Prime Power students prove proficiency during capstone event

By Amanda Sullivan, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs OfficeJanuary 11, 2023

Sgt. Evan Histed, a student attending the Production Specialist Course, removes insulation from a medium-voltage cable during a capstone event in December at the U.S. Army Prime Power School.
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Sgt. Evan Histed, a student attending the Production Specialist Course, removes insulation from a medium-voltage cable during a capstone event in December at the U.S. Army Prime Power School. (Photo Credit: Photo by Amanda Sullivan, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs Office) VIEW ORIGINAL
Sgt. Talon Lunsford, a Prime Power Specialist Course student, prepares to terminate a cable during a capstone event in December at the U.S. Army Prime Power School. The event gives students the opportunity to demonstrate all they have learned during the eight-month course.
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Sgt. Talon Lunsford, a Prime Power Specialist Course student, prepares to terminate a cable during a capstone event in December at the U.S. Army Prime Power School. The event gives students the opportunity to demonstrate all they have learned during the eight-month course. (Photo Credit: Photo by Amanda Sullivan, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs Office) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. — Twenty Soldiers and Sailors attending the Production Specialist Course spent hours in the pouring rain executing a power plant deployment scenario during a capstone event carried out in December at the U.S. Army Prime Power School here.

The event served as the conclusion to the first part of the year-long reclassification course, which is divided into two parts — the eight-month academic phase and the four-month additional skills identifier phase. The course trains future Prime Power Production Specialists — known in the Army as the 12P military occupational specialty, and Navy enlisted classification B-03 — who are reclassing from a previous specialty to the maintenance of military electrical power plants.

According to Eddie Ladnier, 12P branch chief, the event’s goal was to ensure students were able to put together all the theory and practical experiences they worked on throughout the eight-month course in one final, culminating event.

“The students were tasked with the installation and operation of a power plant, which included connecting power generating units together to provide power, and building cables, so electricity could go through to the transformers,” Ladnier said. “Then, from the transformers, they connected the lower voltage equipment to it to light up lights or run everyday appliances.”

For Sgt. Christopher Robinson, a student in the course, who previously served as a 42R — a musician with the U.S. Army Band — and is currently in the ASI phase, the event was a gratifying conclusion to the first phase of his training.

“It was a good ‘end of the beginning,’ so to speak, of learning how to do this stuff,” he said. “Going through the process of hooking it all up, plugging things in and going from turning on the generator to actually having an outlet that you can plug something into was a valuable experience.”

Prior to the capstone, students developed their own plan of action based on provided operational orders and their assessment of the training area to determine how much power they would need to provide in the mock scenario. To keep the students on their toes and to make it a realistic experience, the students were subject to changing factors, as they would be in a real-world scenario, Ladnier said.

“Throughout the course, we changed the order on them a little bit,” he said. “They had to come up with plans to use tactical generators and then incorporate in the prime power generators, so they would be able to come up with the most economical and reliable source of power. They design the system and put it all together, which allows them to build on their own leadership traits, too.”

Robinson agreed that the chance to run the scenario themselves was helpful for students.

“I would say the project management aspect of it was the most beneficial part, because it was all student run,” he said. “We were in charge of getting it all set up, so the process of us coming up with who was going to do what and how we were going to do it was very valuable.”

The skills learned throughout the course and demonstrated during the culminating event are all practical skills with real-world applicability, according to USAPPS 1st Sgt. Mark Verry.

“The training these Prime Power Soldiers and Mobile Utility Support Equipment Seabees receive makes them a unique strategic asset to the Department of Defense,” he said. “This event has applicability to numerous missions that extend beyond their immediate units. Their ability to install, operate and maintain multi-unit power plants enables them to provide support and subject matter expertise to all levels of command for contingency operations and to the Department of Homeland Defense for emergency response.”

The course itself gives the Soldiers and Sailors the confidence in their ability to go forward in this MOS and eventually out in the field, Ladnier added.

“(Now that they have completed this course) they will go on to complete one of the three additional skill identifiers — mechanical, electrical or instrumentation technician — which is an additional four months,” he said. “Then, they can serve as 12Ps.”