Andrew Garza spent over a decade in the fast-food industry, rising to management positions at Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut.
He enjoys working in teams and helping to lead them. Garza figured there was another industry where his experience would prove valuable.
“The green energy field is growing, here in the Valley and around the world,” Garza said. “I see really good opportunities in wind energy technology. Hopefully, at some point, I can be part of a team running a site.”
For Dolores Delgado, a former dental assistant, there was a yearning for something different. She also wanted a job with more challenges than working in an office. The wind energy industry, she thought, would appeal to her mechanical abilities and affinity for hands-on work.
“I knew this would be a challenge for me,” Delgado said of enrolling in the Wind Energy Technology Program at TSTC-Harlingen. “I want to prove to females that this is a field that’s not only for males.”
Patrick Zoerner is the director of the wind energy technology program at the Harlingen campus. He is seeing students of all ages and with diverse backgrounds enrolling in a program that’s providing workers for a growing industry.
“The numbers are growing every year,” Zoerner said of the program’s enrollment. “With green energy, it’s one of those things where there are many wind farms coming up, here in the Valley and across the country and the world.”
Getting A Start
Zoerner worked in the wind energy industry himself and described the feeling of working hundreds of feet up, hanging with ropes and doing blade repairs.
“There’s nothing like being up there,” he said. “It’s perfect solitude.”
Blade repairs are among the many jobs offered in the wind energy field. Inspectors and technicians are needed as are crane operators and analysts who help determine the best locations for wind turbines and where they can yield the most energy production.
Texas has more than 18,000 active wind turbines and the state leads the nation in wind energy. The greatest concentrations of Texas wind turbines are in the Panhandle and West Texas, but the largest wind farm in the state is found in the Valley. The Los Vientos Wind Farm goes across Willacy County and into neighboring Starr County. It ranks first in Texas and second in size among wind farms in the United States.
Given the proximity of large wind farms to the Texas State Technical College campus in Harlingen, it’s no surprise when Zoerner reports a steady rise in his program’s enrollment. The program is more than a decade old and has gone from enrollment in the 60s and 70s to over 100 students for the current fall semester.
He describes the industry as one where new hires work their way up. Travel is often a requirement for new employees as they go from site to site, gaining experience and learning from mentors.
“I tell my students like it is,” Zoerner said. “You start from the ground up.”
New Opportunities
Starting on the lower rungs of the industry and working their way up does not phase Garza nor Delgado.
Delgado is open to job travel and is particularly interested in schematics, the drawings and plans that show the details of how something operates or is put together. At a recent class, she did just that, looking over numbers and figures on a white board in a TSTC lab as her instructor, Mario Sanchez, looked on and other students observed her work. She relishes the new opportunities that will come her way after completing her associate of applied science degree in the wind energy program.
“You only live once,” Delgado said. “You shouldn’t let age hold you back, be it if you’re young or older. You’re never too old to try something like this.”
Garza is going through the same two-year program at TSTC and sees himself branching out into other technological fields. The wind energy program, he said, will give him a good foundation to begin a new career wholly different from what he has experienced in the restaurant business.
“The big green field,” as he describes it, looks to be as large as the endless blue skies behind a Willacy County wind farm.