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Coverage of energy that moves beyond polarized arguments and emotional debate to explore the points of tension, the tradeoffs and opportunities, and the very human consequences of energy policy, production, use and innovation.Inside Energy is a collaboration of seven public media outlets in the nation's energy epicenter: Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota.

A Safety Focus For Wyoming's New Oil And Gas Job Corps Center

Leigh Paterson
/
Inside Energy
Dormitories at the Wind River Job Corps Center will house around 300 students.

Set to open in 2015, the Wind River Jobs Corps Center in Riverton, Wyoming will be the first of 125 existing jobs corps center around the country to focus on energy – with a special emphasis on oil and gas production.

Wyoming's oil and gas industry, the local community and lawmakers like U.S. Senator Mike Enzi all seem to agree that the center is a great thing. But its existence is largely due to the oil and gas industry's dismal safety record.

At the height of Wyoming's oil and gas boom, in the mid-2000s, worker fatalities in the state peaked.

"Virtually everybody in Riverton either had a family member or close friend who had either been seriously injured or they had had somebody killed in an oil field accident," said former Riverton, Wyoming mayor and energy industry lawyer John Vincent.

His neighbors lost their son in an accident on a rig. He had trouble looking them in the face.

"That was a breaking point for me I decided I had to do something about it," Vincent said.

Through his law practice, Vincent started representing injured workers. As mayor of Riverton, he signed the Department of Labor application for a training center that would focus on energy. With the Wind River Job Corps Center close to completion, Vincent believes the program will better prepare young people for the harsh realities of oil and gas work.

"These kids will get to see real equipment, and they're gonna have an idea of what it looks like and sounds like," he said. "They don't call it easy-neckin', they call it rough-neckin', you know."

Wyoming's energy industry is supportive as well. Four industry partners will donate equipment and have helped write curriculum: Encana Oil & Gas, ConocoPhillips, Marathon Energy, and Devon Energy.

Credit Courtesy of BOCES
Rendering of the Riverton, Wyoming Wind River Job Corps campus.

John Schmidt, an operations supervisor at Encana, walked through the process a recruit would go through at his company, which starts first with a week of upfront safety training at their offices in Denver, Colorado and defensive driving courses.

"When we get him back after that week, we put him with one of our seasoned employees and we're very, very careful about what we let him do," Schmidt said. "We walk him through all the equipment one piece at a time. And we'll just work with him as needed. It is very worker dependent. The faster he learns, the faster he'll be out on his own. But we never ever let an employee go out before we're absolutely sure that he's safe and well trained."

In comparison to Encana's one week program, students will stay at Wyoming's Wind River Jobs Corps Center for an average of eight months, studying not only oil and gas production but also construction, welding, diesel mechanics, accounting, and office administration.

A 40-year industry veteran has another perspective on these companies and their attention to safety. He asked we only use his first name – John – because he's suing the oil and gas equipment contractor. In 2013, John fell into an open hole on a rig in Wyoming and broke his leg and ankle. At his second home in a golf community outside of Phoenix, Arizona, John said it's his opinion that what is happening with training "is just to appease insurance companies."

"It is to put a check by something that you've done for a person rather than to make sure that you're really effectively training them in my opinion," John said. "I saw so many of those young guys come out to the rig that weren't prepared to go to work on a drilling rig."

John's porch in Arizona, overlooking a manicured putting green, is a world away from the scrubby, wind-blown, golf course that will be home to Riverton, Wyoming's Job Corps Center. John's lawyer is John Vincent, the former mayor of Riverton. Vincent has gotten John interested in donating equipment or maybe even teaching at the center.

"I had a lot of really good people that paid attention to me and helped teach me things, and the proper way of doing things," John said. "And I'd like to pay that forward."

Inside Energy is a public media collaboration, based in Colorado, Wyoming and North Dakota, focusing on the energy industry and its impacts.

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