Show notes
Allen Hall and Joel Saxum speak with Brandon McKelvain and Jeremy McKelvain from Safety Technology USA (STL) to discuss their trailblazing WindStart program. They visited STL's impressive training facilities in Abilene, Texas and discovered how the organization is addressing the critical shortage of wind technicians through hands-on, industry-focused education.
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Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. The U. S. wind industry needs to train thousands of new wind turbine technicians in the coming years to meet our ambitious goals for wind energy deployment. And today we're joined by Brandon McKelvain training manager at Safety Technology USA.
Better known as STL. Also, Jeremy McKelvain who is the WindStart program manager at Safety Technology USA. Safety Technology USA, which is commonly called STL for short, is a leading wind technician training organization that provides industry standard accredited courses. Their goal is to help build the wind workforce.
of the future by training safer, more competent entry level and intermediate technicians. Joel and I visited the Safety Technology USA training facilities in Abilene, Texas recently. So if you haven't been to Abilene, you should visit their facility. It's pretty impressive. There we met with Brandon, and we're really impressed by the level of training equipment and the variety of training programs.
So Brandon, Jeremy, welcome to the program.
Brandon McKelvain: Yeah, thank you, Allen.
Allen Hall: We need thousands of wind technicians. And right now, especially in West Texas, where you guys are there's a huge demand for technicians that are trained and are knowledgeable in the wind industry. And, one of the, one of the programs you have To do that is the wind start program.
And I want to start there because I want to everybody understand what is the wind start program. And if you want to get into wind, why would you choose that program?
Jeremy McKelvain: What we do is we go out to career fairs trade schools, community college. advertise WindStart. Yes, it is STL or safety technology but it's a program for it.
We get them interested and tell them what we offer through our WindStart program at safety technology, get them interested and then get them signed up for these classes. Give them their relevant training, all their certifications give them some extra training as well. That's a little bit more technical to prepare them for an entry level job into the wind industry.
And then connect them with our partners that we have, our customers that we have for interviews, try and get them hired on right away. You mentioned that we have thousands of people that we need to hire. By 2030, it's estimated that we need to hire close to 500, 000 bodies for the wind industry.
So doing this as a wind star program as the manager go in and we try and find those bodies there. You get good paying jobs. You have a reliable career. And for me, my whole thing was, I love helping people. I love helping people and guiding people. I've done it for 20 years in the Air Force. Now I just transitioned into this, so that's what the windstar program is a way to introduce people into the wind industry.
Let's be real. Let's face it. Renewable energy is the way of the future and through safety technology, we can train those people through the windstar program and get them in an amazing career in wind as a wind technician. That's it.
Joel Saxum: So you guys are going to high schools, community colleges what other kind of community outreach you do you guys do?
Cause you're actually being like the boots on the ground, going and grabbing these people. Cause that's what the industry needs, right? We know there's training centers dot, dot it all over the place, but that effort to actually be the people that are going in talking to who could be these candidates and bringing them in to get them to that training.
That's what's really needed. So you guys are actually doing the boots on the ground activities as well.
Jeremy McKelvain: I went to one in Roswell, New Mexico last week that was for the job corps, for students young people who were either didn't finish high school and they're going back to finish their diploma, get their GED and learn some trait.
They reached out and wanted to see if we could, If we could attend. And I went and those people, they were extremely excited to see me. The students were, but also the director of the job corps and some of their instructors that taught their electrical training, their painting, their construction, their plumbing.
It's just getting our voice out there, our name out there, and getting people interested for to basically spread the word on.
Allen Hall: So who is your typical candidate? What, like where, what's their background education level? What are they looking to do for, to further their career?
Jeremy McKelvain: A lot of them know people, either friends or family that have been in the wind industry, and they know about it.
They want to do it. They just don't know how to get into it. Or we'll have recent high school graduates. People that did not finish a four year degree that want a job, want a good, reliable, good paying job with benefits just like our partners have. And those are the ones that really seem to pique the interest.
Somebody that wants to make something, make a better life for themselves and their families.
Allen Hall: And are they primarily based in Texas or are they coming from elsewhere?
Jeremy McKelvain: Right now we have traveled mainly through Texas. Thank you But I have had people reach out to me from Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico Iowa, South Africa.
I've had people from the UK reach out. We are, we're not going to discriminate. And that's one of my big things that I definitely learned in the military is provide people a chance. Diversity makes your workforce. And different points of view, work ethics. That's what we want. We want to give people a chance.
We want to give them the tools to succeed in what we're doing and what we can provide.
Joel Saxum: Yeah. So right now we're talking about the wind start program. So when someone goes into the wind start program, what can they expect as far as costs, the act of education, they come out of there, any certifications they come out with and it's in the length of time so that, if they're listening, go, okay, I understand basically what's required of me.
And. And what I'll leave the program with.
Jeremy McKelvain: Our WindStart program has has a couple of different options. We offer a three week course and a four week course. Our three week course focuses around the GWO certifications, the Global Wind Organization certifications. You get your basic safety training, your basic technical training, your advanced rescue training, and then you get to take an elective.
Now that four week course, you're going to get all of those things as well, but you're also going to get An additional five days that focuses more on your technical training your your electrical, your mechanical, your hydraulics, things like that. That's gonna be a little bit more industry specific, which everything really is.
But that's gonna. going to give you a little bit more, but that's our four week course.
Joel Saxum: So they may not come out of there as an expert, but at least he's been exposed to, it's going to not be the first time they've heard the word hydraulic or electric motor or something. When they get to the field, they may have, they'll seen it before and they may have some working knowledge of it and, be that new team member that is going to need to be trained up in the real world, they're not coming in completely green. They've got. They've got all their safety search.
They're ready to hit the field. And they've been exposed to the, the general concepts within a wind turbine. To me, they'll be steps ahead, right? Light years ahead of someone that's just walking off the street.
Brandon McKelvain: The WindStar program, it really it hits home to me personally, because, What Jeremy's talking about that was me, I didn't have I wasn't gonna go to school for four years I was you know, I was not suited well for that didn't want anything to do with school But I needed a good pay a job, you know Wasn't you know, I needed to get out and work, And that's the other thing is, to go to a you know A two year trade school or something like that also wasn't in the cards for me I needed something quick.
I needed to just get in. And, fortunately I was hired, right out of high school, but I was just thrown off into the deep end, and there, there wasn't good training for me for the first few years and whatnot. And then I linked up with a better company and I got the good training and I grew up around a shop atmosphere and, things like that.
I knew, mechanics and, all that good stuff. My dad was a mechanic going to shop and. So I knew some stuff, but when it came to things like electricity, I knew nothing and I had no business being out there, so we come at it from a unique perspective.
All of our instructors here have, most of them have over 10 years of field experience in this industry, and they really know what the competencies are and what we need.