Despite the drop in oil and gas production, graduates of Stark State College’s petroleum industry training program are finding jobs quickly.
Since the two-year program started in 2013, 46 students have graduated with skills in maintaining oil-and-gas-production facilities. The dean of engineering technology, Donald Ball, says all of them are employed because the program does not focus on drilling, where the jobs are susceptible to market fluctuations.
“I wanted to make sure that our students were not caught in that cycle and had to move with the jobs because, again, once the infrastructure is build and things are producing, it’ll need maintained.”
Ball says not all the graduates have jobs in the petroleum industry. Some are working in other fields with similar needs.
He says the Stark State program has received continued financial support from the petroleum industry because oil and gas production in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia is expected to pick back up.
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