Opening up the gas market to teens

By TOM KANE

WILLIAMSPORT, PA — Pennsylvania high school students will be prepared for jobs in the gas industry through a $294,689 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The competitive grant was awarded to the Pennsylvania College of Technology, an affiliate of Penn State University. High school students from 23 Pennsylvania school districts will receive the training and will be granted advanced college credit in a dual enrollment program that can be used to continue their education at the college after they graduate if they so wished.

“The students will follow a specially designed curriculum that will be developed by the college and representatives from the industry,” said Larry Michael, executive director of Workforce Development and Continuing Education at the Williamsport College. “We have formed an advisory committee made up of representatives from the industry, met three times last year and will meet at length again this June to hammer out details. Companies like Chesapeake and Halliburton will be represented on the committee.”

Michael said that the gas industry, which is currently doing drilling and production in several Pennsylvania counties in the Marcellus Shale play, has identified about 150 different careers associated with gas drilling and production. “There is enormous interest in the Marcellus Shale deposit because of its potential size and because of the close proximity to large populations centers in the Northeast,” he said.

“There could be thousands of jobs for Pennsylvania residents, which would be a wonderful boon for the state and for our people,” he said. The purpose of this program is to work closely with industries in order to develop jobs and improve the economy of the state.

The college program’s website states that the majority of the jobs will be “blue collar” but there would be numerous “white collar” jobs like office workers, geologists, business management workers, legal workers and accountants.

Some students would go directly into the industry when they graduate from high school. Others would go on to the college to pursue an associate degree and still others could go into a four-year college and get a bachelor’s degree, he said.

“We are told that the industry needs a full range of careers from roustabouts who work the drill rigs to computer technicians to minor engineers, full-fledged engineers and beyond,” Michael said.

The Marcellus Shale Education and Training Center, which will manage the program, was formed last year by Penn State and Williamsport College.

The faculty will begin meeting in June to work on curriculum, and students will begin the program in the fall.