CNX CEO Nick Deiuliis Launches Mentorship Academy for High Schoolers
There are those who talk a good game about fighting back against the cultural rot that is consuming our country, fighting back against those who spread the false gospel of socialism and claim that capitalism is somehow evil. There are those who talk a good game about supporting fossil fuel energy. And then, there are those who actually do something about it. Talk is cheap. Action is expensive. You can classify Nick Deiuliis, CEO of CNX Resources, as an action guy. Yesterday Nick announced an exciting new mentorship program for high schoolers.
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The Community College of Beaver County’s (CCBC) Shell Center for Process Technology, a $5 million state-of-the-art training facility, has just officially opened. While the Center was built to train employees to run the Shell ethane cracker plant, it’s also training people for a myriad of other opportunities too.
In August 2014 the Utica Shale Academy (USA), a new high school dedicated to training workers for the Utica Shale industry, opened its doors in Columbiana County with 24 students (see 
Are you interested in a great career in the pipeline industry in the northeastern part of the country? We may be able to help. The Appalachian Pipeliners Associations (APA), with a mission to help grow and support the pipeline industry in the northeastern U.S., is offering up to $50,000 worth of scholarships for use during the 2020/2021 academic school year to students pursuing Associates, Bachelors and Graduate degrees, as well as students pursuing Vocational or Trade School degrees/certifications. That’s right! Let the APA help fund your education so you have a great job when you graduate! But there is a catch…applications must be filed by March 6th (this Friday).
A group of 10 community colleges scattered throughout southwestern Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia have formed the Tristate Energy and Advanced Manufacturing Consortium, or TEAM, with the aim of training skilled workers for cracker plants and other petrochemical-related manufacturing operations. The cooperative has crafted a “stackable-credentials model” that offers “a career pathway from certifications to post-secondary degrees, up to and including a master’s degree.” Forwarding thinking!
Last November Encino Acquisition Partners (i.e. Encino Energy) completed its purchase of all of Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio Utica Shale assets for $2 billion (see 
If you’re heading to college (or know someone who is), or maybe in college right now, or considering a career change and you have the time and money to get another college degree…we have a suggestion. Take a look at petroleum engineering as your major. Those with a petroleum engineering degree earn the highest average salaries in the country! A survey looked at college degrees and salaries for those in the workforce between the ages of 29-31 and found the highest average salary ($169,680 per year) belongs to petroleum engineer grads!
The best teachers (people) and the best teacher (method of instruction) have the same thing in common: Hands on. As in tactile, doing stuff, rather than sitting in a chair attempting to learn by information dumping. Particularly with elementary-age kiddies. Cabot Oil & Gas and Southwestern Energy recently sponsored the annual Vehicular Career Day where 400 fifth graders from school districts across Susquehanna County climbed into big rigs, buses, and emergency vehicles. The shale industry was well-represented. Needless to say, the kids loved it.
Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. They’re the company a majority of exploration and production companies (drillers) call when they want a new well drilled. The #2 company on speed dial for drilling new wells is Halliburton, and they’re not even close in size to #1 Schlumberger. Here in the U.S., the #3 company on speed dial for drilling is Baker Hughes, still (for now) owned by GE. We mention all that because most folks recognize the names Halliburton and Baker Hughes, yet are often not familiar with the hard-to-pronounce Schlumberger. Even so, Schlumberger has a big presence in the Marcellus/Utica region. In a gesture of “giving back,” the company has just made a VERY generous grant of $14 million of its own proprietary software used for modeling and assessing risk associated with drilling new wells, to Youngstown State University. Most major E&Ps use Schlumberger’s software, even if they don’t use Schlumberger itself to do the actual drilling. While at first glance the gift of software may seem self-serving, it’s not. This gift means that students will be trained on the latest and greatest software that they will need to know, coming right out of college. It helps the kids gain a valuable skill, making them more employable once they hit the workforce…
The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) continues to offer its popular 100% free training program (worth $3,500) for those interested in a career building pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica region. Starting salaries often exceed $40,000 per year, and a six-figure income is attainable for employees with time and experience. Companies supporting the GTI program have told GTI they anticipate hiring 1,100+ workers over the next two years. There’s no excuse! If you want a high-paying job, get the 4-week training and get yourself to work. Because of ongoing construction programs within the utility and pipeline industry, and because of aging workforce retirements, the M-U pipeline industry has an acute need for reliable gas pipeline workers. The next round of free training, limited to 20 students per section, begins on Sept. 24 at Belmont College in St. Clairsville, OH…
The answer to the question posed in our headline for which skills are most valued (and missing) in new employees looking to work at companies involved in the Marcellus/Utica industry may surprise you. Would the answer be, detailed industry knowledge, like knowing what mud logging, wire lines and Christmas tree (wellheads) are? Nope. Employers can teach those things on the job. How about subject-specific skills, like knowing how to weld (if you work in the field), or the difference between debits and credits (if you work in the accounting department)? Obviously if you apply for a welding job, or an accounting job, you’ll need to know something about those specific areas. But no, we’re talking about what kinds of skills ALL new employees should have, regardless of which area they work (in the field or in the office)–skills that so often are missing in new hires. Would you believe those skills are: writing, speaking and time management? Yep, according to a study done by RAND Corporation looking at how employers and colleges in the Marcellus/Utica region are preparing workers for the shale workforce, they found a skills gap in workers who don’t know how to properly write, speak and manage their time effectively…