Training drills 13 for jobs in shale

By Ed Runyan | June 25, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

Sanford

WARREN

A three-week federally funded course that began last week at Eastern Gateway Community College’s Warren center will provide its 13 students with an overview of careers in the oil and gas industry.

But just as important to the companies that will consider hiring them will be the knowledge that they have been drug-tested and background-checked and are serious about going to work in the business.

“It shows the company initiative. It shows that the individual is committed to the industry,” said Michel Lorms, special projects coordinator for Eastern Gateway.

Francesco Sanford, 40, of Youngs-town, one of the 13 students in the Shale.Net program, agrees that character is a key to getting hired.

“I think it’s all about consistency,” he said, saying the jobs will go to people who show up every day and apply themselves.

Just getting into the class is difficult, Sanford and another student said. It takes several weeks to complete the background check, drug test and other applications and requirements.

Lorms is among the instructors providing the training for the class, which is generally aimed at providing training to enter the job of roustabout.

Roustabouts do a variety of jobs on oil and natural-gas rigs, but they typically focus on construction of a well site, Lorms said.

But a large number of the people coming through the class at some of Eastern Gateway’s other campuses have gone to work for companies that provide services to the well drillers, such as water haulers and well-site clean-up crews.

Sometime in the next couple of weeks, the students will get hands-on experience with equipment used at a site, such as an aerial truck and forklift.

Some students who already have experience operating equipment plan to carry that experience to the gas industry, Lorms noted. One man in the class plans to be a well-site cook.

The students range in age from teens to 50, and students in the three previous sessions have had varying levels of education, including college degrees.

The class is being operated through a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and has the cooperation of the city of Warren, which will reimburse the cost of background checks and drug screenings.

One more ShaleNet training class is scheduled for the Steubenville campus. After that, it’s not clear whether additional sessions will take place, Lorms said.

Student Michael Berg, 25, of Nelson in Portage County, said he would be happy to start out as a roustabout, but there are less physically demanding jobs in the industry that might make sense as he gets older.

A well tender, for instance, inspects the wells after they’ve been drilled, works fairly normal hours and can sometimes work close to home.

“We’re fortunate to have a program like this that allows us to be part of a new industry,” Sanford said. “It allows us to learn about the industry and network with some of the companies in the area.”

Both men said they qualified to receive the training at no cost.