News

January 7, 2010

LCCC sets sustainable-energy training program locally in fall

The initiative will start as a certificate but could become a two-year degree.

For years, the state has promised jobs by catering to the sustainable-energy industry. Now, the Luzerne County Community College is offering students a way to get those jobs.

Its Sustainable Energy Technology certificate program, which started last semester with nine students at its Shamokin campus, will roll out at its Nanticoke campus this fall. The one-year, 32-credit program provides a foundation of college math and science, but expands to specific technical areas about technologies used in the industry.

The program is better than going to a trade school because it trains for more than just a single job, said Mark Rutkowski, an engineering technology professor.

“We start out with some basic physics to understand how energy is converted from one form into another,” he said. “If you have that broad math and science base, you can better understand (changes in the industry) and prepare for (them).” The program came through the Keystone Energy Technology Enterprise Center in Northumberland County, an incubator solely for sustainable-energy companies. KETEC approached the college about creating workforce training for those companies, Rutkowski said.

“Since they’re new, they’re going to be looking to hire people,” he said of the companies. “We’re trying to create an entry-level technician training. … As a community college, we always strive to maintain close ties to industry and what industry needs.”

The program delves into specific training in electricity, computer-aided drafting, programmable logic controllers and how they are used in wind, solar, clean-coal and biomass energy technologies. Students are also navigated toward internships, which are being set up through Drexel University, and jobs through KETEC.

“In this area, they’re not as actively seeking these companies, but they’re out there already,” he said. “Pennsylvania has been very, very proactive in attracting these companies.”

The training also prepares students for jobs in traditional industries with energy applications, such as electricity utilities, or entrepreneurial opportunities. “It would certainly be a benefit to having this training if you’re looking to start a business in that industry,” Rutkowski said.

The courses, which cost LCCC’s fulltime student fee of $1,250 per semester, are taught by about half a dozen mostly adjunct professors from the specific fields.

The program grants a certificate, but Rutkowski said plans are to expand it to a two-year program that would bestow industry certifications. The plan hasn’t been fleshed out yet, but he expected it to be ready within a few years.

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