Colorado Utilities Facing Future Staff Shortages; E3 Brings Together Two Universities to Work on Solutions.

DENVER -- Concerned about future professional staff shortages at the state's utilities as their aging workforces near retirement age, E3 Consulting is bringing together faculty from the University of Colorado and Colorado State University to develop new curriculum for energy-sector career tracks at the two institutions.

"Older workers all across America will be retiring in large numbers in the next five to 10 years, and many of those can be replaced. But the problem is particularly urgent in the utility industry because young people just aren't lining up to go to work in the power sector," said Donald J. Hurd, President and CEO of E3 Consulting, which provides oversight, critical analysis and solutions for businesses building, optimizing or restructuring energy projects. "We must begin to act now to develop the next generation of talented energy-sector executives, technicians and managers to run Colorado's power-producing facilities an distribution systems in decades ahead. The solution lies in the classroom."

E3 Consulting, based in Denver, reached out to leading educators in the engineering field at both CSU and CU, and has received positive response to the idea of commencing work to develop a power production career track in their schools of engineering.

"Colorado State would welcome the opportunity to work with the industry to put some things into place to have the ideal candidates available as this transition comes about," said Dr. Wade Troxell, Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering at CSU. "We have done this in other industries, and look forward to developing strategies to provide the workforce of the future for the utility industry."

Dr. Frank Barnes, Distinguished Professor or Electrical Engineering at CU, already has embarked on an initiative to launch a new course in Public Utilities Management there, and said his school of engineering is anxious to begin curriculum development to meet the future manpower needs in the state's utilities.

Hurd, Barnes and Troxell co-signed a letter to top executives at the state's utilities asking them to join in the effort to develop an energy sector career track in the two universities' schools of engineering.

UTILITIES MUST GET INVOLVED

Because they have so much at stake, Hurd urges the state's utilities to join the educational initiative by providing materiel, personnel and even financial support for development of the new academic programs.

Barnes at CU and Troxell at CSU said the utilities had supported specific power sector career track curriculum in the past, but have not done so for many years - more than 15 years ago at CU.

Hurd said that although most business, professional and industrial sectors are facing employee shortages in the future, the pending shortage is aggravated in the utility industry because it has not been able to speak with one voice or take specific action to benefit its members in ways similar to medicine, law, journalism and other more consolidated professions.

E3 Consulting (http://www.e3co.com/), with offices in Denver, Houston and Darien, CT, is an experienced team of experts with backgrounds in engineering, the environment, science and finance. E3's consultants provide objective oversight, critical analysis and solutions for businesses building, optimizing or restructuring energy projects.