In Texas alone the wind energy related job future looks excellent. For information on the employment potential, salary potential, and job location opportunities, in just Texas Click here . Now look into the job opportunities in the wind industry in your state. Check the job hunt websites and look into those renewable energy categories.

Are you ready to get that job in wind technology? How about solar? Biodiesel? Geothermal?

Sure, I can already hear you saying, “I’m too old to retrain.  I’ve spent my whole life working as a ________ (fill in the blank) and I just don’t know much about this new energy stuff.” 

Hold on …. what makes you think that your many years experience as a machinist, electrician, tool and die technician, brick layer, rebar and cement person, ditch digger, assembler, lineman (or woman), truck driver, tech manager, etc., etc., has nothing to do with the job needs in the new energy fields?

Have you checked out the job descriptions in the new energy sectors? With a couple of community college courses can you fit the new job need? Have you taken a good inventory of what you know, what you don’t know, and what employeers are looking for? Would your new employer build on your experience and help pay to retrain you to fill his/her empty job needs?

Check your community college program list. If your regional school does not yet have a wind energy, solar, biodiesel or other renewable energy program being developed, ask them why not. Don’t be shy!

For information wind energy education programs by state, Wind Powering America has an excellent, interactive map of the US showing which states are currently offering higher education or continuing education in Wind Energy. You can click on the map to activate it and then click on a state to read more about the programs being offered there.

Click here to check out the wind energy education map.

If you think for a moment of all the other segments of this new energy “revolution” and all the potential jobs that are being created as we embrace renewable energy in the US, especially under the incoming administration …. The future – your future – is bright.

The current economic downturn might just be the kick in the pants for many of us to learn new skills for the economic boom ahead.

As Tom Friedman suggests in Hot, Flat and Crowded – the new industrial revolution is without a doubt in new energy technology. We can embrace this new “revolution” or be left behind.

To read my blog post on Tom Friedman, the new industrial revolution and your part in it, and to go see the Friedman interview video, click here.

Community colleges are mandated to prepare their students for real jobs in their local regions. As you might expect then, the early bird programs in wind technology related education are sprouting up at the community college level. For example:

Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari New Mexico offers Certificate and Degree programs in Wind Energy Technology. Providing instruction in wind turbine technology, turbine maintenance, tower safety, and wind economics. Students in both their one and two year programs “will be prepared for rewarding and profitable careers in this growing field.”

Oklahoma State University’s Oklahoma City campus will offer the state’s first wind turbine technology degree program starting January ’09. Their 2-year associates’ degree will focus on training technicians for jobs in both utility-scale and facilities-scale environments. The program will include classes in electrical, mechanical and hydraulic malfunctions, scheduled maintenance and general service. Training could also include securing site leases, wiring the turbine network to the power grid and designing a wind farm. The wind technician degree program was created because the wind industry is becoming an increasingly important factor in Oklahoma’s economy.

Iowa Lakes Community College – Alliant Energy is collaborating with Iowa Lakes Community College (ILCC) to develop the curriculum for their Wind Energy and Turbine Technology Program, the first in the state of Iowa. The one year diploma program prepares students for entry-level positions in the wind industry, focusing on construction, maintenance, and operation of wind turbines. The two-year Associate in Applied Science degree prepares students to install, maintain and service modern wind turbines. Graduates will qualify for entry-level positions and also have the skills and education background to become a wind turbine operator and potentially a supervisor. Both programs prepare students to support Iowa’s growing wind infrastructure as companies rush to build renewable energy generation.

Lake Shore Technical College, on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin is offering a two-year Associates Applied Science Degree program in Wind Energy Technology. The program prepares students for increasing job opportunities in both the US and Canada wind energy industry. Upon completion of the program students will be ready to function as a: Wind Turbine Technician/Mechanic/Tower Climber; Installation Technician; Operation and Maintenance Technician; and Wind Farm Maintenance Manager.

Oregon Institute of Technology announced in March, 2008 the development of the country’s first four-year undergraduate degree program in renewable-energy systems. Although this program includes other renewable energy systems besides wind, the trend is obvious. Renewable energy – wind, solar, geothermal, etc., – are leading the way to economic recovery for the US.

Job search web site openings include wind turbine engineers, turbine technologists and wind technicians. And, the list of wind-related job types and job skills descriptions is definitely growing daily.

If you’ve just been laid off, or downsized or whatever other name losing your job is called these days…. go directly to your local community college and start preparing for a new job in wind technology or any other renewable energy-related field.

The more you know about wind energy technology, the more you will be prepared to either help promote a community with project or bring home the bacon and put it on the family table.

The old jobs are probably not coming back.

Global warming is not a myth. And despite some politician’s attempt to “say it ain’t so,” climate change really is man-made. Thousands of concerned observers around the world already agree that solar, wind, geothermal, ocean wave, and every other form of renewable, non-polluting energy will be the only forms with which Spaceship Earth – and all animal life (including us humans) will be able to survive.

Elsewhere on this website I point blog readers to Tom Friedman’s latest book – Hot, Flat and Crowded. In it he says that the US can re-establish its world economic leadership by creating technologies to make the Earth livable for man. As he sees it, new energy technology IS the “next great industrial revolution.”

And so back to the tanking US economy.

The US is in deep economic trouble right now, today. But instead of continuing to bail out the very organizations that got us into this dark and dismal economic crater, we need to invest our hard earned tax dollars into the new economic revolution that is already underway.

We need to step up to the front of the nation line and take responsibility for pushing the renewable energy revolution forward.

We need to refocus our educational mission. By developing green tech job training, green job skills development, and new energy education, we can re-establish the US as a world leader in innovative technology once again.

The need is out there. The opportunity is now. We can spend our efforts trying to preserve what won’t come back, or we can once again become a world leader in innovation, technology and education. Don’t believe we are on the cusp of a brand new economy?

The following clip from the Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari New Mexico…. pretty much says it all.

Certificate and Degree Programs

The high demand for wind turbines is creating a shortage of trained and qualified wind energy technicians who provide maintenance on the turbines. NAWRTC at Mesalands Community College provides instruction in wind turbine technology, turbine maintenance, tower safety, and wind economics. Completion of first-year courses will result in an Applied Science Certificate in Wind Energy Technology. Completion of the two-year program will result in an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Wind Energy Technology. Students in these programs will be prepared for rewarding and profitable careers in this growing field.

Click here to read more about the Mesalands future focused program.