The university has been hosting a year of seminars on how union workers might help build the statewide transportation system, hired a world-renowned expert who is developing engineering courses that emphasize high-speed rail, and even has a simulator being shipped overseas from China to train conductors.
It expects the program to have value even if California’s troubled high-speed rail project is delayed or never materializes at all.
“We'll have the only high-speed rail training system in the United States, and as other states like Maryland and Texas look at high-speed rail, we'll become the training center for the whole country,” Mark Novak, dean of CSUB's extended university division, said.
The university is also partnering with the Kern High School District and Bakersfield College to create jobs in the high-speed rail sector. Top administrators from the three campuses sent a letter in late January to Jeff Morales, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, committing to serve the industry's job needs.
“We look forward to working with your agency to create the stellar workforce that would make any high-speed rail facility in Kern County a world-class example of California's pioneering spirit,” the letter signed by CSUB President Horace Mitchell, BC President Sonya Christian and KHSD Superintendent Bryon Schaefer says.
A World Class Expert
Wei Li is a world-renowned expert in high-speed rail. He has published extensively on vision navigation for autonomous vehicles and robotics. He attended Beijing Jiaotong University, which grew out of the China Railway Management Institute.Now Li is a professor of computer and electrical engineering and computer science at CSUB, where he’s been since 2001. In the last two years, Li has hosted two engineering classes on high-speed rail that have been supported by CSR, which gave scholarships to all 50 students who enrolled.
Li calls on his connections overseas to help with the class, he said.
“Most of my friends right now are working in high-speed rail in China, and I got a textbook from my friend who wrote it in English,” Li said.
Then there’s the HSR simulator, which can create scenarios such as rain, sleet, snow and hail for students to navigate through, Novak said. CSUB will need to hire someone to train students in conducting, something Li is not qualified to do, Novak said.
It could recruit engineers from other countries where high-speed rail already exists, or contract with the company that wins the bid to build the train.
And if high-speed rail never materializes, CSUB will still have a training center, Novak said.
“It would be a little odd to have a training center with no high-speed rail here. It would be a missed opportunity,” Novak said. “But there would be other people to be trained and maybe if we become a good training center, people would send others from other parts of the world to be trained here.”
At least one student said he had no qualms about taking a course from Li, and would consider majoring in a high-speed rail concentration if it were offered, even with the possibility the project may never happen.
“It is a risky career, but at the same time it's one that has great benefits because this is the beginning of that era,” said Raul Caballero, a junior computer engineering major at CSUB. “Every major developed country has a high-speed rail system and we're just lagging behind. It's not like the job won't happen, it's just a matter of when.”
A Pathway of Possibilities
Meanwhile, the Kern High School District and Bakersfield College are expanding programs likely to help create a high-speed rail workforce, even though they weren’t specifically designed for that.The high school district rolled out an introduction to skilled trades course last year that would get students hands-on experience in different industrial fields and are emphasizing welding and metal fabrication labs. Students can earn college credit in some of those courses.
“As far as us having a program where a kid graduates and goes straight to work on the high-speed rail — that's not our goal,” Dean McGee, assistant superintendent of educational services and innovative programs, said. “It's to go create some awareness and experience in industries that support high-speed rail.”
And Bakersfield College is part of a pilot program allowing it to offer a bachelor’s degree in industrial automation. It has applications that could clinch jobs for graduates in the high-speed rail field, said Liz Rozell, dean of instruction for engineering and industrial technology, and the industrial automation program.
Beginning this fall, the program will produce a stream of graduates who could go to work as mid-level management, bridging the gap between engineers with advanced degrees and technicians working on the ground, Rozell said.
“Even if high-speed rail doesn't come through, industrial automation is still huge in our area and will meet the needs,” Rozell said. “I don't think there are any qualms there and construction is going up regardless of high-speed rail.”
At the same time, the program could produce graduates who go to work in mid-level management at places such as the heavy maintenance facility Kern County hopes to land, Rozell added. The California High-Speed Rail Authority predicts it will employ 1,500 systems and electrical engineers, technicians and mechanics with four-year technical degrees.
Those skills align with the industrial automation program, Rozell said.
“My prediction would be if the high-speed rail actually comes through Bakersfield and materializes, that will impact our program … it will bring a lot of jobs and change things drastically, but it wasn't the predictor for doing this industrial automation program,” Rozell said.
In fact, Bakersfield College didn't even mention the potential of creating jobs for high-speed rail when pitching the program to state officials.
“High-speed rail is very political,” Rozell said. “That might not have sat very well in Sacramento. It didn't even play into the planning processes, but when we hear about high-speed rail now, we're like 'yeah we'll be providing jobs for that, obviously.'”
©2016 The Bakersfield Californian (Bakersfield, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
