The NFPA Wind Technician Certification Standardizes Wind Safety

Dan Pickel joins the Uptime Spotlight today to discuss the NFPA’s Wind Turbine Technician I certification program. The program allows technicians to gain standardized recognition for their skills and understanding of safety protocols. With NFPA’s extensive background in fire and electrical safety training, the course covers the topics wind turbine technicians need to know and can be taken online.

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Allen Hall: We have a distinguished guest who is at the forefront of developing professional standards in the rapidly growing wind energy sector. Dan Pickel is the Director of Certification and Accreditation at the National Fire Protection Association. Today, Dan will be discussing NFPA’s groundbreaking Wind Turbine Technician I certification program.

Which addresses the critical need for qualified technicians in our rapidly expanding wind energy sector. With projections showing a demand for over 500, 000 technicians globally by 2027, this certification program couldn’t come at a more crucial time.

Welcome to Uptime Spotlight, shining light on wind energy’s brightest innovators.

This is the progress powering tomorrow.

Allen Hall: Welcome to the program.

Dan Pickel: Thanks for having me. I’m really appreciative to be here today.

Allen Hall: It’s great to have you because there’s so many questions about this new certification and we decided to just go to the expert and find out. So, you know, obviously the wind energy sector is growing at a tremendous rate.

And with that comes issues about finding qualified technicians, and the new certification program is trying to address that, correct?

Dan Pickel: Yeah, so we, we developed the certification program, and I know we’ll get into the, the meat of it later on, but it was meant to address that issue where there are, there’s a lack of, uh, knowledge and skills for individuals that are entering the, uh, the industry as a wind turbine technician.

Joel Saxum: Yeah. You see, you hear that from a lot of service providers, right? Rather it’s blade repair, torque and tensioning construction. We’re at the point in the industry where we’re, we’re, we’re starting to just, I know this is for lack of a better term, but like grabbing warm bodies and training them up as fast as we can and throwing them out there.

Well, what, what that ends up doing is it kind of shoots us in the footlong run because you end up with cost of port quality issues, you know, other, other safety issues and things on site, let alone the technical knowledge. Yeah. Uh, that’s needed to advance the, the wind sector here, especially in the United States.

Dan Pickel: Yeah, definitely. I think there’s, we’ve spoken to, uh, some of NFPA’s customers in the past and their push is to get people to right trading. They want to make sure that their new employees have all the tools they need to be successful and to be safe out in the field. And they were struggling because there are some other training options out there.

Um, they reached out to us about getting 70E training for electrical safety, but they were finding that wasn’t enough. There were still some issues on the field. They were telling us about some really unsafe conditions that were Caused by people just being unskilled and, and not knowledgeable in terms of what they should be doing.

So that was when we really started to dig into the idea of developing a certification for entry-level wind turbine technicians, which is what we ended up doing.

Allen Hall: So that lack of a. standardized approach or some sort of label that’s applied to technicians, like they’re qualified to be here, that really affects two ends of it.

It affects the company that is hiring them, but it also affects a technician that is competent because they kind of get grouped into the larger pool where there’s sort of a mixed bag of, of technician qualifications.

Dan Pickel: Yeah. And that’s, that’s where certification. Can really be a game changer for individuals.

So if you look at two different candidates for the same job, um, you know, same education, same training, same experience, but one of them certified, I think what that shows is that there is a, um, that person invested in themselves. So they apply for the program. They take the job. You know, took whatever training they needed to, they studied for the exam, then they passed it.

And certification exams are meant to be pretty rigorous, so it’s, they’re developed by subject matter experts related to the actual job role. So if you look at those two individuals, they will, who should I, should I hire? Most employers are going to go with the person that invested themselves because that’s a, you know, a predictor of success.

Allen Hall: So let’s, let’s break this down a

Program is relatively new. I think I first heard about it this summer. And what from the industry drove you? Was it just an industry consensus? Was it, uh, industry resource groups that were saying, Hey, NFPA, you do a lot of certifications. You’re the leading body, particularly United States, for this. We need you to develop something.

Or how did this really come about?

Dan Pickel: I get emails and calls all the time from people with ideas for certification saying this person or this group of people don’t know what they’re doing. We need a certification. So at that point, we look into the business case. It’s what’s what’s the industry? What’s the role maturity?

You know, um, do we have any connection to that industry? As well, because NFPA works with fire life and electrical safety hazards, is this something that makes sense for us? In a lot of cases, it doesn’t. When we’re looking at the wind turbine technician role, uh, there’s a lot of, you know, electrical issues, um, electrical shock issues that we are hearing about.

Um, there’s some fall safety, there’s PPE issues, there’s hydraulics and mechanical systems and, and a lot of those align with what NFPA does, its mission. So we looked at that and we thought, this makes sense. Is the role mature enough? And from what we could find, it was. So we talked with subject matter experts about this, and ultimately we invited people to, to join our certification advisor group.

Now that’s a group of subject matter experts. They’re primarily based in the US, but, uh, several of them were based abroad. And, you know, we, we met with them to talk about what, what does this thing look like in terms of role? So we had a role delineation to determine what is exactly done by people that perform.

And that involves a pretty robust job task analysis and a number of other steps to come to a, uh, you know, formalized exam blueprint, which is the basis for the exam.

Allen Hall: Oh, wow. Okay. So who were some of the participants in this? And obviously a lot of the wind turbine, uh, Operators, and obviously the manufacturers, are not based in the U.

S., so there must have been a lot of differing inputs into that advisory group.

Dan Pickel: Yeah. So we have a, we have a, uh, a program overview that lists all of our, uh, CAG members, or the Certification Advisory Group members. Some came from GE, some came from Vestas. A lot of them had been working in the U. S., but then also worked abroad, and they traveled a bunch, so, and they’d worked at different companies, so they were, you pretty knowledgeable about what the different, uh, you know, manufacturers were doing, what the different installers were doing, and what, what maintenance companies were doing as well.

So we, we were really, we benefited from their expertise quite a bit when developing the certification program.

Allen Hall: Oh, that’s interesting. And the assessment that is performed to really determine competency, there are, from what I can see from the website, and if you haven’t visited the NFPA website, you should visit it and just put in wind turbine technician and it’ll pop right up to the page.

Wonderful site. There’s a lot of good information there. There are really four general areas that the comprehensive assessment is looking into. Uh, mechanical systems, hydraulic systems, electrical systems, and then sort of working at heights in general safety. But when you look at the distribution here, there’s a lot about general safety, which is a little alarming.

We should have that locked in already.

Dan Pickel: We should, yeah. So the way that it works is, so we, we work with our subject matter experts. We come up with this job task analysis. So it’s, what are all the behavioral things? What are the tasks that someone needs to perform to be competent in a role? Okay. Thank you.

So they put this list together and then what we do is we’ve sent it out as a validation survey to anyone that’s in the wind industry that works as a wind turbine technician. And they answered two questions in the survey for each of those tasks is how frequently do you perform the task and how critical is it?

Now we use that as a way to understand. How much of the exam should be devoted to specific sections? And when we got the results of the survey, we saw that a lot of individuals were saying, you know, on the, on this final don’t, uh, content domain related to safety at heights and just general safety, this is where we really are spending our time.

This is really critical. And that’s what we use to develop the, uh, the certification exemptions blueprint.

Allen Hall: That’s fascinating, because you think that the PPE working at heights is just ingrained into every technician, but maybe because the industry is growing so fast, it’s one of those areas that kind of gets lackadaisical as you go along in the industry.

Dan Pickel: Certainly could be. I mean, imagine someone is just getting into the industry and they don’t understand how to work at heights. Uh, they don’t understand how to, you know, properly use PPE. That’s, that’s really a critical thing. at that stage, but also it’s something they do frequently and it’s critical for their safety.

So that’s where I imagine as they were going through this survey and indicating how critical is this, I would find it pretty critical as well.

Joel Saxum: Honestly, though, when you get, even when we’re talking newcomers, but even people that are seasoned vets, one of the times that you get the A frequency, if you start looking at HSE statistics, a frequency of accidents, incidents, um, it happens based on complacency as well.

A lot of them happen, a lot of times it happens, to someone who’s been in the industry for 5 10 years and they’ve done this task a thousand times, so they become a little bit, you know, lackadaisical or, in that sense, or, a lot of times it’s on a hitch. When someone’s been out for 28 days and on day 27 or day 28 in the morning, when they’re thinking about going home, that’s when something happens.

So even having people brush up on these ideas in the midst of their career to achieve this certification is a good idea. So the people that were, that are being targeted for the certification that we’re looking at, People that work in the field, whether you work for an ISP, um, you’re a service provider of some sort, or you work for an operator and you’re a part of that operating team, or you work for an OEM, it’s basically anybody hands on that will touch a turbine in the field, correct?

Dan Pickel: Yeah, that’s correct.

Allen Hall: So let’s walk through the mechanical, hydraulic, electrical systems aspects of the assessment. It’s not, it’s not turbine specific. And I think a lot of technicians would get really worried about that. Like, hey, I just work GE turbines. I don’t know anything about Siemens turbines. So if you ask me, I’m not going to be able to answer that.

Are these questions in those three sections, are they more generic, like this is how a turbine generally works, on the braking system, and those sort of things? Is it sort of top level understanding of what’s happening inside of a turbine?

Dan Pickel: Yeah, it’s really high level, so we’re not looking at schematics for any particular type of manufacturer design.

It’s, you know, do you have the high level understanding of hydraulic systems, of, um, of mechanical systems, of electrical systems, and it, it, it isn’t devoted to any particular manufacturer.

Allen Hall: Okay. So, in the, sort of, the prep for this, if, if I’m interested in taking this exam and getting certified. What kind of prep work would I need to do before I took the assessment?

Dan Pickel: Yeah, so we had initially been in conversations with, uh, GWO and, and part of what we did was we looked at their training, uh, curricula as we were developing the certification exam. So, um, there, right now there isn’t a, devoted training course to this certification and we were talking with some training providers about developing something like that.

But I think when you look at G. W. O. ‘s basic safety training and basic technical training, those are going to cover most of what would be in the certification exam.

Allen Hall: Uh, okay. So they probably already have taken courses, been schooled up This is not deep but it’s really, knowledge of a particular aspect. It is really just, hey, how does this term work?

That, that’s, that’s fascinating because I think a lot of technicians would be interested in that if, if that’s the case. Are there eligibility requirements to take this exam? Yeah,

Dan Pickel: there are. And there’s really two pathways here. So one of them is that you took a training course that covers the exam blueprint.

And the other is that you’ve been working in the industry for six months. So that could be for an ISP or someone else, but you can verify that you’ve worked there and then you would meet that eligibility criteria and you could sit to take the exam.

Allen Hall: So would that be part of an onboarding process? I think a lot of ISPs right now that are bringing in.

Um, hundreds of technicians at a time is getting him on site, getting him working for six months, seeing how it all plays out, and then taking this exam to say, all right, let’s just check your competency. We’ll see how everybody’s doing. And from a company standpoint, that would make a lot of sense, right?

Dan Pickel: You know, we think so. Um, when we look at certification, those exam blueprints, so what is it that, uh, goes into the role? What are the tasks that need to be performed? What’s the knowledge with the skills? On top of it being sort of the basis for our certification exam, it’s also meant to be the basis for potential instructional design.

So it’s, we’re working with subject matter experts to understand what does someone do? What do they do? And that’s meant to be The, you know, a foundation for anyone that’s looking to develop a course that is teaching someone how to do those things. So we have those subject matter experts build that exam blueprint, hoping that it will become the, you know, the, the basis for a, an instructional design for a course that just going to prepare people for this type of a role.

So when you look at how this could potentially be used. There are a lot of organizations out there hiring lots of people and the industry is growing a ton. So we want to make sure people are safe and understand the role. This is something that they look at, say, can we align our, our internal training with this certification exam blueprint?

I think that’s maybe the first step if they don’t want to bring in an outside trainer. And then you can utilize a certification exam as a way to understand, all right. We went through this with our employees. Now, this is, this is meant to be sort of. A way to separate proficient from non proficient candidates.

Let’s, let’s have our employees take this as a way to really set that, that benchmark for our workforce development, uh, internally.

Joel Saxum: So the goal here is, is to roll this thing out to the wind industry. Is it just in the United States or is it going to be a global thing?

Dan Pickel: So when we were talking with our certification advisory group, like my questions always, you know, how, how localized is this?

Is this just an American thing? Um, is this a, you know, uh, you know, North American thing? And the response we got was that a lot of the, the wind turbines that are going up around the world are coming from the same manufacturers. So it was a lot of the same competencies. There’s a lot of the same skills.

They, they plug into different grids, but outside of that, The role is largely the same. So people, you know, in Asia could take this certification exam if they speak English and, and they would, you know, it would benchmark them the same way that it would benchmark someone in America that’s working as a wind turbine technician.

Joel Saxum: So you guys are actively trying to roll this thing out to operators, ISPs, directly to technicians. I know that was kind of a part of the goal too, is any which way it can get into the industry, but you’re looking for buy in from operators and buy in from the OEMs that this is a standard that they want to adhere to.

Dan Pickel: Yeah, think that’s right. Um, I don’t know what’s going to be the most successful way to help this certification grow. And, and, and in that way, I mean, I want the certification to be utilized as a way for individuals to separate themselves, differentiate themselves from their competitors when they’re applying for jobs, but also as a way to, to make sure that they’re safe and they’re going home at the end of the day.

Is that, that’s what we want. We want to make sure that we’re going to be able to hit our renewable energy growth goals. We want to make sure everyone is safe and revenue is great. But honestly, we built this because we wanted to make sure that that people are safe and that the companies that we work with.

are able to understand what those, you know, what are those competencies that someone needs to have to be safe in that role.

Allen Hall: I want to briefly touch on this because NFPA does a lot of certification work. It is not easy to, if you think that as an ISP, you’re going to create this set of standards on your own and, and go through the process that Tan has been through, good luck.

Because creating exams and, and evaluations are a rigorous, Well thought out u usually multi-year process so that you’re getting the qualified candidate, your, your desire without having some skewed results. It’s kind of like when you got outta school taking me a g or, or SAT or a CT one of those exams.

Those things are rigorous and, but there’s like scientists and evaluations and surveys. And all this work is done behind the scenes, I do think there’s, uh, uh, some emphasis going on right now in terms of the ISPs to try to have some sort of examination, but I’m always concerned, like, are you the right person to do that?

NFPA is. Can you explain all the work that goes on behind the scenes, or how you got to this point of being like the certification expert?

Dan Pickel: Yeah, it is a rigorous process. And I think people are used to the SATs. The SAT is meant to separate each person from everyone else along a bell curve, right? It’s a norm referenced exam.

Just trying to figure out where do you fall along that bell curve. Certification exams are pretty rigorous. Primarily criterion based, which means the criteria is, are you proficient or non proficient? It’s not a bell curve. It looks a little bit like a skewed bell curve, but, uh, the, the important point is figuring out what’s the, what’s, what’s that line of proficiency and that’s where that cut score is.

Now there’s, there’s a, a lot of work that goes into that as well. So, you know, we go through that whole job task analysis and the exam blueprint setting through the validation survey, which I mentioned. Then we do all the training with our subject matter experts to write items for the exam. Now, items are another way to say is questions.

It’s not easy. And I think everyone thinks, Oh, I’ll just pump some out. Usually it takes someone like an hour to get the first one and it’s terrible. And then it, so it, it’s, it’s a tough process. And a lot of people are like, Oh, I want to, I want to contribute. And then they get in there. Like, I hate this. I can never do this.

They’re like, all right. So if, if you’re better at just judging items, I have a spot for you as well. So once those, those questions, once those items have been developed, they are reviewed by NFPA tech services, uh, we review them as well for best practices. And then we have, we take the, the items that align with the blueprint and we go through a process called standard setting.

That’s where we have a, a group of subject matter experts. We talk about, all right, what is a minimally qualified candidate? Cause that’s the line. So who would barely pass this exam? Now look at each one of these questions and determine what percentage of that minimally qualified candidate would get this right.

Not should, that’s a different question, but what, what percentage would get this right based on your conception. And we go through that with them and then figure out, all right. So on a, you know, for the, the wind turbine certification exam, there’s 60 questions on there. What number of items do people need to get right?

And because each exam is maybe more, more difficult or easier, that passing point, that cut score is different. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a little bit of a science, a little bit of an art to determine what’s that, that’s that line for the cut score. But at the end of it, we have this, this. Certification exam, which has a cut score, which has been developed by subject matter experts, and it, it separates individuals along that line.

So we, we know who’s proficient, we know who’s not proficient, need some more training or more experience before they, they should take it again.

Allen Hall: Very difficult task for sure. Oh, let’s just, let’s just bump into the, the cost of taking the, the, the certification process. What, what does that look like?

Dan Pickel: To take the exam, there’s just one fee, and it’s 249.

Uh, someone would go in through, you need to have an NFPA. org account. So, log in to NFPA. org, you click on a link for the Certification Management System. Then you fill out an application. At the end of it, you would pay the fee. From that point, uh, you would then decide whether you want to take the exam at a, an in person testing site through our Testing Vendor Prometric.

And there are hundreds in the U. S. and, you know, more than a thousand globally. Or you can choose to take it as an online remote proctor exam where you need to have a webcam, a stable internet connection, and a relatively clean room. Uh, and then you, you would be able to schedule, um, pretty much at any time.

You know, day or night, uh, you know, during the week or weekends, uh, they’re, they’re always running those things. So, uh, it’s, it’s whatever is most convenient for you. Now, what I should say is that there are people that love taking exams in that online remote proctoring environment, and there are people that hate it.

And no one knows who they are until they do it. Um, but there’s no in between. You either love it or you hate it. So just want to put that out there. Um, if you’re not sure if you’re going to love it, I’d recommend going to an actual physical testing site. But if you’re far away, and part of the reason we, we implemented the online remote proctored environment is because some people live far away from testing sites.

Now they would have to find childcare. They’d have to take the day off. Having that. Ability breaks down some of the traditional barriers to certification. So that’s why we offer it. But again, if you hate online remote projects exams, we have another option for you.

Allen Hall: Oh, that’s sweet. Uh, so if I, you know, if I was to take this, I’m sure I would not pass it on the first go through.

That was just the way that I take exams. If you don’t, what’s, what is the repeat effort look like to take a exam again? Is it another 249 or is it kind of built into the initial fee?

Dan Pickel: So you get the one exam for the 249. I think it’s 199 for a retest. So it’s 50 bucks less. And, uh, and then it’s, you know, you just go back in through the CMS.

It will update with your, uh, your failed score and you just click retest and you’re done. schedule to take it again.

Allen Hall: All right. So if in every certification process, there’s a recertification effort that has to happen, how, how often would I have to recertify to keep this certification?

Dan Pickel: It’s on the same timeline as all of our other certifications.

So that’s every three years. So you get certified from the day you get certified, you have three years to recertify. And that’s a process where you have to, at NFPA, um, you have to earn enough points. Now this can be, these points can either be earned by, uh, working in the industry and, and verified that work or, uh, taking continue education courses.

Allen Hall: Well, that’s like, okay. So there’s, there’s a real emphasis on continuing education, which there should be in the wind industry because it’s, it’s changing so rapidly. It’s, it’s hard to keep pace sometimes.

Dan Pickel: Yeah, it’s absolutely right. I mean, I think we all have, you know, uh, degrees from whatever programs and they’re all, they’re all, you know, valuable, but they’re all sort of, um, that at that point in time, there’s no requirement to continue to, you know, learn anything else.

Like I have some diplomas behind me that, uh, like this one says public policy analysis. You shouldn’t hire me to do a job in public policy analysis. I haven’t, I haven’t looked at the stuff in 20 years. Um, but for a certification, you earn it after taking a rigorous exam. And then you have to continue to prove that you’re in the industry.

You’re still taking courses. Um, you could, you know, earn points by being part of a board or writing industry articles, or maybe doing podcasts. We don’t have that on there yet, but maybe that’s somewhere to go. Bud. But being involved in the industry is how you maintain that certification. And, uh, and when people see that, they say, all right, well, you know, not only did this person earn a certification, but there’s a requirement that they continue to learn, continue to grow, to, to maintain it.

Allen Hall: If anybody wants to learn about the certification process for wind turbine technician, one, uh, certification, where should they go?

Dan Pickel: Sure. So best way to find out information outside of listening to this fantastic podcast, um, is to go to nfba. org and you go to there, there’s going to be an option, um, click at the top, you’ll get a dropdown for certification.

And then from there, you can choose the wind turbine technician one program and learn specifically what’s involved in that program on that page. There’s a program overview. That document includes the, uh, that exam blueprint. So you’re going to want to take a look at that first before you take the exam. I don’t, I don’t want to surprise anyone what’s on there.

Uh, I know we, we touched on those main content domains, but take a look because if you’re missing some pieces from there, there’s a chance that you may not pass. So go through it, understand where there might be a gap in your knowledge, make sure that you’re filling that gap, and then go ahead and take the exam.

Allen Hall: Absolutely. And if you’re a service provider or a training school in the U. S., do they reach out to you directly or do they also access via the NFPA website?

Dan Pickel: Yeah, they can always, uh, look, they can always go through the certification management platform as well. If it’s a larger organization that’s interested in having, uh, their, you know, workforce go through the process.

They can reach out to me and we can figure out a discount to get them all set up with, with vouchers to take the certification exam.

Allen Hall: And how do they reach you, Dan? Do they go via email or LinkedIn? You find me

Dan Pickel: on LinkedIn. A lot of people do. Um, but, uh, you can also reach out to me through email. It’s the best way to do it.

So that’s, uh, dpickel@nfpa.org or DPICKEL, looks like pickle, but I pronounce it the fancy way, um, at NFPA. org.

Allen Hall: Wow. This has been really interesting because it’s one of the missing areas in WIND right now is competency exams, and the NFPA is the right organization to go ahead and do this. Dan, thanks for your time and explaining all the intricacies and what goes on behind it, and Yeah, if any, if you’re a technician out there or you’re a training facility or an ISP and you wanted to get involved, reach out to Dan because he’s the right person to talk to.

So Dan, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Dan Pickel: Thanks for having me. This has been great.