Juniper Mountain was always going to happen says Jake Jackson, the 2024 IEC Alumni Impact Award winner. Growing up at the base of this beautiful mountain in northwestern Colorado by Maybell County, he knew even as a child that he’d form a company and give it this name. He just wasn’t sure what a company would do; that became clear later and his dream became a reality when he opened Juniper Mountain Electric in 2012.
Today, Juniper Mountain Electric is 20-people strong and enjoys a fine reputation in the greater Denver area. And, Jake, who himself is a graduate of the IEC Rocky Mountain Apprenticeship Program, is committed to investing his time, energy, and knowledge into the future of the electrical contracting industry.
How It All Began
With his degree in electronics in hand after graduating second in his class, he entered the workforce.
“I did a bench tech job for a little while, and it was terrible,” Jake recalls. “It was so boring. I left and waited tables and did other jobs.”
With a baby on the way, Jake decided he needed a career and becoming an electrician seemed a good route to go.
“I had no experience, but I picked up Denver’s phone book and started calling electrical contractors,” he recalls. “I made it to H before somebody would hire me as I had no experience. That was in 2000.”
After a short and unsatisfying start with that first electrical company, Jake moved to another that is now out of business, All Electric.
“All Electric enrolled me at IEC in 2001, and that’s where it all clicked for me,” Jake says. “9/11 was brutal on contractors, so I went through the four-year program with a couple of different contractors. I really feel that if I hadn’t gone to IEC, I may have ended up on a different path all together. In my second year, my instructor was Tom Dent, son of prominent IEC member Jim Dent. He was a really good guy, and I enjoyed talking with him. There was a group of about six of us who would go out for dinner after class and go over the homework. Sometimes Tom would join us, and this showed me that there are people where it’s not just about them; they’re about everybody.”
As he continued in class — and then later in IEC chapter and national committees — Jake went on to find and admire this ‘family’ environment of sharing and support. Kenny Link was his instructor third year and Pete Blomquist his fourth year. He felt connected like never before.
“Pete Blomquist was an amazing instructor,” Jake says. “He had degrees in electrical, geology, and something else and he would do a little science show about electricity in class. They were off the wall experiments, like the pickle light bulb, that got us to think about what we were seeing and studying. He made a light bulb string out of pickles to demonstrate circuits. Oh man it was a terrible smell but it was a really cool experiment to see the pickles light up from the juices and they would flicker because everything was changing. The seeds would pop inside and get bright and flashy.”
Jake graduated in 2005 with great electrical training and even better encouragement from instructors, company leaders, and fellow apprentices who helped solidify his place in the field.
Giving Back
Jake began teaching at IEC Rocky Mountain in 2006, due in part to a suggestion from Karla Nugent at Weifield Group. He taught first, second, and fourth year apprenticeship classes. A few years in, Rocky Mountain made it a priority to develop and implement an online program to meet the growing needs for training potential electricians across the vast and growing state.
“I really had a passion for teaching, and I’ve always enjoyed changing and manipulating programs to fit needs,” Jake says. “I was tapped to design and pilot the online program. Our chapter is huge and we have people from our Denver area contractors that are working far away from the area. Being able to instruct remotely was a big game changer for us.”
Jake says his knowledge of teaching in the program already, his passion to build better electricians, and his energetic personality helped him get this going.
“It was different back then (2009-2010), and there were numerous bandwidth issues for students,” he says. “We used the old Webex system. You didn’t always see each other so it was more like a radio show. We did a lot of practice runs to figure out how it would sound and what we could do. It was kind of brutal for a while, but we had some really good kids including one guy down in the small town of Meeker who was connected with a company that wanted him to have access to proper training. I thought that was commendable.”
After the first successful year of online instruction, Jake was invited to be the training co-director for IEC Rocky Mountain (IECRM), a post he shared with Paul Schmidt. From this position he was able to assist in the development of the rest of the four-year online curriculum.
“Rocky Mountain has been running its online training for about 15 years now,” Jake adds. “I believe half of the chapter’s students go through the Apprentice Program online.”
Starting Juniper Electric
Jake’s next career move was to start his company and that meant saying goodbye to his training co-director role at the chapter at the end of the 2012 school season.
“There have been some hard times starting the business, but it’s been fun. It really has,” Jake says. “I started out of the gate with little jobs. I bought a van for $9,500 and ran it until it didn’t drive anymore. Our business grew over the years by word of mouth and we started advertising on Yelp and Google around 2014 to achieve a more consistent level of calls coming in. We still have all five-star reviews on both of those which is very difficult to do.”
Establishing and maintaining company culture is important to company success says Jake. Juniper Electric states proudly on its website:
Juniper Mountain Electric is a small family-run business founded by Colorado native Jake Jackson. We pride ourselves on delivering quality electrical services. Our customers are loyal because we provide excellent service. We have friendly and reliable staff that will help you solve any electrical problem you encounter.
If you’re looking for a professional electrician who will arrive on time, provide a comprehensive evaluation, and then give you peace of mind and cost-effective solutions for your home, office, or industrial building, then Juniper Mountain Electric is the company for you.
“Pretty much all of our team have started out green with us,” Jake says. “When you start somebody, they learn from the beginning that the culture is that you are not going to leave a mess. When the system they learn is that some of the first ‘tools’ you bring in are a drop cloth and a vacuum, they understand the importance. The culture is you’re going to be polite. Don’t be afraid to tell the customer that you’ve made a mistake and that you have a plan to fix it. We want to make sure everything is right with the customer.”
Volunteering Extends to National
In addition to Jake’s teaching at the chapter, he has contributed greatly at the IEC National level. He first volunteered on the Curriculum Development Group in 2010 and feels fortunate to have worked with a ‘bunch of grumpy old guys’ who gave greatly to the organization and from whom Jake learned so much.
“George Thess was one of my favorites,” Jake says. “He gave three decades or more to helping at IEC and was an excellent mentor for me. He was a great guy.”
Jake took a break from National work to get Juniper Electric going, but in 2019 he started anew with the National Apprentice & Training Committee (A&T).
“I believe 2019 was a great year, and I loved working with A&T,” he adds. “And then we went into the COVID year which was difficult to say the least. In 2020, I became chair of the Hands-On Activities / Labs subcommittee. I feel as if my work on this subcommittee is my crowning achievement. We went through all four years of the IEC curriculum and built hands-on activities to support the curriculum.”
Jake acknowledges the work done to meet with numerous chapters, see their space, assess their needs, and create hands-on activities was his favorite part of the project to date.
“The hands-on activities are like a side piece in the curriculum,” he says. “It’s on the CMS and people can just go in and use what they need. We’ve made it to where it works for in-person classes, any size lab, and online classes. We’ve done drawings where online students can just draw the wires on, for example.”
Jake says priorities in the coming year are to ensure that all instructors know what’s available to them and to offer training on their use. The subcommittee also plans to work on the next round of labs after a trial period for chapters to test and critique.
“My next goal is to go to schools or host regional meeting where we can train the trainers on these,” Jake says.
Another area he wants to focus on is to keep operating a booth at SPARK: The Electrician’s Expo for hands-on demonstrations.
“We did this for the first time in 2021, and it was so much fun,” Jake remembers. “I didn’t even see the rest of the convention and I haven’t since then as we’ve had a booth each year. I try to come up with something new every time and I have a couple of electrical puzzles that most master electricians can’t figure out. It’s another way of interacting with people and is certainly a way to let people know about the hands-on activities in the curriculum.”
Jake invites you to stop by the booth at SPARK in Phoenix to see what he means!
The 2024 Award
Jake Jackson receives his award at the IEC 2025 Business Summit, San Antonio, TX.
The IEC Alumni Impact Award honors IEC apprentice program alumni who demonstrate exceptional dedication, skill, and commitment to excellence. They have made significant contributions to IEC, both nationally and locally, by actively participating in initiatives that advance the organization’s mission.
