There is an article on the CNN online website that has gotten me excited. It talks about the surge of green jobs imminent now that the Obama stimulus package has been approved. About $20 billion is going into creating green jobs, and some of those are in the fuel cell industry.
According to John D. Sutter of CNN, “Meanwhile, some schools that train the green-collar work force are billing their programs as near-guaranteed ways to find stable jobs. Sidney Bolfing, chairman of the Texas Renewable Energy Education Consortium, an association of community colleges, said nearly 100 percent of his graduates find jobs in the fuel-cell industry — many before graduation … He hopes that the standard list of childhood dream jobs — astronaut, firefighter, police officer — soon will include things like wind technician and fuel-cell engineer.”
Okay, so if a person wants to train or retrain for a career in fuel cells, whether it is in engineering, CAD design, robotics, manufacturing or technical writing, where does one turn to get an education? Oddly enough, our own U. S. DOE (Department of Energy) website is a good resource as a person can search by institution, state, researchers or by topic.
Also, once you get your degree, how do you find a job in fuel cells? There are two quality sources of information that I’ve found that will get you started including Fuel Cell 2000 and FuelCellJobs.com (imagine that). The first resource will point to other top resources and the second is a job placement service in this specific niche industry. Of course, Monster and Hot Jobs is always another way to go.
A lot of people think fuel cells are just about hydrogen cars. But, the fastest growing segment is fuel cells to power small electronic devices like laptops, digital cameras and cell phones. So, if you have big dreams about going into fuel cells, think small and get some training today. Fuel cells will drive our tomorrow.
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