Vocational schools across the state are offering natural gas job training programs, as Don Roessler explains. He highlights the Western Area Career & Technology Center in Washington County.

As we know, with natural gas development, comes jobs. Most only think about the drill rig roughnecks when they think about these jobs, but it goes much deeper than that, as there are many support industries that service the natural gas industry and infrastructure fields.

From marcelluscoalition.org

A recent article posted here by a young man named Mike Petro, who is persuing a career in the natural gas industry, got me looking at how more of our young people can find employment after college or even get entry level jobs right out of high school. This led to me to look at our local vocational-technical school (vo-tech), here in Washington County, Pa., Western Area Career & Technology Center, to see what kind of training is available in these support industries.

They offer many courses to high school students as well as adults who wish to pursue an entry level career in these support industries. Here are some examples of those courses available.

• Welding – Welders are needed in the pipelaying and equipment repair areas.
• Machinists – Machinists are needed in equipment buliding and repair areas.
• Mechanics – Mechanics are needed in equipment repair including all those white pickup trucks that the industry workers use.
• Electrical Occupations – Electricians are needed in the infrastructure area such as wiring a compressor station and also for wiring houses that are being built to accomadate the influx of workers.
• Emergency And Protective Services – This course is designed for people who wish to be firefighters, EMTs, and police officers. These are all services needed to respond to accidents and emergencies that may occur.
• Health Care Workers – An influx of people leads to a need for more health care workers to care for anything from the common cold to on the job accidents.
• Computer Networking – Computer and office jobs are available in all aspects of the industry

Another course they offer here for adults is CDL and Well Tending as can be seen here.

Course Topics:

CDL

Oil and Gas

It is because of our local vo-tech schools such as WACTC, here in Washington County, Pa. that our young people, as well as adults, who are interested in any of these careers can be trained to get an entry level job and have a future with the growing natural gas industry.