With a background that includes four years as an electronics technician in the U.S. Navy, Trico Electric Cooperative’s Manuel Velasquez has an excellent grasp on electrical theory.

But the dispatch manager at the Arizona co-op wanted to develop his leadership style.

“I had never taken any leadership courses, and my idea of leadership was based on what I had been exposed to in the military,” Velasquez, 47, said. “You had a very distinguished sort of chain of command and if you got told from the top down that you were going to do something, there was the expectation that that was going to happen.”

So when the Marana-based co-op was looking for applicants as it launched its Emerging Leaders Program two years ago, Velasquez, then a dispatcher, quickly signed up. “What intrigued me was the mentorship and the opportunity to spend time with good leaders not just at Trico but elsewhere,” he said.

What Velasquez got in return was, as he put it, “priceless.” Now in its second cycle, the Emerging Leaders Program also seeks to build confidence among participants in different soft skills.

“We are always striving to look for our next future leaders and obtaining a high-achieving diverse workforce,” said program creator April Park, the co-op’s vice president of human resources and safety.

“We think it’s important that we invest in the careers of our employees by providing them a path forward so they can continue to progress in their career and eventually be a supervisor, manager or other leader at the cooperative,” she said.

The program is part of Trico’s renewed emphasis on workforce culture amid an unusually high number of new hires over the past several years. About half of the co-op’s 150 employees joined in the past five years, according to CEO/General Manager Brian Heithoff.

“A few came from other co-ops, and some from outside the co-op network,” said Heithoff. “And there’s another 20% in new positions and new supervisory positions.”

“The program is an investment in ourselves and an investment in our future. We invest in capital assets all the time, but we also need to invest in leadership capabilities so that we have leadership at all levels of the organization.”

Research from Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford University shows that 85% of job success comes from having well-developed soft skills.

“When individuals lead with soft skills, there’s better collaboration and better teamwork,” Park said.

Topics in the 15- to 18-month program include leadership development fundamentals, strategic thinking, public speaking, project management and psychological safety, or creating a work environment where it’s safe to speak up.

Park and Chief Operating Officer Eric Hawkins, the program’s co-leader, centered the curriculum around the co-op’s four key values: innovation, integrity, service and dependability.

“We want leaders who truly believe in those values and live them every day,” Hawkins said. “We think our job is to provide them with skills, concepts and ideas for how they actually do that and how to put those values into effect.”

While participants aren’t guaranteed a promotion, Velasquez did advance shortly after he completed the training from power system control to dispatch supervisor with a staff of five.

But he’s quick to point out that the program’s other valuable benefits: building rapport with others across the organization, gaining insight into his leadership style and understanding the importance of self-reflection as a leader.

He also overcame his fear of public speaking by addressing a crowd of human resources professionals at NRECA’s Interact Conference in Nashville last summer. He and fellow Emerging Leaders participant Summer Austin, a substation technician apprentice, spoke about their program at a breakout session.

Terrified at first, Velasquez said Park acknowledged his fear but was reassuring, too. “She told me, ‘Everybody will want to see you succeed, but you can do it.’ And she was absolutely right! It’s like that fear had just gone away.”