There is a need for workers to fill “clean” highly technical jobs in the production side of the oil and gas industry, a side of the industry Mike Tarantino, president and CEO of the Iberia Industrial Development Foundation, said he hopes will soon become another area of expertise for Teche Area workers.

Tarantino said communities along the Gulf Coast, including the Teche Area, are world renowned for the skill of their work force in the oil and gas industry. Those skills are mostly on the drilling side, which includes rig work, fabrication and welding to name a few components. He also said while oil is still hovering above $70 a barrel, keeping drilling companies busy, the community can take advantage of this prosperous period by attempting to diversify skills within the industry.

Jobs in the production side of the oil and gas industry, Tarantino said, are a much more stable part of the industry and will always provide jobs in the Teche Area, despite the volatility of oil per barrel prices.

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Some time ago, two men visited the Louisiana Technical College, Teche Area Campus, and expressed concerns about a lack of skilled work force to take over their jobs as retirement approached. Annette Faulk, LTC dean, and Tarantino  were at that meeting and have since figured out ways to deal with those concerns.

Faulk said the men worked most of their lives as production operators, with careers spanning several decades. Tarantino said what many people are unaware of is the many “clean” oil and gas industry jobs.

Tarantino said these men had worked their way through the ranks, starting out on drilling rigs, offshore, fresh out of high school near the beginning of the first oil boom in the 1970s. He said as they learned many skills on drilling rigs as tool pushers or roustabouts, companies would acknowledge their potential by training them for more technical work in production.

Faulk said, with retirement age approaching, these men were concerned because entry level people working within the industry would not have the skill sets to take their places. She said the men shared with LTC what knowledge would be necessary to work in production. That covers a broad range of disciplines, including pressure, valves, pipes, electrical, computers and newer technologies, like solar, which have been used to power production platforms for sometime.

IDF will assist LTC, Teche Area Campus, as its outreach coordinator to get the word out about the “clean” job opportunities, to workers who might be interested in the industry but looking for more stable career-long opportunities.

“We want to educate the work force about what production is and getting more of a work stream to that side of the industry.” Tarantino said. “If we do this we will much more stabilized and diversified in our economy and oil and gas in particular.”

IDF and LTC will be working on a program with production in mind to develop certification that Ann Dugas, small business advisor for IDF said, will lay the foundation for job training for these jobs. She said oil and gas companies will see that these workers already have knowledge they need and could make good candidates for more training.

“When times are good like now, workers without any training or certifications, can go out and work and make good money,” Dugas said. “But oftentimes these are the first workers to go when the drilling part of the industry slows down.”

Production companies will soon be in need of good candidates to fill these jobs and LTC and IDF will be making the case for those looking for a new or different career path.

“I think typically the oil and gas industry is looked at as being pretty rough with drilling mud flying and in many cases it is,” Tarantino said. “Those are very good jobs as well but there is a whole other side to keeping oil flowing out of the ground that is clean, hi-tech, pays very well and which there will be a huge demand for these folks as men like those that came to LTC retire.”