Chevron puts $20M into educating, training Appalachian workers

Chevron Corp. is putting $20 million into an education initiative aimed at training a new generation of energy sector workers in 27 counties above the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in which it's an active gas producer.

“We've got to start equipping kids in school early enough and through vocational training programs to provide that connection to real job opportunities,” Nigel Hearne, president of Chevron Appalachia, said Tuesday at the Senator John Heinz History Center in the Strip District in announcing the Appalachia Partnership Initiative.

San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron, the world's ninth-largest energy company, is working with local nonprofits to fund science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) classes in 20 districts in Western Pennsylvania, Northern West Virginia and Eastern Ohio and improve workforce training.

“There is a shortage ... of qualified applicants due to a lack of STEM skills,” said Dennis Yablonsky, CEO of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, a business and civic group that promotes tourism and economic development in the region.

The conference conducted an analysis in 2012 that identified 14 jobs in high demand among energy companies, but short in supply in the region. Yablonsky named drill rig workers known in the industry as “roustabouts,” workers specializing in mechanical electronics and welders as among the most-needed.

“There is a historic mismatch of job-seekers and the jobs that are available,” said Para Jones, president of Stark State College in North Canton, Ohio. The community college last year joined the ShaleNET collaborative of schools that are training workers for gas jobs.

The Chevron initiative will fund scholarships for ShaleNET and pay for energy labs in the Elizabeth Forward and Bethlehem Center school districts that will be staffed by Carnegie Mellon University graduate students. Part of the money will go to Project Lead the Way — a national nonprofit that develops STEM curriculum and trains teachers — to expand from 10 schools in the region to 20.

“I think this will help school districts think differently about what courses we offer. You're going to see a lot more engineering classes,” said Todd Keruskin, assistant superintendent at Elizabeth Forward, which started its energy lab in September. He expects the initiative to help train teachers on the latest technology.

Hearne and others said the $20 million investment shows Chevron's commitment to the region and to training local students from an early age so that drillers and others don't need to import workers. As the gas industry took hold in Appalachia over the past decade, workers with experience in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma filled many initial jobs.

Chevron already was a partner in ShaleNET with five other energy companies, and with the Benedum Foundation in the Downtown-based Center for Sustainable Shale Development. The company and foundation last year gave nearly $400,000 to the Western Area Career & Technology Center for job training programs. Chevron supported Project Lead the Way and was among seven companies that in 2011 donated a combined $1 million to start the Chevron Center for STEM Education and Career Development at the Carnegie Science Center.

The new effort seeks to cultivate workers for the whole energy industry but targets the region that hosts the fastest-growing and most productive shale gas plays in the country.

“This is much more targeted geographically,” Hearne said. “This basin has caught a lot of people by surprise.”

“Schools need close relationships with the corporate sector” to make sure they are giving students an education that will make them employable, said Jim Denova, vice president of the Downtown-based Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, which is a partner in the initiative with Chevron, the Allegheny Conference and Rand Corp. “Schools cannot rely on the last generation's technology.”

Rand Corp. will evaluate the program.

Denova and Rand Corp. sociologist Gabriella Gonzalez said more companies are investing in education. GE last month said it was giving $10 million to Penn State University for gas supply research.

David Conti is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-388-5802 or dconti@tribweb.com.