Allegheny Comm. College Offers Free Scholarships for Cracker Jobs
Last week MDN told you that Community College of Beaver County (CCBC) is operating a program in process technology that leads to an associate’s degree as preparation for a job at Shell’s $6 billion ethane cracker plant, being built now in Beaver County (see Community College of Beaver County Preps Students for Cracker Jobs). Shell primed the education pump by offering 14 full-ride scholarships for the program. Not to be outdone by CCBC, Community College of Allegheny County is offering free tuition to Washington County residents, thanks to a $100,000 scholarship program that’s looking to build a cracker-ready workforce. Yikes! Yes, it does seem a bit odd to us that Community College of *Allegheny County* is offering free tuition to *Washington County* residents–but hey, it works for us. Students can get either a one-year mechatronics certificate, or a commercial driver’s license (CDL). The “Cracker Ready Grant” program is funded by the Remmel Foundation through PNC Charitable Trusts. Here’s the deets…
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Looking for a good job in the Marcellus/Utica industry? You may want to consider a job working at a compressor station. You know, those big facilities that sit every 30-40 miles along pipelines to keep the gas flowing through them? According to an article in COMPRESSORtech2 magazine (yes, there’s a magazine devoted to it!), “Indications are that the gas industry is recovering from the latest slump and can expect slow, steady growth in the next 10 years.” There are several college-level programs in the Marcellus/Utica region that train workers for compressor stations. We have the list below, just in case you’re looking for a rewarding career, or career change…
The Gas Technology Institute (GTI), based in Illinois, is doing the Marcellus/Utica region a huge favor. GTI has launched a pre-employment training program to introduce folks to natural gas pipeline operations. The four-week program provides a basic understanding of natural gas, the utility and pipeline industry, and different equipment, procedures and operations used. The program is aimed at students, veterans, displaced coal workers and others with an interest in getting a job with utilities, midstream (i.e. pipeline) companies and their contractors. Here’s the best part: The program is fully funded, so there is no tuition cost for those who qualify. The program is delivered via classroom at three participating colleges: Westmoreland County Community College and Butler County Community College (both in PA), and Washington State Community College (in OH). Here’s the lowdown..
You know how money-grubbing, cheap, careless and in general no-good those Big Oil companies are, right? They only care about themselves. They seek to rape and pillage Mom Earth, keeping piles of gold in their coffers, killing humankind in the process. That’s the picture painted by anti-fossil fuel nuts. Here’s the real picture: In 2016, between employees and the corporation, Exxon Mobil donated more than $50 million to colleges and universities across the United States. That is a staggering number. Many of those colleges and universities were located in the Appalachian basin (Marcellus/Utica), including $2.7 million in PA, $800K in OH, $1.4 million in VA, $3.2 million in NY and $1.2 million in NJ. Just the opposite of the negative picture painted by the enemies of fossil fuels… 
Seems like every time we talk about Big Money foundations, those foundations (which are tax exempt) are far-left in philosophy and when they fund anything to do with the environment or education or business, it’s always with strings attached that said activity will have an anti-drilling bias. Need money for a new “study” to bash shale energy? Take your pick. In Philadelphia, there is the William Penn Foundation. In New York (and North Carolina) there’s the Park Foundation. And in Pittsburgh, the Heinz Foundation–run by Teresa Heinz Kerry (whom we call Mamma Teresa here on MDN). Hard left, all of them. So when we spotted an article about another Pittsburgh-based foundation–the Benedum Foundation–that is donating money to HELP the shale industry, well, we knew that’s a “man bites dog” story worthy of highlighting. The Benedum Foundation does a great deal of its grantmaking for science, technology, medical and engineering (STEM) education. Lately they’ve concentrated on training students who will, after school, land a job at someplace like CONSOL Energy, or the under-construction Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County. Although Benedum doesn’t spend nearly as much as the larger Heinz Foundation, we see Benedum as the antidote–a counterbalance–to some of the damage caused by Mamma Teresa and her married-into, huge piles of money that she spends to oppose shale energy…
This is maddening, angering, and so far out of line we hope the “teachers” involved are summarily fired. NOW. Today. A group of 3 to 5 year-olds at the Little Dreamers, Big Believers day-care center in Columbus, OH–precious, innocent children who can’t comprehend much beyond when their next meal or nap is coming–have been manipulated into drawing pictures and making comments about the supposed horrors fracking in the Wayne National Forest (WNF). The tots’ pictures and comments against fracking were filed with the Bureau of Land Management as a form of protest. The way the “teachers” (we use that term VERY loosely) got the kiddies’ compliance was to stoke them by reading Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” to them, then filling their heads (i.e. brainwashing them) with ideas that fracking will kill trees in WNF. One area resident called this naked brainwashing “disgusting.” We agree–it is…
This story is deliciously ironic. New York State under man-child Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to allow hydraulic fracturing in unconventional shale deposits, although there is still fracking in conventional wells (see 
Looking to land a job in the Marcellus/Utica industry? One of the best ways to do it is to go back to school. If you’re lucky enough to get into Pennsylvania College of Technology (an affiliate of Penn State), and if you graduate from one of their programs with a degree, you stand a 96% chance of landing a job. Other programs include ShaleNET, a service that helps train you and then helps find you a job in the industry. Not every job requires a two or four year degree. Often a certificate will suffice. Here’s more info on going back to “school” and what kind of education you need to land a job in the shale industry…
On Monday Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced PA taxpayers are forking over $5 million to Steamfitters Local 449 union for use in their Butler Training Facility project. The union training facility trains welders. The Shell ethane cracker plant, when it gets built, will need a LOT of welders. Right now the facility graduates 170 new welders a year. With the grant money, they will expand it to train and graduate 270 welders a year…
Duke University, as MDN has chronicled, has a long history of pumping out faux research that bashes fracking and fossil fuels, “research” that’s bought-and-paid-for by the Park Foundation, one of Duke’s major contributors (see 
Stark State College, located in North Canton, OH, has just been awarded a half million dollar grant from OH Gov. John Kasich’s Education Innovation program to provide ShaleNET education and training to students at Stark State’s sister schools, Eastern Gateway Community College in Steubenville, OH and Hocking College in Nelsonville, OH. MDN first reported on Stark’s new Well Site Training Center back in 2014 (see 
The U.S. State Department and West Virginia University (WVU) want to give other countries interested in developing their own shale deposits a helping hand. The State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources has reached a cooperative agreement with WVU to create the International Forum on Unconventional Gas Sustainability and the Environment, or INFUSE, a unique technical program dedicated to increasing other countries’ understanding of best practices for unconventional gas resource development. INFUSE will use a mix of classroom and in-the-field activities. Here’s the lowdown on INFUSE…
MDN has previously told you about the temper tantrum by radical environmentalists and the idiot kids they foment to try and get universities to divest from owning stock in fossil fuel companies. The very liberal Cornell University didn’t fall for it (see