Arizona mining companies are having a hard time finding qualified candidates for even high paying jobs, and that's symptomatic of the industry nationwide.
SME and GSA are offering a webinar on "Emerging Workforce Trends in the U.S. Energy and Mining Industries" on Thursday, May 23.
Following is the announcement from the two professional societies:
Access to energy and mineral resources
is essential to support the United States' high standard of living, economy,
and security. The outlook is bright for U.S. energy and mining jobs as these
industries should continue to grow and pay well, but the nation will have to
overcome a looming retirement bubble and low number of prospective employees
skilled in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Some
innovative solutions are being pursued, but more action is needed if the nation
is to maintain a skilled workforce able to supply its energy and mineral
needs. The National Research Council (NRC) report Emerging Workforce
Trends in the Energy and Mining Industries: A Call to Action examines the
current and future workforce situation for the non-fuel mineral, oil and gas,
coal, nuclear, geothermal, solar, wind, and carbon sequestration sectors and
frames some steps the nation can take to help ensure it meets the country’s
future needs in these industries.
Leigh Freeman and Jerry
Ventre, professionals with the mining and solar industries, respectively, were
members of the NRC committee that authored the report. They’ll provide a
brief synopsis of the report and take questions from the audience.
- LEIGH
FREEMAN is the principal and general manager of Downing Teal, Inc. He has
over 30 years of domestic and international experience in the resource
industries. Early in his career, Mr. Freeman served in technical,
management, and executive positions with large and small resource
companies. He serves in leadership roles for the Society of Mining
Engineers, Society of Economic Geologists, Industrial Minerals
Association, International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable
Technologies, as well as Montana Tech, South Dakota School of Mines,
University of Arizona, and Queen’s University. Mr. Freeman received his
B.S. in geological engineering from Montana Tech of the University of
Montana.
- GERARD (“JERRY”) VENTRE is a
consultant in photovoltaic (PV) systems engineering, specializing in
workforce development, system design, and product assurance. He has over
35 years of experience in research, development, design, systems analysis,
and education. For 20 of those years, he led the PV and distributed power
programs at the Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the
University of Central Florida. During that time he also managed the U.S.
DOE’s Photovoltaic Southeast Regional Experiment Station, with emphasis on
test, evaluation, and application of PV and advanced technologies.
He received his B.S. degree in aerospace engineering, and his M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering and applied mechanics from the
University of Cincinnati.
The full "Workforce Trends" report may be freely downloaded at
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18250
After registering you will receive a
confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar. There
is no cost to attend this Webinar.
2pm Eastern / 1pm Central / 12pm Mountain / 11am Pacific time
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Mac®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.6 or newer
Mobile attendees
Required: iPhone®, iPad®, Android™ phone or Android tablet
The presentations from the annual Peer Review of US DOE funded geothermal projects are now posted online. AZGS presented the progress and results on the National Geothermal Data System we run on behalf of the Association of American State Geologists. NGDS is in a beta test mode, with over 17,000 data sets comprising more than 5 million records currently. That number is expected to double or triple by year end.
