Bismarck State College, the recognized national leader in energy education, continues to expand its technical outreach into new partnerships with community colleges in Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, Washington, and elsewhere.

Since founding the nation's first power plant program in 1976, North Dakota's largest community college has developed a training footprint, lauded by the power generation industry, that two-year schools can use to add technical degrees to their curriculum. Colleges gain the expertise of BSC program managers, faculty, and curriculum planners without expending the time and money to launch a new program area.

"We have a successful, 30-year track record when it comes to partnering with industry to ensure North Dakota companies have a competitive workforce," said BSC President Donna S. Thigpen. "Now we want to extend that reach by establishing regional hubs linking community colleges with energy companies nationwide."

In October, BSC submitted a $5 million grant request to the National Science Foundation to create these regional hubs by combining BSC expertise with resources from other institutions to develop a National Energy Center for the electric power industry.

The first hub links BSC with Red Rocks Community College in Lakewood, Colo., and its designated energy partner, Xcel Energy, a gas and electric utility that operates in 10 states including North Dakota and Colorado.

"Bismarck State College has given us the immediate ability to offer a program in power plant technology that we would have been years away from implementing," said Joan Smith, Red Rocks director of institutional research and interim dean of its new Industrial Science and Operations program. "Students will be dually enrolled. That's what makes it unique."

Other BSC collaborations are pending with additional community colleges and industry partners across the United States.

Bismarck State College will be the lead institution, offering a curriculum model that blends online college study with hands-on training at energy companies facing critical worker shortages. Energy sector retirements, now estimated at 50 percent in the next decade, are a top concern of more than 90 percent of power companies, senior industry leaders, and associated labor organizations. As a result, companies such as Xcel Energy are asking community colleges to train a pool of skilled workers to fill anticipated job vacancies and to staff the many new plants and technologies coming on line.

Xcel Energy belongs to the Energy Providers Coalition for Education, a national group of human resource and training executives seeking solutions to looming worker shortages. The coalition asked BSC to be its education provider and join with EPCE members to develop an industry-driven curriculum. Xcel Energy provides employees for BSC energy program advisory boards and also hires many of the college's power plant graduates.

Given this relationship and at the utility's request, representatives from BSC and Xcel Energy met with Red Rocks President Cliff Richardson in March 2005 to propose a similar partnership.

"We have a mission to respond to workforce demands, and it's pretty compelling when you have a company's regional HR director appear in your office and say we want to hire your students," Smith said. "When you have a major company like Xcel come to the table, other companies take notice."

Red Rocks is Colorado's second largest community college with 7,000 credit students; Xcel Energy has 800 employees and six power plants on the Front Range, creating a zone of opportunity to train new employees and upgrade skills of incumbent workers.

"This partnership is a natural progression of a local educator and a local industry feeding the pipeline," said Carla Braun Hixson, associate vice president for BSC Corporate and Continuing Education. "They will be growing their own."

Red Rocks students will soon have the option to enroll in BSC's Power Plant Technology program, taking BSC's technical courses online and general education courses from Red Rocks. BSC will award the Associate in Applied Science degree, train Red Rocks faculty to reinforce the concepts students are learning, and team together with Xcel to develop the internship model.

In addition, the two colleges will operate a summer bridging program to help recruit high school graduates into the power plant program. Colorado students will travel to Bismarck for three days of hands-on experience with control room simulators and other BSC lab equipment.

"We're not lifting the program out of Bismarck, but taking direction, and together with Xcel Energy, we can give an incredibly enriching education to students who want to enter the power industry," Smith said.

The joint venture also creates public relations and marketing opportunities. Red Rocks can advertise the new partnership and program, retain power plant students on campus, and receive a revenue share through its general education courses. The college also meets an industry demand immediately, while not having to invest the $7 million BSC did in budget allocations and grants to build its Energy Technology Online Department and its growing number of programs and technologies.

"Communities won't have to reinvent the wheel, because BSC has built the foundation and is willing to partner," Braun Hixson said. "The economic return is a win-win for all three players. The college will educate students for the energy industry, which needs new employees, and those men and women, connected by family and friends, are vested in their community. They will remain there and return this investment by economically supporting local business, schools, and retailers as they expand their families."

Power generation companies benefit by saving time and money on training. Surveys indicate the high level of preparedness of BSC graduates saves companies 1 1/2 to 2 years of initial operator training and as much as $60,000 per hire, a substantial return on investment.

"BSC's program is proven," said Al Lukes, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Basin Electric Power Cooperative in Bismarck. "They've worked with us since 1981 to develop what's important in the curriculum. If another state, another college, was to do this, they'd have to replicate that effort, and to me it would be a waste of resources. Make no bones about it, if we didn't think it was worthwhile, we wouldn't have Basin Electric investing $2 million in the program."

Basin Electric provided the lead gift of $2 million for BSC's new $13.6 million Career and Technology Institute, which will house and allow expansion of the college's energy training programs. Construction is expected to begin in 2006.

BSC President Thigpen states that Basin Electric CEO Ron Harper takes assurance from the college-industry partnership to train a new workforce. He said BSC's "how can we help" attitude adds tremendous value to this transition process.

Also adding value and further opportunities for federal funding is BSC's designation as the National Power Plant Operations Technology and Education Center in the Energy Bill passed in August 2005 by Congress.

Community colleges are poised to be pivotal instruments in shaping the energy industry, and Red Rocks has stepped to the front of the line.

"With Bismarck on the scene it was so incredibly simple for us to respond," Smith said. "This partnership puts us in the catbird seat because BSC made us look really good to Xcel. We have them to thank for helping us launch what will be an incredible program for us."