LAMPI: Industry readies workers for the future

The parking lot at L.E. Fletcher Technical Community College’s Louisiana Marine & Petroleum Institute (LAMPI) campus looks like a map of America.

The license plates read Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, Illinois and Kentucky.

LAMPI instructors train employees from around the country in the skills necessary to advance in the maritime and oil and gas industries.

Because most of the 2,000 students who come through annually are already in their chosen fields, the LAMPI campus is unique compared to other community college campuses.

“I rarely see a book bag-toting student here,” said Raymond A. Bilello, Dean of LAMPI. “These are captains, wanna-be captains, and deckhands who want to keep their job or get a better job. They are a lot more focused. The Coast Guard says you have to have this much training, and there’s no makeup time. You have to be here. They work 28 days on a boat, and when they come in they sit in classrooms for a week or two. They give up a lot.”

Another difference is LAMPI courses are one- to six-weeks long, as opposed to the main FTCC campus, where students go for a semester. LAMPI students do not have to meet the admission requirements of the main campus.

To continue providing the training marine and petroleum employers’ need, Fletcher is expanding LAMPI. The state Legislature approved $3.8 million in capital outlay funds last year for a 10-acre facility on the 30-acre campus.

“What we want to do is add modern welding and fitting shops to meet the needs of industry, especially for Edison Chouest’s LaShip project right next door to us, Gulf Island Fabrication and all the other industries in this area,” said Fletcher Chancellor F. Travis Lavigne Jr. “Our shop on St. Charles Street (the main campus) is simply not sufficient to do what we want to be able to do.”

The new facility will also have general purpose lecture classrooms and three training simulators: a Dynamic Positioning Simulator, which keeps a vessel on station using GPS systems; an Anchor Handling Simulator for deepwater petroleum exploration and a Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle Simulator for work on production heads on the ocean floor.

“Most of the oil and gas production is moving to deepwater, which I define as 5,000 feet,” Lavigne said. “The simulators are great to replicate working in that environment. You can make all the mistakes you want in a simulator.”

LAMPI’s $500,000 Full Mission Bridge Simulator was damaged when 60 percent of the upstairs roof was ripped off during Hurricane Gustav and 18 inches of floodwater inundated the campus during Hurricane Ike.

While repairs continue, the campus reopened quickly after the storms to minimize the number of days lost. However, no radar observer or harbor classes have been held since the storms.

“It will probably be another month before we get those classes up and running,” Bilello said.

Construction on the new building will not begin for at least six to eight months, according to Lavigne. The Division of Administration Facility Planning and Control still has to select an architect, and a design and put the project up for bidding. By then, the true cost of the expansion will be known.

“Once we do that, there may be a need for additional money to put the programs in place that industries indicate we must have to meet their needs,” Lavigne said. “For example, we’ll have to make a decision on the number of welding stations we put in. How many welders can we train at one time? Is it going to be 10, 20, 30 or 40? My hope is that it’s 40 because of the desperate need we have.”

One of the reasons Fletcher and LAMPI understand what employers want is because they are part of the school’s advisory committee.

Local companies like Cenac Towing, Guidry Brothers and Edison Chouest inform the school of the evolving skills workers need. LAMPI tries to develop its curriculum to progress with the demands, as long as it is cost-effective.

“That’s the key thing,” noted Elmy W. Savoie, FTCC public relations director. “We would love to do whatever we want. Unfortunately, we work for the state, and budget cuts are coming down hard.”

Luckily, LAMPI has been the recipient of generous gifts. After September’s storms, Southern Recycling of New Orleans donated a lifeboat and gravity davits, pieces of iron used to hold up lifeboats. It will be used for the personal survival craft training once it is cleaned and sandblasted. Years ago the campus received a tugboat, which is used for the Basic and Advanced Marine Firefighting class.

“This new davit and boat will be used to enhance the training we already have now,” Bilello said. “We’re trying to get a cooperative agreement with Southern Recycling where if they get ships that have marine equipment and devices on it that we can use for training, they’ll call us.”

LAMPI only started offering classes to help fill the needs in the petroleum industry a few years ago, according to Bilello.

There were five courses related to oil and gas – Fluid Mechanics, Implementation I and II, Basic Electricty and Electronics. LAMPI began teaching Process Diagrams this semester.

“We’re trying to build that program up,” Bilello said. “We wrote a grant, and we just opened up a fluid mechanics lab. The petroleum classes are credit hour classes just like any regular college class. They’re not controlled by the Coast Guard like the marine classes. They’re controlled by the state Board of Regents.”

Just as local marine and petroleum industries are in desperate need of skilled workers, LAMPI needs instructors to teach students to fill those positions.

Currently, the campus has open teaching positions for Petroleum Technology, Apprentice Mate (Steersman), Personal Survival Craft and Able-Bodied Seaman.

“One of the problems we’re having is if you have the capablity to teach those things, you can make a ton of money in private industry,” Bilello said. “My captains who teach here could make a ton of money, but most are too old to go to work. Young guys are kind of hard to find. If I can hire you for $100 a day and you have a 500-ton license and you can go work for $600 a day, I don’t think you’re going to come unless you have a burning desire to be an educator and help humanity.”

The captain who usually teaches STCW (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) has already cancelled two classes because he was still on a boat.

“He’s been on the boat since before Thanksgiving. We had a class scheduled to start in Feburary,” Bilello said. “He called and said, ‘I can’t get off.’ That happens when the replacement captain doesn’t come in, so your employer asks, ‘Can you stay another 28 days?’ Fortunately, we have some instuctors who work adjunct for us. When they come in, they teach a class or two.”

Despite that challenge, LAMPI has a dedicated and experinced faculty ready to impart their knowledge.

Captain Kenneth Bruce, a 28-year instructor, teaches the 500/1,600-ton GRT (Gross Registered Tonnage) up to unlimited Masters Oceans course. The 75 students enrolled in his class have spent years captaining ships, but now they are trying to obtain the highest grade license possible.

“The higher your grade license, the more knowledgeable you have to be about a lot of other things,” Bruce said. “That’s why they have to come back to school again, and retest with the Coast Guard.”

Unlike other courses, there is no time limit for the 1,600-ton Masters Oceans class. When students pay their tuition it is good for one year. Bruce decides when his students are prepared enough to take the test for their license.

For students like James Standley, 56, a 15-year captain currently employed by Superior Energy on jackup boats, the time put in is worth it. If he obtains his Masters license, he can double his salary to about $1,000 a day.

“I have a college degree (in international studies from Southern Oregon University), but this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “I have to take six exams. Three of them, you have to get 90 percent or better. But Captain Bruce is very thorough. His ability to explain difficult mathematical concepts to someone who isn’t mathematical is really important. Actually, I have taken several classes here to get to this point, and all the instructors here are very good.”

Standley is lucky compared to many of his classmates. Superior Energy is paying the Costa Rican resident his salary and hotel expenses while he attends school.

“One of the advantages of attending LAMPI is that we have grants available for almost all the programs that we offer,” Savoie said.

Managing the Coast Guard requirements with the skills employers expect students to have upon graduating is a challenging task. But LAMPI and its instructors are finding the right balance. In the process, students, local industries and the local economy are all the better for that.

“This stuff can be confusing. The Coast Guard is a huge entity with tons of rules and regulations. My guys can navigate them through that,” Bilello said. “We’re teaching and guiding. My guys direct these students as to what they need to do to achieve what they want to achieve.”

Students in the one-week Basic & Advanced Marine Firefighting class learn to battle a blazed onboard a tugboat. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF