WASHINGTON–Program Coordinator Tom Munson used to keep a waiting list of openings for potential new students in the solar energy technician program at San Juan College in Farmington, N.M.
He stopped keeping track after the backlog was at eight years.
Submitted photo courtesy of Clipper Windpower Inc.
California-based Clipper Windpower has recruited military veterans, like Paul Haberlein who served in the Navy, to work as wind turbine technicians and managers.
(Kellen Henry/MNS)
Funding for training programs provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have been divided into five grants by the Department of Labor.
With the renewable energy market poised for growth and carbon regulation on the horizon, training programs are trying to provide a bridge between willing workers and the green collar job market.
Most of Munson’s students in the renewable energy program are older than 35 and transitioning into second careers in designing and installing cells that convert solar energy into electricity. “They believe it’s something they can really stand behind,” Munson said. “A lot of them are concerned about the environment and want to see positive changes.”
But lagging employment in manufacturing and construction jobs, combined with the Obama administration’s focus on the renewable job market to bolster the economy, mean that educational and technical programs are struggling to ramp up their programs quickly enough to meet demand.
San Juan College has seen dramatic increases in student interest the last three years. Munson said he’s hoping the available stimulus money for green job training can grow his program to meet student and industry needs.
“I’m turning away applicants all the time,” he said. “I could double or triple my enrollment in a heartbeat. It’s really a matter of a lack of funding.”
As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Department of Labor has designated $500 million in five different grant categories to create partnerships between states, schools and non-profit organizations to train a diverse “green-collar” work force.
In many cases, the money is aimed at retraining displaced workers and creating a new middle class built on higher-paying jobs that have room for advancement and good benefits.
For Brett Davis, a current degree student at San Juan College, the decision to take up a new career in solar energy was informed by both those kinds of opportunities — and by conscience.
The 42-year-old musician from Santa Fe had taken college classes, but saw the program as an opportunity to earn his degree, as well as become part of an important movement.
When he started the program more than a year and a half ago, things were a little slower, but he still had to wait a year before starting classes.
Davis said it was worth the wait, though.
“I’m here soaking it all in like a sponge,” he said. “We will be ready to go out and solarize the world.”
At the Northwest Renewable Energy Institute in Vancouver, Wash., director Tracy Rascoe is also seeing more demand for renewable energy training. The school, which currently focuses on training wind technicians, is looking to expand.
“Our classes are getting full, overfull actually,” Rascoe said.
The institute’s six-month Renewable Energy Technician program focuses on getting well-trained professionals into the job market, bringing in companies looking to hire grads and helping with resumes.
The institute carefully screens applicants for industry potential, the funnels as many students as possible into jobs.
“The biggest challenge is educating America,” Rascoe said. “No matter what is going on in our lives, we like to go inside and turn that light switch on and watch the light go on.”
Even with companies scaling back during the recession, Rascoe said his program has a 70 percent placement rate by graduation, an indication that investing in training can pay off.
While the federal government does not currently track green job growth, President Barack Obama has included a request in his 2010 budget for data collection on how the nation is growing these job markets, which renewable energy industry experts say could help track growth by sector.
The American Wind Energy Association, a wind industry trade group, estimates that one worker is needed for every 10 megawatts of wind power generation. What might that mean for jobs? Take a look at the track record: In 2008, the wind industry installed 8,500 megawatts of power.
“Given the fact that technician programs can take two years, you can have a training period and so finding 800 people is not easy,” said Christine Real de Azua, an AWEA spokeswoman.
Those numbers don’t factor in the personnel needed to maintain the existing fleets of wind mills, either. Though the economic recession and dropping prices of conventional fuel didn’t help the renewable market, which is already prone to fluctuation, investors and production companies are focused on what they see as potential for smoother growth.
They see renewal of production tax credits, state renewable standards for renewable energy and the possibility of federal climate legislation as signs that the industry is primed to expand.
“We expect tremendous growth in 2011 onward, which is going to require more qualified technicians,” said Jeff Maurer, vice president of project management and fleet services for Clipper Windpower.
When Maurer came to Clipper in 2006, his division had eight employees installing and operating wind turbines.
Three years later, the California-based company has a fleet of 400 wind turbines and has grown that division to 250 employees.
With a relatively small pool of trained employees in the renewable energy field, Maurer has turned to the skilled workers that were available—many of them military veterans or displaced workers—to keep the blades spinning.
He keeps an eye out for veterans because they come to the job with well-honed leadership and organizational skills and has hired from the automotive, engineering, oil and gas, and aviation industries for the right technical skill sets. “They’ve got people that are hurting in those industries,” Maurer said. “All those systems have moving parts and those people adapt very quickly to wind turbines.”
Maurer said he sees the movements toward federal renewable energy legislation and state standards for renewable energy as progress toward investments by business, especially when it costs companies upwards of $35,000 to train one wind technician.
“Every time you have to lay somebody off who is an experienced technician… that’s the cost that you’re going to have to incur when the market starts picking up again,” Maurer said. “Right now, we’re focusing on the energy bill because that basically provides business certainty.”
And that business certainty is part of what’s energizing solar student Davis as he prepares for a green job of his own.
“It’s very exciting,” he said. “Ultimately, we’re making a radical change in how we get our energy and it starts with little two-year college programs like this, retraining people and getting people back into the work force.”