This story from Cardinal News and Canary Media is part of a Rural News Network series that explores how industry, state governments, and education systems are training the growing clean-energy workforce in rural America.

When Mason Taylor was getting ready to graduate from high school in 2022, he thought he would have to take an entry-level technician job with a company in Tennessee.

Taylor grew up in the town of Dryden in rural Lee County, in the westernmost sliver of Virginia between Kentucky and Tennessee. He had come to love the electrical courses he took in high school because there was always something new to learn, always a new way to challenge himself.

Driving to Tennessee for work would likely mean two hours commuting each day.

Taylor, now 21, just wanted to work close t

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