Currently we have several wind energy publishing projects in the works—a TechBrief newsletter, a career guide, and an electromechanical textbook—so we’ve been doing a lot of research in this area. (Especially when we get the wind energy TechBrief done I’ll post a link to it as it will have the latest education & employment numbers.) Anyone who happens to be driving out in West Texas on I-20 will see both the ever-growing windfarms as well as the pieces of turbines being hauled down the highway on semis. When I met last week with Keith Plantier of the Texas Wind Energy Institute he mentioned that there were quite a few good videos on YouTube showing wind turbines. One of the best I found was this one, that documents the building of a wind turbine at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota:
(If anyone knows of other particularly good videos relating to wind turbines, feel free to leave a comment below with its Web address.)
Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, recently released the Texas Works 2008 report, an overview of workforce trends, population growth, and education in Texas. As she says in her introduction to it:
Today, a serious imbalance is emerging between the demand for skilled workers and the state’s ability to supply them. As the nation’s current leader in job creation, Texas cannot afford to fall behind. Texas Works provides an in-depth study of this issue with recommended steps to ensure our state’s young and growing population is one of the world’s strongest and most highly skilled work forces.
Texas Works highlights many statistics and findings:
the number of jobs requiring technical training, certifications or associate degrees is outpacing the number of people available to fill them despite the fact that many pay above-average salaries.
a growing number of employers across the state is raising the alarm about the need for more skilled workers.
multiple paths to high school graduation and postsecondary training and education will help reduce the skilled-worker gap and could help reduce dropout rates; current state policy focuses on a single path to a four-year degree.
Texas population projections point to a less educated work force if the state continues on its current path, negating the economic advantage of a younger average working population.
funding to public two-year institutions has not kept pace with the high demand for vocational, technical and associate degree training, even though these investments have high returns.
More information (including a downloadable PDF of the entire report as well as a link to order a free hard copy) may be found here.
