Working in these weather conditions isnt new to Kirby Berhow.
(Kirby Berhow): I was previously ten years as a lineman, power lineman. And I did some different duties as a field technician, underground locating, underground installations.
Now instead of driving up to a transmission tower, its a wind turbine. Berhow is the manager of renewable energy service at Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative.
(Kirby Berhow): Managing this wind turbine project came up, they were going to pursue somebody, so I threw my hat into the ring, and Im proud to be doing it.
He manages Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperatives two wind projects, called Superior and Lakota.
Today, Kirby sits on the advisory board for Iowa Lakes Community College. They have a wind turbine technology program that keeps getting bigger and better. Kirby is just one of several industry experts who are helping get students ready for jobs just like his.
The college has its very own wind turbine for students to climb.
And two bladeless nacelles sit right behind the school. Instructor Doug Enger shows us inside.
(Doug Enger): When it got here, they ripped the generator out and they took the gearbox out, so they opened it up to us. So we originally began using it for simple things. Rigging, how do I get tools up here, how do I, in case of emergency, how do I get off of here, how do I get around in here.
Enger says the advisory board, the one that Kirby Berhow sits on, helps focus instructors on real world teaching.
(Doug Enger): I dont think we could do our job without them, to be very honest, because were in the college teaching, and technologys advancing. And focusing us. Telling us where we need to go, what we need to be proficient in, kind of giving us that ideal candidate. When this student graduates, this is what we need to see in our industry at this point.
(Adam Literski): This year, were learning about data aquisitioning. How the data were recording, how they use that to put up new wind sites, and all that.
Adam Literski is a second year student at Iowa Lakes Community College in the Wind Energy and Turbine Technology Program.
Riley Groves is his classmate. He says Iowa Lakes Community College is the place to go to if you want to work in wind.
(Riley Groves): I worked with a guy that went to another one, but its not near as large as Iowa Lakes. And this ones way more hands on. Because weve got techs that are coming, have graduated, and calling in and say, you know, to the instructors, We need this type of program. We need the hydraulics, we need, you know, techs to come out with this knowledge. So the school is growing in and of itself, as the industry is growing.
The executive dean of the schools Estherville campus says in the first year of the wind program, they had fifteen students enrolled. Darin Moeller says today, theyre enrolling about a hundred new students each year.
(Darin Moeller): When you get into an industry that has such high demand and theyre begging you to produce technicians and get them out there ready to go, its very easy to say, Theyve learned enough. Lets get them out there. That has not been our approach. We want to make sure theyre the best in the industry when they leave us.
But soon, they began to run out of space.
(Darin Moeller): We want our students to be using exactly what theyre going to be using in the field, and so its the expansion of facilities to handle the students as well as the equipment needed to have quality labs so that they know what theyre doing.
Thats where this story comes back to the local co-op, Iowa Lakes. The co-op helped the college get a 360-thousand dollar, no-interest grant. The college used the money to expand their facilities.
Rick Olesen started serving on the colleges advisory board from the beginning. As the vice president of operations and engineering at Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative, he says the co-op has really helped the college focus on safety training and hooking a wind project up to the transmission grid. And this partnership between the college and co-op is good for all.
(Rick Olesen): This is a whole new kind of employment option for people coming out of high school, to go to a vocational/technical program, come out with a very good paying job, and keep those resources in our community.
Kirby will be working with an intern from the college this summer.
(Kirby Berhow): Yeah, its an interesting job, a lot of hard work, but pretty good pay for them. For the younger fellas, its a real good deal for them to get into in the early stages.
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