{"id":141224,"date":"2017-12-22T04:49:37","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T09:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=141224"},"modified":"2017-12-22T04:49:37","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T09:49:37","slug":"theres-more-than-oil-and-gas-wind-blowing-workers-in-new-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/22\/theres-more-than-oil-and-gas-wind-blowing-workers-in-new-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"‘There’s more than oil and gas:’ Wind blowing workers in new direction"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"This<\/a>
This is a logo for Lethbridge College. (Wikimedia <\/a>commons, Fair use)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LETHBRIDGE, Alta.\u2014 The winds of change are pushing Mark Kokas in a new career direction.<\/p>\n

Nearly two years after being laid off as an electrician in Alberta’s flailing oil and gas sector, the 42-year-old is training to become a wind turbine technician.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is tough to find work right now. It’s not like it was before,\u201d said Kokas in a class at Lethbridge College, one of two institutions in Western Canada that offers training and the only one with a one-year certificate program.<\/p>\n

\u201cOil and gas used to be our bread and butter, but it isn’t any more. There’s going to be a really hard push now to get people trained where the industry wants them to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s been an eye-opener going into a different industry. There’s more than oil and gas. It’s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

The one-year course to become a wind turbine technician comes with a warning label on the college website: \u201cThose afraid of heights need not apply.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMost don’t have a warning label. We do. Our students end up working in an office 300 feet in the air, so obviously safety is a big priority,\u201d said instructor Chris DeLisle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make sure you’re not scared of heights.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeLisle said that with the downturn in the oil and gas sector, alternative energy sources such as wind are a natural fit for many who are laid off. About four out of the 16 people in his class have worked in the oil sector in some capacity, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Alberta looking to kind of lead the rest of the country now into renewable energy, wind is … at the forefront, so it’s going to be around for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wind power is eliciting optimism at a time when Canada is trying to reduce its carbon footprint.<\/p>\n

With their giant 80-metre-high turbines stretching as far as the eye can see and 45-metre-long blades turning gracefully in the breeze, wind farms in areas including southern Alberta are becoming more common.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Wind Energy Association estimates that if Alberta were to use wind energy to fulfil a commitment to add 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2030, it would generate $8.3 billion in investment along with employment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only wish I was laid off earlier, so I could have started earlier and I could already be working,\u201d said Kokas. \u201cThere shouldn’t be an issue of getting a job at the end of this class.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeLisle said the course includes a lot of electrical training, as well as how to repair fibreglass windmill blades and learning the inner workings of the turbine itself.<\/p>\n

It also involves plenty of safety work using a life-sized dummy that DeLisle calls Rescue Randy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that’s one of our former students that didn’t make it through the program,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe use him for all the different rescue scenarios. If somebody was to get hurt inside the hub, they need to bring them out and bring them to the ground. It’s a mock-up for rescues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oscar Diaz-Kennedy has spent the last few years landscaping and working on construction projects. At 24, he said he can see which way the wind is blowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve just seen how the world is going and how Alberta is changing from oilfields going to renewable energy,\u201d Diaz-Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided I wanted to be ahead of the loop a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LETHBRIDGE, Alta.\u2014 The winds of change are pushing Mark Kokas in a new career direction. Nearly two years after being …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":141229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[40085,40086],"class_list":["post-141224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","tag-theres-more-than-oil-and-gas-wind-blowing-workers-in-new-direction","tag-mark-kokas","mauthors-bill-graveland","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}