Pearce Renewables Training Center: Expert Wind Instruction

Allen Hall and co-host Joel Saxum discuss Pearce Renewables' new
state-of-the-art training facility in Dallas, Texas with John
Hornbeck and Travis Dees. Pearce is addressing the growing demand
for skilled wind turbine technicians through innovative hands-on
training methods, including the use of real equipment and
cross-training opportunities across renewable energy sectors. Learn
more at https://www.pearce-renewables.com/training/. Sign up now
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technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard
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https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech -
www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host,
Allen Hall, along with my co host, Joel Saxum. The wind energy
sector is booming, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts wind
turbine service technicians will be the fastest growing job this
decade. But with great growth comes a need for skilled workers, and
training enough qualified technicians is vital to keep wind farm
projects up and running. Pearce Renewables has been a leader in
technician training, and they recently opened a new training
facility in Dallas, Texas. And if you're not familiar with Pearce
Renewables, and boy, you're missing out. They are the largest ISP
in the U. S., and they have a great need for well trained
technicians. Our guests are John Hornbeck, Manager of Learning
Organizational Development, and Travis Dees, Senior Vice President
of Operational Support. John and Travis, welcome to the show.
Travis Dees: Thank you, Al. Happy to be here. Allen Hall: Joel and
I visited your brand new, fancy training facility in Dallas, Texas.
Man, is that thing impressive. Joel Saxum: Yeah, we were there
while you guys were still building things, right? You had people
climbing around, you were installing TVs and stuff. And at that
time it was impressive. We walked in, we're like, wow, look at this
place. Look at the size of it. The, I think that to be honest with
you, the layout of the training rooms and everything. There's a lot
of things going on there. You've got capabilities to run people
through a lot of different training mechanisms as well. Travis
Dees: Yeah, when we started the design in the facility, it was
trying to build for the future, not for what our needs were today,
right? As you said before, we're growing very quickly and the need
for technicians is definitely upon all of us, but us specifically.
Making sure they're trained and equipped properly before they go
out in the field is our goal. We're trying to build a facility, not
just in Texas, but other places as well. Starting in Texas and
growing our California facility where the technicians actually want
to come. They come there to get their training, but we want them to
want to come back. I want them to go to the field, get some hours
under their belt, and be like, hey, when do I get to go back to
Dallas and hang out at that place? That place was cool, the
trainers are great, they're really informative. We're trying to set
out, for an awesome vibe. We want it to be. something that our
people are proud of. Therefore they take that with them in the
field and they, it rubs off on our other technicians and it's
building our culture. You know what I mean? Like it's the, we have
one opportunity to shine for our employees and this was our
opportunity. So we took it and working with, incense and other
companies to get all of the equipment inside of the facility was
amazing. They designed an awesome jungle gym when I call it, man,
that thing is awesome. And John and the work that he did getting
our wind turbine and everything put together and the time frame and
the layout works, the flow is really cool. I think it really helps
the technicians, keep and retain all the information that we're
feeding them versus them losing it, and what you guys didn't see is
We have a section in there now where all the technicians that come
through can autograph a wall which has been fun because some people
like to draw some pictures and box letter their names And there's
some really cool signatures and at the same time We wanted our
trainers to have a place. They wanted a training, you know Don't
get me wrong. It's dallas. It's hot. Like it was hot there
yesterday and those guys were all over that tower. But And we put
some big fans in there. It'll cool it down. And, I keep saying,
Hey, it can't be air conditioned because then they're going to get
they won't be working in their elements. The wind turbines, they're
out in all of the elements. So when it's cold, it should be a
little chilly and when it's hot, it should be warm. So you don't
want to spoil them. No, absolutely not. They, I think they're
already spoiled as it is, but but no, I think the team and John
specifically and his team have done a great job with making sure
that we had the right equipment, to give our technicians and, even
some of our clients they're people, the best training we could
possibly offer up and we'll continue to grow and improve. I think
there's always opportunity for improvement, but we're really
excited about the Dallas facility. Everyone that comes in there, we
bring a bunch of clients in and yeah. Wow. That jungle gym is, it
is a wow factor. Joel Saxum: So Allen and I came to the facility
back in April and you and John welcomed us in and John was giving
us a tour of basically the, you have a bunch of classrooms. Of
course, there's some, of course you have a, then it's a little bit
of a Pearce facility, right? So you're going to have some meetings
or something. You've got really nice conference rooms and stuff in
there, but training rooms that were air conditioned and nice for
certain things. But then when we walked out into the The big
facility, right? The big warehouse type facility. The first thing I
saw on the corner was a legitimate nacelle. Sitting there ready to
and John was like, we'll get to that in a little bit. We'll take a
peek at that thing. Let me show you some other stuff. And also,
there's a freaking nacelle in here. That's amazing, right? We've
been to a lot of places. Training facilities and such. And you
don't see that very often for one, right? They're tough to get
ahold of. Nobody wants to that's expensive. It's a piece of kit,
right? That could be used in something else. So people don't really
want to get it, get you get rid of it. But the guys are really
going to have the capabilities of doing some hands on training.
John, you want to walk us through some of the other things that are
out in that warehouse? John Hornbeck: We're training our employees
to be the best they can so that our ISP can keep growing. But the
way when we first landed the building, even when it came to the
jungle gym, we contracted, worked with ENSA to sell some materials.
But they were open as a company and they said, Hey here's what some
other designs look like. I visited a couple of facilities. I looked
at some of other training centers designs. So the team and the
trainers and I, we sat down and we drew up, Hey what makes ours
different? And we came up with a big U shape. And that was a little
bit too big for what we needed at the time, which was fine, so we
cut it down, but just the way that we put thought into it of, hey,
here's all the ladders going up underneath. The deck that, that
simulate coming up into a wind turbine main shaft and how we shaped
the advanced rescue training section and put things on the second
level made it different than everybody else's and it made it cooler
and it looks amazing, and then with you pointing out the wind
turbine, that was the other thing, not everybody has a fully, can
be powered up or in the middle of powering it up right now, getting
it wired to, to put power to it. at a low voltage so that we can do
training and and teach everybody how to work on it without actual
high voltage in front of the cabinets. But there's only a couple of
facilities out there that will have that ability to train on a live
wind turbine inside their shop. Not just the wind turbine that's in
there that sets us apart as we're gonna be able to do live power
loop training on that. So we have the same thing. For the solar and
the battery storage in the divisions we have partnered with some
folks and given us battery storage cabinets and inverters that and
helping us power those up so that we can do live training. Not only
for customers, but to highlight that to potential clients and
things that other partners that we work with. Allen Hall: So at
Pearce Renewables, when you train somebody up, they're training on
real live active equipment. It's not a simulation. It's just not a
box on a bench. You're actually using real equipment, especially
like battery storage, which is really interesting too because
there's not a lot of training facilities doing that at the moment.
That is a unique piece, I think, because the worst time for a
technician is those first week or two or six months where they're,
everything is just new. You're trying to, to de-risk that in a
sense, by giving them access to real working equipment. John
Hornbeck: E Exactly. And that's what I said that earlier, we wanted
to. Do the things that set us apart from just your, I'll call it
the cookie cutter trainings. There's plenty of great training
facilities out there and there's, they all do a great job, but
there's a cookie cutter method there. You come in, do the standard
training and go out to the field. We wanted to change that.