Gas Measurement Technician Training

- A Joint Industry Project

GOAL - Develop an industry sanctioned training program designed to provide (potential) M&R Technicians with the knowledge component for the majority of related tasks.

STRATEGY - Identify Industry companies willing to contribute funds toward a Joint Industry Project (JIP), provide existing training material for possible inclusion, and commit labor to participate as Joint Industry Committee (JIC) members - tasked to direct the contractors project (scope, outline, develop, apply, and administer the program - including oversight of future modification, revision and updates).

Southern Gas Association (SGA) - has offered to coordinate this industry effort and will hopefully provide additional credibility to the program via the SGA brand. 

Letton-Hall Group (LHG) - is very interested in contracting for the development and application of the program.  They have invested ~100 uncompensated man hours thus far and their representative Eric Kelner, P.E., along with Mike Grubb (SGA), and Jim Witte (ElPaso), led the presentation and discussion sessions at the kick off meeting hosted by Southern Union at their Houston office on 12-13 and 12-14-07.  LHG has also been instrumental in creating much of the current interest by sharing conceptual documents illustrating the need, current offerings, and high-level demographics during the kick off conference call held on 10-17-07.

Highlights from the December 2007 meeting:

• Excellent Industry representation including Boardwalk, El Paso, CenterPoint, Kinder Morgan, Southern Union, OneOK, and many others (12 major companies in all).
• Excellent Association attendance including AGA, SGA, and PRCI.
• Several companies offered their complete M&R training program materials to be used for the project.  This is the single most substantial development thus far since some of those programs are up to date and very comprehensive.
• Reached general consensus that the training should be broken into individual tasks (estimated 60) which could be individually certified and logically combined to form one to two week courses.
• Reached general consensus that the program should be portable with a requirement that trainers be qualified (likely by LHG).
• AGA (Brad Massey-incoming Chair) agreed to have the Transmission Measurement Committee (TMC) publish a “white paper” outlining capability requirements for M&R Technicians. 
• SGA agreed to facilitate collection of funds to support LHG’s scoping efforts necessary to support informed solicitation of potential JIP participation (The more the better).  It is estimated that each company represented at the Houston meeting will be asked to contribute ~ $3,000 funding for the initial scoping effort. 

Resources:

• Project Background
• INGAA Report "SECURING OUR FUTURE: DEVELOPING THE NEXT
  WORKFORCE: AN ANALYSIS OF RISK AND RECOMMENDED STRATEGIES FOR THE NATURAL GAS PIPELINE INDUSTRY"
• Letton-Hall Proposal - 31 December 2007
• Mass/Spring Animation Example
• Letton-Hall Presentation 1
• Letton-Hall Presentation 2
• Training Skill & Knowlege Families
• MeasJIPUpdate-March 11_2008
• MeasJIPUpdate-April 9 2008
• MEAS TECH TRAINING INITIATIVE UPDATE NO 1
• MEAS TECH TRAINING INITIATIVE UPDATE NO 2
• MEAS TECH TRAINING INITIATIVE UPDATE NO 3
• MEAS TECH TRAINING INITIATIVE UPDATE NO 4
• MEAS TECH TRAINING INITIATIVE UPDATE NO 5
• Tasks Covered in this Program
• MeasurementTech_JIP_Responsibilities-July 2008 (this document outlines areas of responsibility)

Highlights from the June 19, 2008 meeting:

• This meeting was conducted at the Williams Tower on Post Oak Blvd (Gallaria area of Houston).
• Benefits of the program - notes
• Presentation

Contact:

Mike Grubb, Senior Vice President, Southern Gas Association

972 620-4022  mgrubb@southerngas.org

This page updated: September 4, 2008