Workers Finding a Future in Gas Drilling
Centre Daily Times
7 February 2011
By Ed Mahon
PLEASANT GAP, Pa. -- This time last year, Eric Klinger, 19, made his
living delivering pizzas. His friend, Matt Bartholomew, 20, worked in a
factory that manufactured pharmaceutical products.
Now, after a six-month course, they work for Halliburton, driving
trucks, hauling supplies and doing some manual labor at natural gas
drilling sites.
They both started at salaries of between $45,000 and $55,000 a year --
higher than the wages of most Pennsylvanians, according to U.S. census
data.
"Nothing wrong with that," Mr. Klinger said with a laugh.
Added Mr. Bartholomew: "The company that we're in with, they're saying
30 to 40 years they'll be here. So it should be a reliable job."
Mr. Klinger and Mr. Bartholomew are two of the thousands of workers
hoping to make careers out of Marcellus Shale gas drilling. More than
70 percent of the people working at Marcellus Shale drilling sites come
from out of state, according to a November report by Tracy Brundage,
managing director of Workforce Development and Continuing Education at
Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport.
Educators such as Larry Michael at Penn College and Todd Taylor at
Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology are working to
change that.
They've adjusted their curriculums and added new courses, trying to
provide the training that people will need to get jobs related directly
and indirectly to gas drilling.
"This is something we're really jumping into," said Mr. Taylor,
director of secondary education at CPI. "They're long-term jobs,
well-paying jobs, family sustaining jobs. Hopefully, [they'll] replace
a lot of the jobs that have been lost in the manufacturing area."
It takes more than 150 types of jobs to drill one well, according to a
June 2009 study by Penn College.
Some of those jobs require years of education and experience. For
instance, the study says 4 percent of Marcellus Shale jobs are for
lawyers, 3 percent are for engineers and 3 percent are for geologists.
"What Penn College did was take a look at that and say 'Out of that
150, which ones do we already have in place?' " said Mr. Michael,
executive director of work force and economic development at Penn
College. "In some cases, we had all of the expertise and labs. In some
cases, and I'll use welding, probably 90 percent to 95 percent of it
was here. We just needed to add a piece of equipment or add a
particular certification for instructors. And then there's other
occupations and areas where we had zero."
While 70 percent of workers directly involved with drilling come from
out of state, Mr. Michael said that many Pennsylvania residents have
been able to find jobs that are indirectly related, such as truck
driving. Penn College is conducting a study, to be released in the
spring, on how much of the total work force is local.
Jim Colton is. He's been an instructor in the welding program at Penn
College for the past five years, and now he spends his summers and
weekends working for the gas industry.
Since the Marcellus Shale boom started, his students have focused on
learning how to weld downhill, instead of uphill.
"It's a fast weld. You can ... fill a pipe out really quick and move
on," said Mr. Colton. "The 520 -- the local union here -- they went
through a major challenge ... trying to get enough of their guys that
can downhill weld."
Penn College has added several training courses that aren't part of its
bachelor or associate degree programs.
Almost half of the 150 jobs needed to drill a well -- such as heavy
equipment operator, truck driver and general laborer -- don't require
two- or four-year degrees.
At Penn College, students can take a three-week training course and
become certified "roustabouts" -- laborers who work near drilling
sites. They often work 14 days in a row and then have seven days off.
They start out making between $15 and $20 an hour.
Almost all of the students in that program come from Pennsylvania, but
there are exceptions.
"I had two graduates in one of the three-week courses that we did, they
were from Las Vegas," said Penn College instructor John Harper. "They
had lost their jobs. ... And they heard about this and came in here.
They went to work the day they graduated,"
In 2010, the Marcellus Shale Workforce Resource Center opened at Penn
College in partnership with Penn State Cooperative Extension. More than
1,000 students have completed classes in the program.
Jerry Ogden, 41, moved back to north-central Pennsylvania last year to
be near family. A former securities trader for investment banks, he
signed up for Penn College's roustabout training program.
Now he's working for a gas drilling company, but not as a laborer.
He meets with landowners and tries to convince them to let the gas
companies run pipe across their land. Each day, he drives about 100 to
150 miles, across Bradford, Sullivan and Tioga counties.
He likes the job, although he's not sure how long it'll last.
"I don't have any exact date. I don't know that anybody really does,"
he said.
"I don't think that my position will exist forever. I certainly ...
don't think it's anything that's going away in six months or anything."
Penn College is now focusing on creating courses to prepare students
for life after the drilling phase -- a smaller number of workers will
be needed as long as the wells continue to produce gas, which can last
about 30 years.
The emerging energy and infrastructure lab is scheduled to start
accepting students in the fall. CPI, like Penn College, is also working
on offering classes for emergency responders who may have to handle
explosions or other accidents at drilling sites.
In the meantime, CPI graduates are still benefiting from the Marcellus
Shale natural gas industry.
Dwight Bolin, 51, enrolled in a CPI trucking program in October 2008,
after he got laid off from his job as a salesman for a company that
installed floor coverings.
Mr. Bolin, a Lock Haven resident, finished the course in January 2009,
but had trouble finding a job. He took work with a charter bus company,
taking passengers from the Carolinas to New England. He got paid $8 an
hour.
In October 2009, he moved to a company that hauled propane. Then, in
April, he started working for a trucking company that transports water
tanks to natural gas drilling sites. When he took that job, there were
10 other drivers working for the company. Now he's one of 30.
He hauls aluminum tanks containing 5,880 gallons of water on most
trips. He works six 10-hour days in a row, then has two days off. He
rarely has to stay out of town, away from his wife and two youngest
daughters. The pay is double what he made driving the charter bus, and
there's plenty of overtime offered.
Between April and December, Mr. Bolin made nearly $50,000.
"My wife and I both work. ... We're almost back to our high water mark
of what we have made in the past. We're not quite there," said Mr.
Bolin. "If I had got to put in 12 months, we'd probably be pretty close
to the old days."