Will we be ready? Training Alaskans for gas pipeline jobs.

• Author: Orr, Vanessa
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: ENGINEERING

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For years, there's been talk about the natural gas pipeline in Alaska. Who would build it? What route would it take? And of course, will it ever happen?

While most people think that the creation of the pipeline is a good idea in the sense of improving Alaska's economy and creating jobs, one of the biggest questions has yet to be answered--who in Alaska has the experience and the training to fill the positions it creates? The fact is, $1.8 billion leaves the state in earned wages to nonresidents every year, so how does the State plan to fill the thousands of jobs that the pipeline creates with people who live on the Last Frontier?

Fortunately, in 2007, the Alaska Legislature charged the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development (DOLWD) with just this task. The Alaska Gasline Inducement Act of 2007 requires that the commissioner develop a job-training program to provide training for Alaskans in gas pipeline project management, construction, operations, maintenance and other gas pipeline-related positions.

According to the Alaska Job Center Network, the gas line will provide approximately 6,500 direct construction jobs in the short-term and create more than 50,000 indirect jobs in the long-term. Permitting, engineering, pre-construction and construction jobs will be phased in over the next two to six years.

According to Pipeline Training Administrator and Apprenticeship Coordinator Gerald "Gerry" Andrews, when this work force development project first got under way, one key component was missing: collaboration between all of the entities would be affected, such as the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED), the D OLWD, and the University of Alaska.

"Some of these groups already had their own semi-stand-alone plans, but what we needed was an articulated plan that encompassed everyone in a collaborative fashion; not just sites of education and sites of work force development," he explained. "Our goal was, and is, to make a seamless education and work force development system."

JOBS GALORE

Out of this came the AGIA Strategic Training Plan, which resulted in the creation of Andrews' position and the position of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) coordinator. Andrews oversees the training needs for the gas line and registered apprenticeships, and CTE Coordinator Jeff Selvey insures alignment and collaboration with all of the CTE partners.

"Our goal is to align career and...