what is going on, and grasp how everything fits together and what the risks are, said Zinkham.
Zinkham expressed the conviction that industry has to drive education for instruction to be successful. “The people who are going to hire these people and actually employ them are the ones who have to help with the programs.” He also advocated starting in high school. “If there is some way to do some apprentice or summer jobs in the industry as high school students, that would be very powerful. Then they would get interested in industry. They would get a little flavor of what it is all about. It piques their interest in a career or a profession.”
Zinkham also discussed the behavioral issues that are problems in the industry—for example, employees who show up for their hitches and fail a drug test. “Something is happening back home on their 14 days off. Of course, the company has very little control over that. Maybe that is [a matter of] outreach where industry can work with communities and with local agencies to talk through the importance of your behaviors and what to do and what not to do. You have an important job. You are making a lot of money. You are providing for family and friends and relatives. People can screw up quickly through drugs and alcohol. That’s the behavioral piece that is really frustrating.”
This problem is related to attitudes, not to technical knowledge or skills. People need to understand the implications of their actions, Zinkham observed. Some people understand this implicitly. Though attitudes can be hard to measure, “you can see the individuals who are going to succeed. They may not be a CEO someday, but they are going to be a very effective person. They will be a team leader someday.”
Many workers in the oil and gas industry were referred by others. Friends and family know more about the jobs in the industry, so they are not so shocked when they are working for 14 days on an offshore rig. Many people would rather work in a poor-paying job that does not take them away from their families for so long. “The ones that were successful usually had a family unit back in a small town, and they helped each other. So when they are gone for 14 days and something happens at home, they are not getting phone calls on the rigs and feeling really guilty for not being there.”
Finally, Zinkham mentioned the logistical challenge of inserting a training program into a 14-day-on and 14-day-off schedule. “To try to get them into a training course during their days off is almost impossible. Yet we don’t have enough people to take them off of a hitch and send them to training.” One possibility is to locate training in the places where workers leave for offshore rigs so that people can receive training right before they leave. “We need to make it easy for people to get to the training.”
UNDERSTANDING THE WHOLE SYSTEM
Bill Raley, dean of industrial and technical programs at the College of the Mainland, which has received $5 million to create the Gulf Coast Safety Institute, described a specific example of how to build an oil safety system. The curriculum developed at the institute is about more than knowledge, he said. It is about comprehending what you know and tying the pieces together. The objective is to be aware of every aspect of every job and how that could affect the overall operation. Synthesis and evaluation make it possible to prevent accidents because people understand every aspect of every job, every component, and every unit in the process production facility.
Raley suggested that the current educational system funnels more students into traditional college pathways than the labor market requires, while at the same time, failing to provide all students with opportunities to learn more about the variety of career pathways that can lead to a successful adulthood.
Raley is responsible for a series of training programs in machining, welding, and other skills that are in high demand. These programs can have a big effect on safety, with a reduction both in accidents and in workmen’s compensation costs, he said.
Advisory groups from industry are critical, Raley noted. The people who hire the graduates of a program need to have a say in that program. Programs also need to be STEM-based, he said, because people need the knowledge to be able to synthesize information across fields, and to do that, they need mathematics, chemistry, and physics. Preparing people to work in high-tech, high-wage, high-demand fields requires academic rigor.
“Accidents don’t happen. They are caused,” he concluded. “Somebody didn’t do what they should have done or were supposed to have done. They did not follow procedures and did not understand the whole ramification of everything that has taken place on the floor of the rig or inside of a refinery.”
PARTNERSHIPS TO BUILD KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ATTITUDES
The Student Conservation Association (SCA) is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization that has worked with many federal agencies, counties, cities, and other nongovernmental organizations on a variety of natural and cultural resource service activities and partners. “Over many years, we have brought young people out into the natural world and connected them to it,” said Marsha Towns, director of partnership development in the Gulf region for the SCA. “They did valuable service. They learned about each other. Some-
