Grant to help CSM add to workforce

Friday, Sept. 5, 2008

Those sectors face critical shortages in the next decade.

CSM applied for the money after it recognized this as an ‘‘emerging crisis” in Southern Maryland, particularly as a new nuclear reactor might be imminent at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby, which will require thousands of new employees, and as an inadequate workforce pipeline fails to supply workers to replace retiring baby boomers, said CSM President Bradley M. Gottfried.

Southern Maryland will need 4,300 skilled trade workers for energy facility and utility construction through 2013, plus more than 300 permanent facility and utility workers, according to timetables by companies such as Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, Pepco, Constellation Energy, Mirant, Dominion Power and the Shaw Group.

The construction industry is facing similar challenges, with a 20-percent increase in demand projected through 2014.

Competition for skilled employees among energy companies, the Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Andrews Air Force Base and other high-visibility employers requires aggressive outreach and promotion to attract skilled workers, Gottfried said.

The funding will also support CSM’s development of a Center for Energy and Trades Training — a boot camp of sorts to address challenges facing Maryland energy companies that will begin accepting students next fall.

The College of Southern Maryland, the Governor’s Workforce Investment Board, and partners in industry, education and economic development will focus on electric utility positions and attempt to increase the number of applicants for energy-related construction jobs. Trainees are projected to earn an average of $18 per hour.

Constellation Energy has already pledged $50,000 to the initiative, Gottfried said. The college has been looking for a facility to house the training center in Hughesville, where it would be centrally located to Charles, St. Mary’s and Calvert counties.

CSM is one of only 11 projects selected from 171 applicants nationwide as part of the High Growth Job Training Initiative by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration.

‘‘The project demonstrates that the college is being proactive in meeting our industry’s workforce demands in the future,” said Tom Dennison, spokesman for SMECO. ‘‘What we’ve done is we’ve offered the donation of equipment necessary, to offer employees to serve as adjunct faculty and experts for the students, internships, referrals of job applicants for training and collaboration with the local school system to promote energy careers..”

‘‘Any effort that anyone makes to support the energy industry is a good thing and we’re going to do what we can to get this off the ground,” said Linda Vassallo, director of Calvert County’s Economic Development Department. ‘‘We have Constellation Energy and Dominion and SMECO in our backyard and we want to see them be successful.”

The three-year grant will also allow program administrators to consider expanding it once it gets off the ground.