Feb 26 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Maury Thompson The Post-Star, Glens Falls, N.Y.

As he sat in the dark with the temperature in his house at 52 degrees last weekend, local BOCES Superintendent John Stoothoff wondered if there was anything his school could do to train utility linemen.

"My mind races on that question," he said, referring to the general topic of work force preparation.

Stoothoff isn't alone in that quandary.

Last weekend's windstorm, which knocked out power to more than 218,000 National Grid customers in the New York service territory, illustrates the importance of dealing with a shortage of trained linemen, said Brian Kilgallon, assistant business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 97. That union represents National Grid workers.

"That becomes apparent when these storms hit," he said.

Typically, National Grid relies on mutual service agreements with other utilities to deal with labor shortages, he said. But, in this case, the outages were so vast that other companies were tied up dealing with their own customers.

The problem dates back to the late 1990s, when Niagara Mohawk, which merged with National Grid in 2001, was experiencing financial troubles and did not fill positions as linemen retired, Kilgallon said.

"It's something National Grid inherited, and they are trying to address it," he said.

But the company must compete for workers with other utility companies, which are also facing labor shortages.

"Really, it's in the entire industry," he said.

National Grid does have an aging work force in which linemen are retiring at a pace of between 35 and 50 per year, said Alberto Bianchetti, a company spokesman. The company employs about 750 linemen in the New York service territory.

And that pace of retirements could increase if the federal government makes proposed changes in policies for retirement systems, Bianchetti said.

The company is filling positions by hiring workers and training them, whereas in the past, linemen were typically hired once they were fully trained.

Unionized linemen typically undergo a five-year training process, Kilgallon said.

Shortages in the utility industry are emblematic of shortages of skilled tradesmen in general, Bianchetti said.

"The pipeline from high school just doesn't flow as much as it did years ago," he said.

Recognizing that trend, the company will soon be announcing an agreement with a community college to establish a specialized training program, Bianchetti said.

The union is working with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, to establish a training program, Kilgallon said.

"We're in the infant stages of that right now," he said.

The local BOCES would be happy to help out in any way it can, if leaders in the utility industry would like, Stoothoff said.

The school already has several successful cooperative ventures with area trade unions, he said.