SouthCoast schools training students for jobs in offshore wind
Posted Apr 28, 2017 at 7:04 AM
“Ten years from now, it would be wonderful if GE had a building right in the New Bedford Business Park. We’d love to provide them the students to fit that workforce.” — Anthony Ucci, associate vice president for Academic Affairs at Bristol Community College
How does a college prepare workers to fill one of the fastest-growing fields of the next decade?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics expects employment in the wind turbine service technicians field to grow 108 percent from 2014 to 2024.
“Because wind electricity generation is expected to grow over the coming decade … Job prospects should be excellent for qualified candidates,” the agency states.
And Bristol Community College, officials expect a good number of those jobs will likely come to SouthCoast, especially with the prospects of offshore wind farms down the line.
“Since the build-out of offshore wind farms will begin in the Northeast Atlantic and migrate southward, the Port of New Bedford is well positioned to capture a good number of those earlier-phase jobs,” said Paul Vigeant, managing director of the New Bedford Wind Energy Center and acting vice president of Workforce Development at BCC.
He said about 40 percent of those new jobs will be in construction, assembly and deployment occupations; some 60 percent will be in operations and maintenance.
Local high school students are also prepping for careers in the emerging clean-energy industries.
At Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School, administrators are looking to the near and more-distant future with courses that develop a foundation for trades related to wind energy.
Current offerings for trades that fit into the energy industry are electrical, metal fabrication and joining, and environmental sciences, administrators said. The school reported that more than 150 students are enrolled in electrical; 60 students in metal fabrication and joining; and roughly 30 students in environmental science.
Sue Demers, a spokeswoman for Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational-Technical High School, said Superintendent James O’Brien and school administrators have a working relationship with Matthew Morrissey, vice president of Deepwater Wind, who has attended advisory committee meetings.
BCC’S PATH TO WIND-POWER JOBS
Bristol Community College already has a wind energy program in place, with plans to grow its offshore wind education programs in the next five to 10 years to keep up with the booming field.
For this current academic year, BCC offers two routes: a 14-credit wind energy certificate program, and an associate’s degree program in Science in Engineering Technology/ Mechanical Technology with Wind Power.
The degree program prepares students as technicians and mechanical designers. Students learn aspects of mechanical engineering such as strength of materials, materials science, fluid systems, computer-aided design, and wind power technology, according to the school’s website.
Program courses include computer-aided drafting, computer-aided mechanical design, electrical machinery, fluid systems, material science, mechanics of materials and structures, energy efficiency and conservation measures, technical physics I, introduction to sustainable and green energy technologies, and wind power.
Graduates go on to work as mechanical/CAD designers, and wind power, manufacturing, industrial and design technicians, according to the site, or could transfer to a four-year college or university, such as the Mechanical Engineering program at UMass-Dartmouth.
Currently, about 50 percent of graduates go on to work locally; 50 percent transfer to four-year schools, said Anthony Ucci, associate vice president of academic affairs at BCC.
Meanwhile, BCC’s 14-credit certificate program offers four courses over two semesters. For example, according to the current academic catalog, a student might take introduction to sustainable and green energy technologies and electrical machinery in the fall, followed by fluid systems and wind power in the spring.
“The certificate will allow students to learn the fundamentals of wind energy and to support the system installation, operation and maintenance needs of the wind energy industry,” according to BCC’s program description. “Students will understand all the various component parts and functions of wind turbines and will learn sizing formulas to meet your customers present and future energy demands.
“This program is based on national standards and focuses on the development of industry-defined competencies and skills in: safety, electricity, hydraulics, pneumatics, mechanical systems, electrical power generation and wind power systems,” it reads.
Graduates could, theoretically, immediately start working after completing the program.
“There are countless jobs associated with the industry, including parts assembly and servicing terminals both on land and offshore,” Ucci said.
The seeds of the BCC wind program were planted in 2008 as the college “felt two things — one: there’s an existing on-shore wind industry looking for employees, and two: we were looking forward toward offshore wind taking off,” he said.
“The college is in the process of adding more offshore wind courses. In addition, we’ll have classes on wind industry safety,” said Ucci.
Students who enter the program now “just need to have a decent math background,” Ucci said. With that, BCC can train them on electrical machinery, as essentially, “that’s what a turbine is,” along with hydraulics, mechanics, safety and maintenance among a plethora of other aspects of the industry.
In developing its program, Ucci said BCC looked at “a number of European systems of training, including working at heights beyond 25 meters, experience working in confined spaces, and number of safety considerations from fire to fall-prevention.”
Ucci said some of wind power topics covered in the new classes being developed include turbine fundamentals, cranes and rigging, fasteners and torqueing, shaft alignment; bonding, grounding and lightning protection; maintenance operations; cooling/heating systems; programmable logic controllers and supervisory control and data acquisition systems; bearings; gearboxes and yaw systems.
Wind industry safety topics the school is looking toward in the future include confined space entry, work and rescue; tower climbing safety; harness and fall-arrester systems; working at heights and rescue training; fire awareness, prevention and firefighting.
“We’d like to grow with industry,” Ucci said. “Ten years from now, it would be wonderful if GE had a building right in the New Bedford Business Park. We’d love to provide them the students to fit that workforce. As employers make us aware of their needs, we do our best to address those needs. If there’s something there we’re not doing, we’ll do our best to change with the times.”
BCC received $200,000 in state funds to study workforce development for the emerging offshore wind industry, Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration announced in September. The funds are part of $700,000 awarded to nine academic and research institutions across the state, “to advance studies relating to offshore wind development (and build) on the Commonwealth’s existing nation-leading offshore wind innovation activities,” BCC stated in a release at the time.
Vigeant added that BCC is currently building student awareness about the opportunities and future job potential.
“Our goal is to position BCC as the premier U.S. training college for offshore wind,” Vigeant said.
Read more at Bristol Community College’s website, bristolcc.edu.
Standard-Times staff reporter Aimee Chiavaroli contributed to this report from freelance writer Lauren Daley.
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