WINDS OF CHANGE

 

              I've decided to get out of teaching and enter a different field.  People have asked me how the whole wind turbine technician thing got started, and I'm talking about very important people.  So here's what happened.  Last July, Hobart, my mom and dad, and I were road tripping from North Carolina to Anchorage in order for me to eventually get to Kotlik, Alaska and start my new teaching career.  Once we got into the mid-west we started seeing these huge, gigantic wind turbines.  Three hundred foot tall towers with blades the size of 747 wings.  I said "Whoa".  We also saw other interesting things that are outside the scope of this blog entry. 

           image: Wikimedia.org

    So anyway, when I got settled in Kotlik I started doing some research on these electricity generating behemoths with the thought of possibly getting a smaller one for the school and using it for science and math projects.  At the end of the second week in my new school my enthusiasm for teaching village children sharply waned and at the same time my interest in wind turbines markedly waxed. 

               Through the convenience of the World Wide Web I discovered a school that specializes in online instruction for wind turbine technicians.  The school is named Pinnacle Career Institute (PCI) out of Kansas City, Missouri.  PCI has an eleven month online training course culminating in a 9 day 'boot camp'.  At boot camp we get hands-on experience working with various tools, climbing towers, rescuing injured workers and troubleshooting electrical and hydraulic systems.  We also get a whole bunch of OSHA certifications that are applicable in many fields.  I will be going to boot camp at the end of July, 2015.

               What started as applied curiosity in wind energy has turned into a career change for me.  The deeper I got into the course with PCI the more I began to think that I would rather climb 300' ladders than get cursed at by prepubescents and their parents.  The question now is where will I be working?  If you look at the USGS map (  http://eerscmap.usgs.gov/windfarm/ )  showing the location of wind farms in the USA you will see my choices, none of which are in the southeast.  I will miss teaching and coaching and the great people I have worked with in education.