Tucumcari: Perched nearly 300 feet (90 meters) above the New Mexico plains, tethered to the roof of a wind turbine generator by a single safety harness, Terrill Stowe is in his element.
“In 14 years, I’ve never had someone fall. Let’s hope today isn’t the first,” jokes the technical instructor to AFP journalists, who were fighting their way down the 260 rungs below him.
A giant, lone wind turbine improbably towers over the small town of Tucumcari, just a half-hour drive from the Texas border along historic Route 66.
Built in 2008 on the campus of Mesalands Community College, the structure is one of the few operating turbines in the U.S. where new technicians can train to join the burgeoning wind industry.
The growth of the industry has been astounding. Today, the United States has about 75,000 large turbines that generate enough electricity to power roughly 40 million American homes.
The nation’s wind farm capacity has more than doubled over the past decade — an expansion that has left the industry struggling to train enough skilled workers to keep the blades spinning.
“They’re building more wind farms and they don’t have as many engineers as wind farms do,” Stowe says.
They train 10 to 20 students per semester. They first practice on the ground with a replica generator and gearbox, eventually climbing into the turbine’s “nacelle,” or engine room, high in the center of its three giant blades.
Stowe warns students that this is not a career for the faint of heart.
“I tell them if they’re deathly afraid of heights, then maybe they don’t want to try,” he says.
In windy conditions, being up on the tower is “like riding a boat, back and forth … 100 meters in the air,” says Stowe.
The wind industry’s acceleration has been fueled by falling technology costs, improved production efficiency and government incentives such as President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Recent recruits include Nathaniel Alexander and Kevin Blea, two young men from Tucumcari who trained under Stowe and recently returned to their old school as instructors.
“I’m all for clean energy,” said Alexander, 28, who applied right out of high school.
But his main reasons for joining were the desire to do “man’s work” and get a good wage.
A two-year degree costs $6,000 to $10,000 and opens the door to jobs that can pay $50,000 to $90,000 a year.
In this rural part of eastern New Mexico — a conservative region in a largely blue state — many are reluctant to give Democrats credit for the boom.
The past few years have been “kind of an upward trend,” Stowe admits.
But the Republican voter believes that when Trump was in the White House, “we had more of an upward trend.”
Alexander says recent tax breaks have “definitely helped” the industry, but he’s “not too keen” on green policies.
He enjoys reading Facebook posts “with conspiracy theories about how much diesel it takes to run” a wind turbine.
“It’s not true at all, I just find it funny,” he says.
Security conditions have changed dramatically in recent decades.
Before becoming an instructor, Stowe worked in wind farms and recalls having to crawl on a “frozen sheet of ice” on top of turbines in 90 mph winds.
Towers are often struck by lightning – often requiring technicians to climb out and repair them.
“When I first started climbing, it didn’t matter what the weather was like,” he says nostalgically.
Nowadays, “if the weather is at all nasty, they don’t come out.”
Even these days, Blea remembers the wind swinging the turbine so hard during his practice that a classmate “flew himself in his helmet.”
“It was pretty gross, honestly,” the 27-year-old says with a laugh.
Those risks aside, the job is unlike any office job, he says.
“Being the first on that tower and seeing the views in the morning is just amazing,” adds Alexander. “It’s a good way to wake up.”
