Employers Need Wind Power Technicians 170
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that Oklahoma is one state benefitting from the energy boom. With a wind power rush underway, companies are competing to secure the windiest spots, while breathing life into small towns. The problem is, each turbine requires regular maintenance during its 20-year lifespan, with a requirement of one turbine technician for every 10 turbines on the ground. So even with a job that can pay a good starting salary (for technicians with a GED or high school diploma who complete a four-week turbine maintenance training program), there aren't enough qualified technicians to do the work. 'It seems odd, with America's unemployment problem, to have a shortage of workers for a job that can pay in excess of $20 per hour. But being a turbine technician isn't easy,' says Logan Layden, adding that technicians typically have to climb 300 foot high towers to service the turbines. Oscar Briones is one of about a dozen students who recently finished a maintenance training program after leaving his job as a motorcycle mechanic and now has his pick of employers. 'So I was in the market to find something else to do, and this seemed pretty exciting. Being 300 feet in the air, that's pretty exciting in its self. So yeah, I'm a thrill seeker.'"
It's just an average-paying job (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the average income in the US is $40000 per year, which is about $20 per hour. So, the job is only paying the national average. That's why it's not attracting people from out-of-state, even though the pay is above-average for the state of Oklahoma. See the statistics at http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-pci.htm [unm.edu].
Re:Nursing shortage too (Score:4, Informative)
Speaking as someone who is in medicine but not a nurse, the issue is two fold. First, hospital administration is petrified of new graduates, so it doesn't matter if there's a million new grad rn's hospitals won't take a chance on them unless they're really, really desperate. Second, hospitals in their for profit wisdom (non-profits do this too) have decided to slash the pay offered to these experienced nurses to the point they've told these shit employers to pound sand.
See how it works? We won't pay you what you're worth (a good rn is worth more than a mediocre md) yet we won't hire the new generation so we can run around waving our hands in the air shouting "shortage shortage!"
People wonder why we're going to hell in a hand basket.
That's a load of bullshit, sir. (Score:5, Informative)
You have no idea what you're talking about.
My grandfather, several great-uncles, and even a couple of my uncles were metalworkers who worked on building the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and many other large buildings in NYC and Chicago. They were white. The majority of the construction crews were white. If you don't believe me, look at any of the pictures of the construction workers building the damn skyscrapers, for crying out loud!
Yes, there were Mohawk metalworkers. My relatives spoke very highly of them and their skills. But they weren't hired because they were cheap labor. They were hired because they had a huge amount of experience building bridges. This valuable experience translated very well to building tall skyscrapers. The fact that they were Mohawk was of no concern. It was their knowledge, experience and abilities that mattered.
The racism your post exhibits is absurd. Your unrelenting hatred for white people is absurd. Your misrepresentation of the Mohawk metalworkers is absurd. If America has "lost its way", it's because people today actually believe the bullshit that you're spewing out all over the place.
Re:Sounds Good. (Score:5, Informative)
I regularly climbed towers for our amateur radio repeater network
Been there done that although I am more of a weak signal VHF operator.
Another issue is also the weather. Light breeze with two feet on the ground turns into OMG freaking hurricane 100 feet up. Both psychologically and meteorologically. Hams have the luxury of waiting for a perfectly calm day. The real tower workers earn their dough on the bad weather days.
Re:Sounds Good. (Score:5, Informative)
Working my way through college in Kansas, I worked for the college as a student employee. One part of my job was to climb the towers for maintenance. We had several 50 footers, a couple hundred footers, and the main tower was 500 feet. I actually had a plane circle the tower below me one day while changing a light bulb.
As a student employee, I had very little skills or knowledge, and a bit of competition for any job. I got paid $7.50/hr wither I was sitting at a workbench or climbing a tower. God, I was so stupid. Carrying tools up was like weightlifting on a StairMaster with the chance that somebody would put a bullet in your head at any second. The tower had been there about 7 years, and most of the guys that had erected it were dead. There is an incredible mortality rate for tower workers. One of my friends was climbing when a chunk of ice fell and hit his hard hat, almost knocking him unconscious. There were so many dangers, it was literally "criminal" to put an uninformed kid on it. You could die from falling (blown off or a rung rust through underneath the paint), electrocution (you're on the tallest metallic structure for miles, and lightning strikes even in clear skies), and impacts (falling ice and broken metal parts or antennas).
Back in the early '90s the going rate for tower climbing was a buck a foot, and it would take a full hour to climb and descend the 500 footer. So $20/hr to go up, fix it, and climb down? Kiss my ass. I have skills and experience now, I don't have to risk my life for that insultingly small amount of money anymore.
Experience (Score:4, Informative)
I am a wind tech. I service and repair these towers. You either are in shape, or will be in shape soon climbing the towers. I climb up to 3 towers a day. The job is extremely cold (or hot, depending on the season), and the work is dangerous. I work directly with power magnitudes from 24DC to 1042DC, and 24AC 1phase up to 690v 3phase. I DO get more than $25 an hour, and most weeks I get about 65 hours. My training includes 2 years schooling, 4 weeks basic classroom tower training, 2 weeks advanced classroom diagnostics training, and 6 months supervised OJT training.
Despite the above, qualified technicians are difficult to find and hire. The companies that hire under-qualified persons (such as exampled in the article) are not worried about their turbine reliability, or their employees.
BTW, most turbine techs around my area get $15 an hour or less.
Re:Move for a $40K/yr job? (Score:4, Informative)
"For the large majority of the unemployed, who haven't grown up there, it looks like tossing most of your life away for $20/hour."
I live in the same region. It is tossing your life away for $20/hour. Actually it's about $15/hour or less after taxes.
It doesn't matter if it's cheap to live here since it won't stay cheap for long after the people move in(been through this) and $20/hour is still utter garbage for high-risk work. Out here services suck, social support is a joke, and competitive income doesn't exist. I'll just throw in the view of hundreds of miles of flat nothing along with tornado hell doesn't ring well for people's positive outlook.
Let's not forget the high cost of just moving here and adjusting to all that nothing and other social losses which isn't figured into the initial first year and not compensated for. The initial pay is for the financially desperate who physically qualify and have a lot of crazy in them.
Re:Sounds Good. (Score:5, Informative)
Every radio technician I know basically has his pick of locations to work. I was working in a much balmier area for the first part of my career, and when I was looking to make more money, I essentially was offered a job as soon as I could start in every city I called.
I picked the one that offered a good wage and appeared to treat their employees well.
But it can get pretty forbidding and most companies go through quite a few Junior guys before finding one that has the right mix of bravery, problem solving skill, and responsibility to be a good radio tech long term.
When you have to dress like this:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7196/6970622485_5ebeeba3e8_z.jpg
Or like this:
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7047/6824493552_3f21a9e218_z.jpg
to climb up a 300 foot tower and work on something, you feel like you've earned the higher dollars you get paid.
Re:Oh please (Score:4, Informative)
Worse when some shit eating ass hat in an office decides it's a one person job. Even the smallest accident can be life threatening, when you have no one to help. Yeah, terrible Unions making sure enough people are employed to improve safety, that wages reflect effort and risk and age limitations. Those greedy evil unions they just don't appreciate a percentage of workers have to die every year to maintain higher corporate profits.