Craft workers key to nuclear energy industry.

• Position: CRAFT WORKERS

It sounds (00 good to be true: complete Midlands Technical College's nonlicenscd nuclear reactor program, put in two years of work experience, pass a license exam and your annual pay will be about $55,000. Ten years later it can he as high as $150,000. But it is coining true for recent high-school graduates and workforce veterans who want to be at the controls of a nuclear plant. says Clint Chandler, chair of the Columbia. S.C., school's engineering technology and engineering university transfer programs. Reactor operators are the principal people in a plant who keep things running. They're jacks-of-all-trades and master of them all. Whereas a typical engineering technology assoc late degree might require 250 competencies. our program requires students to have 2.406 competencies. It's like drinking from a hose."

Most people conjure images of Ph.D.-wielding engineers and scientists when asked who makes up the nuclear-energy workforce. But it doesn't always take a four-year degree or more to earn a high-responsibility position at a power plant or manufacturer in the industry. Most of the workforce--the people who operate the controls, inspect the pipes and wires, and guard against radiation leaks--have associate or technical degrees. People are needed to II these positions for many reasons, among them the age of the current nuclear industry workforce: About half of the workers will be eligible for retirement within the next 10 years and those positions will have to be tilled. Also driving demand is the pace at which new reactors are going online and licenses are being renewed for about three-quarters of existing reactors.

Many of these technical workers start their training at community colleges. Working with the Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Energy Institute -- the industry's education and policy trade association -- community colleges are creating programs and expanding current ones to meet industry needs. "Community colleges provide an excellent springboard for individuals looking to enter the nuclear energy industry," says Elizabeth McAndrew-Benavides, senior manager of workforce policy and programs at NEI. "A two-year degree in nuclear technology can make a candidate highly qualified for most entry-level operator, technician or maintenance positions. In 2012, the nuclear energy industry hired nearly 2,000 individuals into these positions across the country."

Community colleges in the Carolinas are no exception. They are creating or...