Institutions can't find operators.
Capable people can't find a way in.
Proving Ground installs proven, paid, degree-free apprenticeships on the plants institutions already run — turning a retirement cliff into a pipeline, and a locked door into a career.
We install a proven apprenticeship on the plant you already run.
Proving Ground designs and registers the program, recruits and screens the people, and stewards the outcomes — so a plant becomes a pipeline. You fund only the wages you’d pay a new hire anyway.
Not a school, not a staffing agency — a thin connective layer on infrastructure that already works.
We build the program
A proven Trainee → Operator III ladder, qualification books, and review-board rubric — adapted to your plant and registered, ready to run.
We bring the people
Recruit and screen capable candidates on skills, not credentials — and seat a cohort that’s ready to learn on real equipment, paid from day one.
We prove the return
Funder-grade outcome data at every gate — intake, qualification, review boards, placement — so the value is measured, not asserted.
The operator gap is a screening problem before it's a supply problem.
Capable people are turned away for a credential the work never needed, while decades of plant knowledge walk out the door at retirement. The answer isn’t another school — it’s opening the door on skills, on the plants that already run. The numbers are why this can’t wait.
skilled-trades jobs could go unfilled by 2030 — a gap that threatens roughly $1 trillion in economic losses.
of energy companies already report labor shortages — and can’t fill the skilled operator roles open today.
A published ladder into a career that pays for a life.
Apprentices earn a full wage from day one and climb a documented ladder — Trainee to Operator III — on real equipment, under senior operators. No tuition. No debt. A credential the work actually requires.
The ladder was designed and run inside the University of Texas at Austin's Utilities & Energy Management division — proof the model works on a live, operations-heavy plant before it travels.
Returned per dollar invested in registered apprenticeships, measured five years after the apprentice completes — before reduced turnover and the value of a secured pipeline. Proving Ground covers design, recruitment, and stewardship; the institution funds only the wages it would pay a new hire anyway.
Xavier Rivera Marzan
Three decades in energy, infrastructure, and higher-education operations — securing boardroom buy-in worth hundreds of millions and developing more than 200 engineers. Inside a flagship university’s Utilities & Energy Management division he designed and ran the apprenticeship that is Proving Ground’s proof. He brings the operator credibility, the program design, and the relationships that open the next host’s door.
The status quo is a closing door. We're building a new way in.
Whether you run the plant or want to operate it, there’s a door for you. Tell us which one you’re coming through.
Grow the operators you’re about to lose, on the plant you already run.
A real career on real equipment, paid from day one — no degree required.