Planning Grant for Unconventional Shale Oil and Gas Technology Center of Excellence

This award is a Planning Grant for an Unconventional Shale Oil and Gas Technology Center of Excellence. While conventional oil and gas exploration has existed since the mid-1850s, rapid changes in the technology allowing the recovery of natural gas and oil that is bound up in shale formations has resulted in game-changing opportunities for US energy production and has changed the demand for and nature of the skills needed by technicians. This award allows Pennsylvania College of Technology to plan to develop an ATE Regional Center of Excellence that will work with employers across the Appalachian Basin to create educational programs that will meet current and future needs for technicians in a wide variety of technology specialties in service and energy companies. The goal is to develop educational programs and products that will be useful to other institutions in responding to the dynamic, ever changing unconventional oil and gas industry. Core activities of the proposed Center include the identification of promising practices for the recruitment of underrepresented groups (women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans) and the development of plans to influence participation by these groups in oil and gas STEM-related technician occupations.