Job Creation? What’s That?

Bad employment news is hard to avoid when you open your daily newspaper (assuming of course that your daily newspaper hasn’t filed for bankruptcy). That’s why I feel obligated to relay news from the Stevens Point Journal about the creation of up to 400 jobs due to eventual plant expansion by Energy Composites Corporation in Wisconsin Rapids.

What is the plant going to produce? Blades for wind turbines. I’ve been talking about wind energy being a huge up-and-comer since the very first Panda Post in August, 2008 (incidentally this was back in the good old days before talk of stimulus plans and before the stock market decided it wanted to ruin everyone’s retirement plans).

I’m tired of the doom and gloom—made even worse by the fact that the Wisconsin winter clearly wants to hang around for a while (significant snow in late March and early April, are you kidding me?). That’s why Panda Group is creating a spiffy Job Meter that will appear on our soon-to-be-launched Safety Industry Stimulus website. We’ll give you the good news about new jobs (we’ll try to avoid mentioning the weather ever again).

Related Story: Turbines Require Safety Equipment

I’m sure the savvy readers of the Panda Post figured that out already, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t reiterate the fact. Wind Turbines aren’t quaint little windmills. These bad boys can reach more than 200’ into the sky, and building and servicing them requires working at heights that make me dizzy just thinking about, even though we cartoons recover from large falls nicely (Wile E. Coyote has made a comfortable living taking swan dives off of cliffs). Tougher dudes than me are up to that task, but they require some serious fall protection equipment.

A comfortable climbing harness is ideal when putting together turbine segments and spending a lot of time on a ladder system.

Tight spaces, ladder climbing, and dangerous work on a turbine exterior require a comfortable and flexible harness.

Quick, self escape with a reliable descent control device is the ideal way to evacuate a large standalone structure like a turbine.