The opening of the Marcellus Shale across parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia created a new opportunity for energy production companies seeking new sources of natural gas.
It also created a need for a massive supply of skilled workers who know what they are getting into when they take a job in the industry.
“The turnover rate in this industry is high,” says Byron Kohut, of Westmoreland County Community College in Youngwood, Pa., southeast of Pittsburgh. “Some companies indicate they don’t have any retention after a year.”
Related: Marcellus reserves underestimated
Since 2010, however, Kohut and a team of educators from Westmoreland and other institutions have been working to help fill the gap.
Kohut is the director of the Western Region of ShaleNET, a training and workforce development program that is a partnership of Westmoreland County Community College and the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, funded in part with a U.S. Department of Labor grant.
Recognizing a need
Related: Case Study: Pumps
“We’ve recognized the growing need for a trained, aware workforce for the natural gas industry since 2006,” Kohut says. “The number of drilling permits has skyrocketed over the last three or four years.”
As the Marcellus region began drawing more and more companies to drill for gas, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, a Pittsburgh-based partnership of government, business and nonprofit groups, produced a report on high-demand occupations in the gas industry. Those included general laborers — particularly with the knowledge on how to work around and with drilling rigs — welders, truck drivers and heavy equipment operators.
The result was a talent-matching program to help orient people looking for work in the industry, to give them an idea of what they were getting into, Kohut explains. People with a background in agriculture, construction and mechanical maintenance and repair all had the sort of experience that could be used in gas drilling. ShaleNET was launched in 2010 to help them, and other interested jobseekers, develop more specific skills and learn more about the rigors and demands of the industry.
The core of ShaleNET is 160 hours of classes over three and a half weeks, including some weekends. It’s a sort of boot camp for prospective drilling workers. Students go on tours of drilling rigs and gas storage centers, practice driving trucks, and get basic training in welding and related skills required for the work. The training is free.
“Our target individuals are the unemployed, the underemployed and veterans,” Kohut says. Prospective students are enlisted through local workforce investment boards that work with jobseekers. Students can register on the ShaleNET website.
Passing the program
Subscribe: Want this great content delivered to your door? Subscribe now!
Daniel DeAugustine, 32, of Greensburg, Pa., had been working as a carpenter when a friend of his looked into the ShaleNET program. His friend decided not to enroll, but DeAugustine knew the first couple months of 2013 were going to be slow in his trade, so he decided to take the time to go through the program from late January to late February.
Over the years, DeAugustine has watched the drilling industry grow in his region. “You see a lot of the companies coming in,” he says. “It’s really been taking off here for about five years now.”
The training program mixed hands-on experience with equipment, such as rough-terrain forklifts, as well as learning about what work in the industry is like and what employers expect from people in the human resources operations of drilling companies. There’s safety training, as well.
Subscribe: Sign up for the GOMC E-Newsletter!
“It’s a lot to learn in a short amount of time,” DeAugustine says. “Our book was 4 or 5 inches thick.”
When he finished the course, DeAugustine had interviews with a couple of companies and got to choose which company he wanted to work for. That’s an opportunity he doesn’t believe he would have had without the program. He began working in late March as a driver for the company he chose.
“It was a great opportunity,” he says of the program. “I wished I would have known these classes were available earlier. I would have taken advantage of them then.”
Give them what they want
“Employers want somebody that’s got experience or has a rough idea of what they’re getting into,” DeAugustine says. “They really don’t hire right off the street.”
More training is ahead with his new employer, and when time permits, DeAugustine hopes to take more classes. “I’d like to take the welding class if possible, but once you’re in the industry there’s not a lot of downtime to take the classes,” he says.
ShaleNET instructors are drawn from people with experience in the industry. An advisory board consisting of about 20 large and small industry employers oversees the program.
Growing network, changing needs
In 2011, the network of training providers grew as career and technical colleges operated by local school districts and community colleges joined to provide the training; there are now 20 institutions in the network, with classes in more than 30 locations. In addition to Pennsylvania, there are locations in West Virginia and Ohio, as well as New York State, which is part of the Marcellus Shale region but has a drilling moratorium. The total number of program graduates has grown to 750, Kohut says.
ShaleNET also subsidizes on-the-job training for new hires in the industry.
Now the program is moving into more advanced training, establishing a series of classes and curricula that can provide credits toward an associate’s degree. Four colleges participate in that new program: Westmoreland County Community, Penn College of Technology, Stark State College in North Canton, Ohio, and Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas.
The decision to do that grew out of feedback from the industry. ShaleNET’s staff meets quarterly with a group of industry representatives to find out how well the program is meeting their needs and how those needs might be changing.
“They’ve told us we need a little bit more of a technically trained workforce now,” says Kohut, referring to people who know subjects like hydraulics and mechanical skills involved in advanced repairs for motors and engines. There’s also a growing interest in robotics because of its growth in the industry.
Funding moves program forward
With a $15 million Department of Labor grant, the program and the four participating colleges are implementing an associate’s degree in petroleum technology and one in mechatronics — the ground-floor discipline for a robotics career. The grant has paid for laboratory facilities, equipped with the standard mechanical equipment found throughout the industry, at all four locations.
The programs also offer certificates in specific competencies that are components of the degrees: for production technicians, pipeline technology, process technology, and automation and electronics, which includes the training needed to run a gas control room or a processing plant.
“It’s what we call a stackable model,” Kohut says. “Students can come here and get just the five classes they need for a processing technician, or they can get an associate’s degree with three certificates.”
And the retention problems seem to be diminishing somewhat. “The number one retention problem is realistic expectations of the work,” Kohut says. “People don’t realize that the hours aren’t 9 to 5. It’s dirty work and it can be hazardous.”
It also requires a willingness to move around as the work does. “The industry doesn’t stand still,” Kohut says.
ShaleNET helps prepare future workers for that reality. And it’s also helped find people who are prepared for those challenges and can thrive in that environment.
“I think we’re finding a niche of people who are willing to do this work,” Kohut says. “They just didn’t know it existed.”
Comments
Comments on this site are submitted by users and are not endorsed by nor do they reflect the views or opinions of COLE Publishing, Inc.