Alliant Energy invests in energy education for future gas workers
Alliant Energy is investing heavily in the future of the natural gas workforce by helping to fund a new Gas Utility Technician Program at Wisconsin’s Moraine Park Technical College.
The effort, based at the college’s Beaver Dam campus, includes a $2.3 million Energy Education Center expected to graduate its first class of gas utility technicians in 2019. Alliant Energy donated $80,000 to the program, which will provide skilled workers to natural gas utilities and propane companies.
The Gas Utility Technician Program is a direct result of combined analysis by several entities that shows natural gas workers will be in high demand, Jennifer Emmons, manager of talent acquisition and inclusion at Alliant Energy, told American Gas.
The Wisconsin Energy Workforce Consortium, of which Alliant Energy is a part, is a collaboration of energy companies, education and government that formed in 2014 and began efforts to quantify the demand for qualified workers, she said.
“We were then able to look at the supply and identify a gap,” Emmons said. “We did not have a gas-specific program that could support our expected demand for natural gas technicians.”
The cooperative effort was key in identifying the need and taking the steps to meet it, she said. “Alliant Energy and our other consortium member companies are proud of our workforce planning efforts,” Emmons said. “We are excited about the collective progress we’re making to ensure we have a workforce to meet future needs.”
“Alliant Energy has been a business partner with Moraine Park Technical College for many years. This donation demonstrates their strategic vision for not only their company, but also their industry,” Moraine Park President Bonnie Baerwald said in a statement issued by the college. “Alliant Energy knows that an investment in workforce training creates a stronger tomorrow for the energy industries and the communities they serve.”