Career task force seeks to avert power shortage.

• Author: Hurd, Donald J.
• Position: Guest column

THE COMING SHORTAGE OF MANAGERS, TECHNICIANS, craftspeople and professionals needed to operate American electric utilities in the next decade will create major employment opportunities for young people interested in careers in the power sector of the future.

That's the conclusion of the Colorado Utility Careers Task Force, a group of volunteer professionals and educators we convened last year to examine human-resources challenges and solutions in the electric-power industry in coming years. Now, after conducting some significant research over the past six months, the task force's message to high school students and college freshmen unsure of their majors is this:

The utility/power sector in the future will be challenging, high-tech, stable, environmentally sophisticated--and lucrative at all levels. Because of an increasing national focus on environment and energy efficiency, renewable energy systems and other emerging technologies now becoming commercially viable will need to be integrated into power systems across our country--no small task.

The continuing growth in demand for energy, deployment of new technology and the aging work force all add up to fabulous career opportunities in the energy sector. Young people should begin now to examine an educational path that will lead them into some very attractive and rewarding careers in what will be a new era of power generation in this country.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, even with energy-sector consolidation, there will be a shortage of about 10,000 power-industry jobs by 2012--just six years away. The wave of expansion in the industry that will be supported by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 is expected to drive the need for managers and staff even more. Our own research shows that tougher new emissions standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year could result in the retirement of certain older, less efficient coal-fired plants in the 28 Eastern and Southeastern states now governed by these new environmental laws. If those old plants are shut down, a substantial building boom will bring online new, state-of-the-art coal fired plants and renewable energy systems--continuing the progress the utility industry has made in emissions reduction over the past 35 years.

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Colorado's leading institutions of higher learning are preparing power generation and transmission curricula now for those interested in working directly on systems to...