BUILDING ALASKA ONE COMMUNITY AT A TIME
New Pipeline Training Center opens in Fairbanks
The annual event brings together all pipeline trades for a hands-on training experience in conditions that replicate an actual job site. Each stage of pipeline construction is orchestrated so that the work flows safely and efficiently between the specially trained crews. More than 120 students participated.
Trainee Kelly Ann Monroe from Nenana is an operator apprentice who helped dig a trench to lay the pipe. "We actually acted as if we were building a pipeline," she said. Monroe emphasized the cooperation between the various trades. "It was exactly as if you were on the North Slope. Some days operators would help laborers move a pallet of skids, other days we’d be assigned to load pipe onto a truck."
It is the kind of training that industry is eager to support. Keven Hostler, President of Alyeska Pipeline Service Company delivered comments to the graduating class. "Today, in this unique Pipeline Training Academy, skilled crafts people are coming together to practice the complicated sequencing needed for pipeline building. Alaskans are taking the initiative to develop a workforce that can work together and deliver an outstanding product," he said.
Graduates and dignitaries attended a unique "ribbon cutting" ceremony to celebrate the opening of the new training yard in Fairbanks. The new yard offers real-world, hands-on experience for the pipeline trades.
"In this unique Pipeline Training Academy, skilled crafts people are coming together to practice the complicated sequencing needed for pipeline building." -- Kevin Hostler, President, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
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