Imagine it's the year 2010. You've just taken the position of utility director for a smaller electric utility or possibly even vice president of engineering and operations for a larger company. You decide to take a tour of the facilities and meet your people. While taking a stroll around the last area of your responsibility, a revelation strikes hard. You've met all your employees and most are either ready to retire or are rapidly approaching the age at which they could retire. Where are all the mid-career people? Where are all the new hires? How did this utility manage to get in this precarious position?

Look at some of the alarming statistics and trends facing the electric-utility industry. Colleges and universities have seen a 50% decline in the number of graduating engineers over the past 15 years. Every year, the labor pools see a decreasing number of personnel to build and maintain the facilities necessary to deliver the electrical energy to the users. One of the most striking bit of information states that the “Gen-Xers” are about 4 to 6 million people short to fill the vacated positions throughout all the industries by 2010.

Why is this Happening?

The energy-delivery industry must take or at least share the blame. Over the past 20 years or so, it seems the energy-delivery industry has seen its ups and downs. With the mergers and acquisitions, deregulation moves and recent energy-trading scandals, the cost-cutting action companies selected was to lay off employees. Why is this so important?

The electric-utility industry was probably one the most stable industries in existence. An employee could likely pursue a lifetime career within the same company. This is quite an attractor for a company even if its pay scale was less than comparable employers. However, with the advent of the ever-increasing use of layoffs, potential employees are considering other fields of endeavor.

Could salary be an issue? Regarding the pay scale, it still appears that the energy-delivery industry is behind when it comes to compensating its engineering staff. Information from the 2001 IEEE Salary Survey shows that the median annual income for an engineer in the energy-delivery industry is 17.2% less than the median income for electrical engineers in their area of technical expertise and 36.6% less than the highest compensated engineers.

Why would a newly graduated engineer want to be in an industry that compensates less, provides the same level of benefits and appears just as likely to lay off employees as other industries? Everyone knows that monetary gain is not a motivator of staff, but to a recent graduate, it is really the only comparison tool available to determine where to pursue an initial career.

The colleges and universities offering courses in the power-engineering field have dwindled over the past 20 years. The most likely reason for this is that the research funds in the power field available to these schools are quite less than past years. The draw for the engineering graduates is into the “sexier” and more glamorous hi-tech industries. The schools are concentrating their research efforts — more money available — into the hi-tech fields, so teachers/professors are pushing their students toward those fields.

While some colleges — such as Iowa State University (Ames, Iowa, U.S.), Arizona State University (Tempe, Arizona, U.S.), University of Madison-Wisconsin (Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.) and Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.) — still have power-engineering curriculum, how long will they last?

Another alarming statistic is the dramatic increase in the applications for graduate business and law schools. Law school applications are up 17.9% for 2002/03, the biggest spike in more than 20 years, according to the Law School Admission Council. As of July 5, 2002, the council counted 88,418 applications nationwide, compared with 74,994 at the same time last year. The appearance is that fewer and fewer people want to or know enough to pursue a career as a skilled tradesperson or even an engineer.

Let's Be Proactive

How does the utility industry increase the talent pool? It would be a good start to begin in the high schools by touting the opportunities available in the electric-utility industry.

• Stress the importance of a reliable source of electricity and that it takes a well-trained and technically competent work force to ensure this.

• Demonstrate the need to replenish the labor force every five years or so.

• Show a clear career path for a potential employee. Remember not everyone intends to continue onto college; don't forget the skilled trades.

Take for example the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) initiatives. The most recent item of interest is NECA's participation in the “Helmets to Hard Hats” program started by Major General Matthew P. Caulfield (Ret.), which has a purpose to recruit retiring military personnel into the construction industry. This program is striving to create the Center for Military Recruitment, Assessment and Veterans Employment to pave the way for men and women leaving the military to enter an appropriate branch of the trades.

Other campaigns include NECA's affiliation with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in a mailing to high school guidance counselors of a “Career Action Kit.” These kits included two compact discs for the counselors and teachers to use in explaining the skilled trades, plus 50 handouts for students interested in pursuing an occupation in the skilled trades.

NECA/IBEW sent 29,000 of these kits in Spring 2001 and followed up with another mailing of more than 39,000 in Fall 2001. If you add all of these mailings and multiply by the 50 handouts per kit, NECA/IBEW potenitally reached a little more than 3.5 million students through these mailings.

Another area to deeply consider is increasing the support of college and trade school programs to turnout individuals prepared to join the utility work force. Colleges and universities tailor programs based on the financial support they receive. Perhaps by offering some incentives to institutions of higher education, the much-maligned power engineering courses and tracks might reappear. Keep in mind that colleges and universities need to attract students, and by being able to offer a wide range of coursework, an institution betters its probability of appealing to more students.

A program in the Northwestern United States is in the final phases of obtaining federal funding to accelerate the learning process of transmission and distribution engineers. Randy Long, CEO of Intec, is spearheading the program, currently titled “A Certificate Program in Energy Transmission and Distribution.” According to Long, Fred Brown, the founder of the software company LineSoft (now Itron), initially discovered the need for an accelerated program. While trying to recruit personnel for LineSoft, Brown noticed that there was only a finite amount of people capable of designing electric transmission lines and it was an aging work force. He recognized that the industry was going to loose a major knowledge base when this work force begins to retire. Long and Brown see this program as facilitating the long process of the knowledge transfer into a much shorter time period.

Government in Action

Not to be left behind in recognizing the needs for increasing the number of engineering graduates, the U.S. House of Representatives passed The Tech Talent Act (H.R. 3130) on July 9, 2002. This bill authorizes US$390 million in funding over five years through the National Science Foundation to academic institutions that are successful in increasing the number of U.S students majoring in science, math, engineering and technology. This bill authorizes grants to enable colleges and universities to expand successful undergraduate programs, to enable faculty to improve teaching skills and to help colleges purchase new research equipment. A companion bill (S. 1549), sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), is pending review by the Senate Education Committee.

The shortage of engineers and scientists isn't just affecting the energy-delivery industry, this trend is affecting even the premier place of employment for technically minded individuals — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

At a hearing of the House Science Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics on July 18, 2002, NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe stated that the scientists and engineers (S&E) 60 years of age and older outnumber those under age 30 by a 3-1 margin, with approximately 25% of the NASA's S&E work force eligible to retire within the next five years.

Lead by Example

Two electric-utility companies seem to be aware of the need for ever-updating and hiring employees into the engineering and construction areas. Southern Company (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.), which is made up of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power and Savannah Electric, currently is bringing in recently retired employees to transfer knowledge transfer. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E, San Francisco, California, U.S.) is continually on the outlook for talented and experienced personnel to join the company.

Georgia Power is bringing back into the offices recently retired professionals as independent contractors to transfer knowledge. The most recent example is its rehiring of Jim Wurst, a former employee, as a contractor for the company. Wurst's original assignment was to check the accuracy of information in Georgia Power's energy management system back in 1996. Wurst is still working today because of the utility's need to share his knowledge with other staff — a key focus of work force planning. However, with an ever-increasing workload, it appears that the sharing of information is taking a back seat to present needs.

According to Mark Keller, data solution supervisor, “Right now, we're [Georgia Power] kind of like a boat filling up with water. We're bailing as hard as we can just to stay afloat. Work force planning will allow us to get the people in the boat long enough to plug the holes.”

Even when a company recognizes a need, it might still be rather difficult to address the need effectively.

PGE recognized its own internal need to maintain a professional staff. Roughly three years ago, it created within its human resources department a Professional Staffing & Diversity division.

Leading this area is its director, Steve Leder, who is responsibile for maintaining the expected levels of experienced and professional staffing — a difficult task given today's economic waters in the California energy-delivery industry. However, PG&E actively recruits at colleges and tradeshows plus advertises for employees in most trade journals.

The reason for this recruitment activity, according to Ezra Garrett, a senior recruiter for PG&E, is that PG&E has yet to enjoy the benefits of this supposedly new and “loose” job market. The company is still actively recruiting high-caliber people and doing so in a tough job environment.

Awaken the Sleeping Giant

The energy-delivery industry must realize that the work force needed to maintain the reliability indices and manage the assets is shrinking. Baby boomers are approaching retirement and many have left already through early retirement plans or to pursue more lucrative ventures. The Gen-Xers are not pursuing the engineering and skilled trades at the same levels as their parents and grandparents.

Electric-utility companies need to wake up to these facts and reinstate the recruitment efforts of the past. These companies need to review their stance on salary, benefits, longevity and stability. Without the right work force, the electric grid will continue to degrade, giving rise to public ire and confrontations with government officials.

T&D Specific Job Search Areas

For those looking to change employers or employers looking for viable places to search for prospective employees, the following is a sampling of current print and electronic classifieds focused at the energy-delivery industry.

Print:
Transmission & Distribution World
Electric Light & Power
APPA News

Electronic:
www.tdworld.com
www.utilityjobsUSA.com
www.energyjobs.com
http://www.energyjobsnetwork.com/home.asp?code=platts