Francis Tuttle Technolgoy Center in Okla. City to offer wind turbine

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Mar 23, 2009 by David Page

Late in 2008, Rick Avey, owner of Sparta Holdings of Mustang, started discussing training opportunities with officials at Francis Tuttle Technology Center for new employees at his family of renewable-energy companies.

The discussions included a lunch around Thanksgiving with Earl Bailey, training coordinator, Business and Industry Services, at Francis Tuttle.

The luncheon meeting led to a trip in early December led by Avey for a small group including Bailey and Roger Tadajewski, president of Business Educational Partnerships Inc. of Oklahoma City, to Sweetwater, Texas, to visit a wind energy project and learn more about training required for Avey's employees. That trip quickly was followed by similar trips to the West Coast and Wisconsin.

Avey's discussions with Francis Tuttle officials and the trips yielded quick results.

On May 4, Francis Tuttle will expand its work force training programs with classes starting for a new wind turbine technician program.

"This all came together in about 90 days," Bailey said. "This is our first step in wind energy."

Francis Tuttle's wind turbine technician course was developed to provide training and certification for wind turbine installation, preventive and predictive maintenance and repair technicians.

The first course will meet 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday for seven weeks, starting May 4 and is expected to have 10 students. Francis Tuttle plans to start a new class about every eight weeks, Bailey said.

Avey expects his company to absorb 10 new employees every eight weeks.

"We will be able to soak them all up," he said.

One of Avey's companies is FriEnergy - Free Renewable Infinite Energy. Applications for the Francis Tuttle wind turbine technician program are available at www.frienergy.com.

Qualifications include being willing to climb up to 300 feet in wind turbines, working in all weather conditions and being available for rotation shift schedules.

"Not only will students receive a certificate from Francis Tuttle, they will receive several industry certificates," Bailey said. "They will be certified as wind industry pros."

Students in the course already will be employees of Avey's company, Bailey said.

"I am looking for people we can train," Avey said. "There is a basic skills test."

Avey's companies have contracts to develop, construct, maintain and provide repair services at wind farms.

"Most of the jobs for the students will probably be in service or construction," he said.

Employees are based in Oklahoma, but the work is where the wind farms are - or will be. The contracts mostly are in rural areas including facilities in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas.

"If we send an employee to Kansas to work on a project for a while they will return to Oklahoma," Avey said. "Everything in our company is in Oklahoma. We are incorporated in Oklahoma."

Tadajewski has a long relationship with Francis Tuttle Technology Center. He helped develop the technology center's AYES - Automotive Youth Education Systems - 14 years ago. The Francis Tuttle program was the first in the nation to be coupled with the AYES program to provide additional training opportunities with automotive industry.

He worked with Avey and Bailey to develop the wind technician program and is working with the International Renewable Energy Education Foundation to create industry certification standards.

"There are currently no training standards," Avey said. "We are creating the standard every day we come to work."

Avey started his company in early 2007 but was not a newcomer to alternative energy.

Freshly out of the U.S. Navy in 1990, he returned to Oklahoma for a job with the PowerSmith cogeneration facility next to the Dayton Tire manufacturing plant in west Oklahoma City. PowerSmith provided steam for the tire plant to use in its manufacturing process. PowerSmith produced the steam as a byproduct of generating electricity, which sells to Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co.

He stayed at PowerSmith for 15 years before leaving for a job in the wind energy industry as site manager at the General Electric wind farm in Weatherford.

"I saw a job listing for the GE wind farm in Weatherford," he said. "I did not know much about wind energy at the time but nobody else did either."

He started his company in 2007 because of the wind industry market's growth potential.

"I am a serial entrepreneur," Avey said. "I see an opportunity and go forward. We want to think about the next generation of opportunities to make Oklahoma the center of wind excellence."

Oklahoma has the potential to be among the leaders in wind energy production.

In a report released earlier this year, the American Wind Energy Association ranked Oklahoma 12th in the nation in capacity for generating electricity from wind turbines. The state's capacity totaled 707.9 megawatts at the end of 2008 but Denise Bode, AWEA CEO and a former member of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, said the state's potential for wind-generated electricity is much greater and Oklahoma could quickly - as soon as this year - advance its ranking.