New Power Plant Program to Help Energy Industry Pick Up Steam in Workforce Recruitment

The University of Cincinnati will begin a new program – Power Plant Technology – in September 2006 to start a flow of workers into energy-related industries, specifically the nation’s electrical and gas utilities, power producers and federal power agencies.

The new offering out of UC’s

College of Applied Science

(CAS) joins a small handful of such programs which have begun statewide and nationally since 2000 in order to meet the energy industry’s

rising demand for technical workers

. That demand is expected to peak within the next ten years as up to 50 percent of energy utilities’ and power plant technical personnel reach retirement eligibility.

Experts from across the nation attribute the workforce crisis within the energy industry to current and historic factors, including

• Aging of the Baby Boomers
• Energy industry deregulation in the 1980s
• Consolidation within the industry
• Rising energy demand
• Increased environmental protocols associated with the industry

Industry veteran Ray Miller, former power plant superintendent at General Electric Company and now superintendent of utilities/adjunct instructor at UC, explained, “When the industry was deregulated in the 1980s, utilities had to pay attention to costs as never before. They simply stopped hiring new people. In fact, as they merged and consolidated into ever-larger partnerships and conglomerates, they shed technical and maintenance workers from plants and lines. They went to bare-bones staffing so instead of having 30 maintenance workers dedicated to a specific plant as was common before deregulation, the 30 best became part of a mobile team that serviced many plants.”

As a case in point, Brian Wilkins, staff generation specialist at FirstEnergy Corp., a utility serving Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, said, “We, like much of the industry, had a very stable workforce and didn’t hire for about 20 years. That began to turn around in the years around 2000 and 2001. We’re hiring as I speak.” He added that FirstEnergy, headquartered in Akron, Ohio, is facing a workforce attrition rate of about 75 percent in the next ten years.

As the technical workers in the energy industry get set to retire, the power industry is urging schools across the nation to begin appropriate programs to train a new generation of workers. “We’ve been told by utilities: We’ll take every graduate you can send us,” stated Miller. He added, “Duke Energy in Cincinnati and American Electric Power based in Columbus (the nation’s largest electricity generator) want every graduate who will come out of the new UC program, and Duke is providing scholarship aid to incoming students. Similarly other utilities are just as anxious for every graduate they can get from ours or from other programs.”

Utility-college partnerships are emerging across the nation. For instance, UC is beginning its Power Plant Technology program after Duke Energy and American Electric Power approached the university to help with workforce needs. Similarly, Austin Community College in Texas last year began a program after the city-owned utility, Austin Energy, sought the college’s aid in training new workers because of critical demand expected in the next few years. The same is true for almost every one of the nation’s Power Plant Technology programs listed below. Those programs are housed at

• University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, September 2006

• Butler County Community College, Butler, Pa. (via Web-based courses led by Youngstown State University faculty), August 2006

• Jefferson Community College, Steubenville, Ohio, (via distance-learning from YSU), August 2006

• Washington State Community College, Marietta, Ohio, September 2006

• Zane State College, Zanesville, Ohio, (via distance-learning from West Virginia State Community and Technical College), September 2006

• Maysville Community and Technical College, Maysville, Ky., Spring 2006

• Austin Community College, Austin, Texas, 2005

• Gulf Power Institutes (two), Laurel Hill, Fla. (high school programs), 2005

• West Virginia State Community and Technical College, Institute, W.V., 2005

• Belmont Technical School, St. Clairesville, Ohio, (with courses led by YSU faculty), 2005

• Rio Grande Community College, Rio Grande, Ohio, 2005

• Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio, 2003

• Gulf Power Academy, Pensacola, Fla., (high school program), 2001

• Lakeland Community College, Kirtland, Ohio, 2000

• Bismarck State College, Bismarck, N.D., 1976

• Delcastle Technical High School, Wilmington, Del., 1969

• Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, 1940

• Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades, Media, Pa., 1894

The UC Power Plant Option is a two-year Associate of Applied Science degree within the CAS Electrical & Computer Engineering Technology Program. The new program – a year-round mix of classes and paid, professional cooperative education quarters – consists of coursework in calculus, combustion engines, electronics, environmental law/regulations, mechanical vibrations, nuclear energy, power plant technology, physics and more. The new program is expected to welcome 15 new students when classes begin at UC on Sept. 20, 2006.

The program will train professionals for three main functions within plants:

• Power generation, which involves producing the electricity at a power plant via  coal, nuclear energy, natural gas, hydropower

• Power transmission which ensures that a plant’s electricity reaches power lines and substations in a region and then travels from the substations to homes and businesses

• Power management, which involves supervision of personnel, budgeting, overseeing scheduling, purchasing, etc.

As UC gets set to launch its new program, Ray Miller along with Max Rabiee, head of the UC College of Applied Science Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Department, have only one concern: That the demand for energy industry technicians will mean that the university itself – which has two power plants – won’t be able to find enough workers to fill its own needs. Said Miller, “Here at the very place where we train these workers (UC), I’ll be losing one-third of my power plant workforce to retirement in the next five years. Because demand is so strong absolutely everywhere, I’m beginning to worry that I may not be able to compete for the workers UC is going to train.”

For more information on UC’s new Power Plant Technology Program, visit the program Web site or call 513-556-6559.

Visit this alternate site for more background on needs within the industry.