• “Thanks to the booming gas industry in Pennsylvania’s northern tier, Pittston-based construction company Linde Corp. plans to make hundreds of new hires in the next 18 months”

  • “Career options in our region are expanding mightily due to Marcellus shale development … Clearly, Marcellus shale exploration and development is an industry that is growing rapidly, so the opportunities are plentiful and enduring”

  • “For a generation of young men with high school degrees in this generally poor and rural county, staying close to home often meant struggling to make a steady living. The booming Marcellus Shale gas industry in the northern tier is changing that”

“Montrose Man Gets New Start With Gas Driller”: Before gas drilling came to Susquehanna County, Mike Hall’s future was tied to the suffering blue-stone business. The lifetime county resident had worked in quarries since before he graduated from Montrose Area High School. … For a generation of young men with high school degrees in this generally poor and rural county, staying close to home often meant struggling to make a steady living. The booming Marcellus Shale gas industry in the northern tier is changing that. Mr. Hall got a job with a subcontractor working with the nascent gas industry and was hired about two years ago by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. as a well tender. He is not alone: he can name about 25 friends and neighbors he knows from town who also have found work in the industry. “Until this job, I never had a job that had full benefits,” Mr. Hall, 32, said at the Cabot regional offices along Route 29 in Dimock Twp. … The job “will be here for the life of the wells, which, with the predictions from geologists, hopefully will be a long time,” Mr. Hall said. … His daily tours have shown him how his community is changing: he notices new pickup trucks in driveways and new roofs on homes and barns. “If we didn’t get this gas … I can tell you there’d be a lot of land for sale,” he said. “If you didn’t work for the school or for the hospital or for the state, you didn’t have much.” (Times-Tribune, 4/24/11)

“Pittston Co. Might Double Its Work Force, Due To Booming Gas Industry”: Thanks to the booming gas industry in Pennsylvania’s northern tier, Pittston-based construction company Linde Corp. plans to make hundreds of new hires in the next 18 months, spokesman Kevin Lynn said Friday. Within three years, the company might double in size to 250 employees, he said. Linde hired 73 new workers since Jan. 1 to help build a gathering pipeline in Susquehanna County for midstream-pipeline company Laser Marcellus Gathering LLC. Lynn said Linde has built a good relationship with Laser, leading to contract extensions. Linde now has five years’ worth of contract work lined up. … The company is seeking to hire pipe benders, welders, heavy equipment operators, middle and upper level management and general laborers. (Times-Leader, 4/23/11)

“Marcellus Shale Jobs Booming”: Career options in our region are expanding mightily due to Marcellus shale development. … There are openings for clerical and administrative positions, finance and information technology jobs, and legal and human-resources positions. Further, non-shale employers who provide products and services such as steel and trucking to shale companies need employees as well. Even better news: With some training, many more people can qualify for Marcellus shale jobs. And, as communities are revitalized by the expanding natural gas industry, there will be job growth in hospitality, retail, real estate and other local industry segments. … According to Mark Scheuerman, chairman of the Marcellus Shale Coalition’s Work Force Committee, “the primary focus of this program to link work force investment boards, community colleges and others that are seeking to provide work force training for the Marcellus industry.” The goal, he says, is to enable students to “join the industry with tangible skills that are in demand.” … Clearly, Marcellus shale exploration and development is an industry that is growing rapidly, so the opportunities are plentiful and enduring. (Tribune-Review Op-Ed, 4/24/11)

Pennsylvanians Training For Marcellus Work: When Bobby Guffey and nine other students graduated from the first-ever Roustabout Training program at the Community College of Allegheny County two weeks ago, there was no “Pomp and Circumstance” — just a sandwich ring and some Pepsi to be split among the guys and their families. Each student’s name was called and a CCAC Certificate of Successful Completion presented. … An eventual job is pretty much assumed at this point. … An interview with Nomac Drilling, a Chesapeake subsidiary, seemed to go well for Bobby; if he got this entry-level job, he could try for supervisor in five years, maybe be the on-site company man one day. “I’d retire from them,” he said. Hopefully by then he’d have his ultimate goal: “A farm with 30 acres and some toys on it.” (Post-Gazette, 4/24/11)

“Construction Firm To Add Hundreds Of Jobs Over Next Few Years”: Linde Construction Corp. is looking to hire hundreds of workers over the next few years to keep pace with its growing presence in the natural gas industry, said spokesman Kevin Lynn. … “Since Jan. 1, we’ve hired 73 new people with five more going through orientation this week and another nine scheduled for next week, but it isn’t enough,” McGraw said. Linde Construction has seen tremendous growth since it began to develop opportunities in the Marcellus Shale region in July 2009, Lynn said. Its workers lay pipeline to transport natural gas harvested from wells, construct drilling pads, complete horizontal directional drilling and repave regional roads. … While turnover in the construction industry is common, McGraw said the Marcellus Shale industry is allowing them to hire more people. The jobs offer full health benefits, he said. “We are very much a traditional company in the sense that we hire locally and nearly 95 percent of our people live locally,” McGraw said. (Citizens Voice, 4/23/11)

“Natural Gas Is Clean, Green And Affordable”: It’s called Marcellus shale: a ridge of marine sedimentary rock that stretches from Tennessee to New York. It is believed that Marcellus Shale may contain as much as 490 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which makes the land very valuable. Land within the Marcellus Shale line is currently valued at an average of roughly $3,000 an acre, largely due to the potential to extract natural gas from the shale. … Natural gas is clean, green and affordable. It’s also a proven money maker. In the last three years the great state of Pennsylvania has seen $389 million in tax revenue and 44,000 jobs come from shale drilling. (Auburn Citizen Op-Ed, 4/25/11)

“Gas Jobs Waiting For Trained Work Force”: The list of want ads is long. Project engineer, gas marketing administrator, landman, heavy equipment operator, compressor technician, business development director, regulatory clerk, petrophysicist. In late March, the member companies of the Marcellus Shale Coalition advertised hundreds of open positions they want to fill in Pennsylvania or just over the border in New York. Three years into the gas-drilling boom, the job listings testify to the continued need for workers with a variety of skills to propel the growing industry. Researchers with the Marcellus Shale Education and Training Center estimate shale drilling will require between 3,700 and 15,000 direct jobs in central and northern Pennsylvania by 2013 and an additional 8,100 to 13,500 direct jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania by 2014. About 75 percent of the jobs will be blue-collar work, said the study’s author, James Ladlee, director of Penn State Cooperative Extension in Clinton County. … “People think about the workers on the drilling rig and they think those are the only jobs out there,” he said. “There are a whole bunch of people that are backing them up in a variety of ways to make sure that they are able to do their jobs out in the field.” … Larry Milliken, director of energy programs at Lackawanna College, said a certified pipeline welder can make more than $100,000 anywhere in the country because they are in such high demand. (Times-Tribune, 4/24/11)