for growth with so much state and federal attention on electrification. Once he has his degree, Perez wants to return to his hometown of Holyoke and “stay in my city and give back.”
Starting as classmates and acquaintances, Perez and Lippman are now colleagues as well. Lippman is following a different path as he enters the field of Computer Engineering at Western New England University this fall.
“I took a class, Intro to Engineering, my sophomore year at Holyoke High School,” said Lippman. “This class showed me the various engineering opportunities and I began to explore the idea of computer engineering. This major will allow me to work at a place like HG&E or maybe in gaming, lots of opportunity.”
We look forward to seeing what the future holds for these young engineers. The Cornelius J. Moriarty, Jr. Scholarship for Cadet Engineers is open to City of Holyoke residents who are graduating from a duly accredited senior secondary school and have been accepted into an accredited engineering program. The Cadet Program has allowed HG&E to keep engineering talent local. Currently, 12 full-time employees came through the program at the start of their careers.