Grand Junction – Bob Bryant had been stocking cottage cheese and skim milk in the dairy case at Safeway for a decade when he heard the siren song of oil and gas.
At the urging of an oil-worker friend, Bryant, 37, switched from being a dairy manager earning $14.21 an hour to a water-truck driver making $19.50. He started working 60 hours a week rather than 40.
His new job means getting up at 4:30 a.m. and commuting nearly 100 miles a day. He drives remote dirt roads in all weather and slogs knee-deep in muck at times. But Bryant has paid off credit- card debts and is looking forward to the day he can buy a new home for his wife and three children.
“I have no regrets whatsoever,” Bryant said.
He is part of an odyssey – a wave of workers leaving other jobs and heading to the oil fields. That migration has spun an ironic twist into the energy boom in northwest Colorado as it had already done in Wyoming and Montana.
Energy work, with annual wages that average more than $50,000, has increased demand for goods and services but left struggling businesses peppered with “Help Wanted” signs. The shortage cuts across the board into fast-food joints, construction projects and classrooms.
“There is such a demand, and it’s getting way worse. It’s desperate,” Mesa County Commissioner Craig Meis said.
How desperate?
“We are trying to hire a mechanic and can’t. In the past, that hasn’t been a problem. And we’ve had several people quit to go be oil-field water haulers,” said Tim Davis, an assistant sales manager at Grand Valley Auto Sales, where “Help Wanted” is posted on the marquee.
Family businesses suffer
Ernesto Gaona had trained his son to work in and someday take over his Colorado Custom Finishing business. But Alfredo, 19, is now working in the oil fields. In a year of work there, he has been able to buy a home and a new pickup. Gaona said he holds no hard feelings – he couldn’t buy a new truck until he had been in the staining business 30 years.
“It’s very, very difficult to find people. I have enough work here now to last through the whole year,” Gaona said.
A tree trimmer has had to turn away jobs after workers went to energy companies. A high school scrambled for help after a Spanish teacher left to haul water to rigs.
Home-building projects have sat idle without framers, dry- wallers and electricians to finish the jobs after drilling companies hired entire crews. One construction company overnights blueprint work to Chile when no one can be hired to do it locally.
In a story repeated often by local officials but not confirmed by Wendy’s management, an energy company new to the area recently went into the Fruita Wendy’s and hired away the counter help on the spot.
“I’ve heard of such things happening,” said third-generation driller Ron Pierson. “When a cleanup crew is needed, they’ll hire anybody walking.”
The energy industry, which is drawing more oil-field-support companies into the area to keep up a groundswell of drilling, has added 1,400 – or 75 percent – of all jobs created in Mesa County last year. Unemployment has dropped to about 3 percent, and less in the energy counties of western Colorado, while it stands at 4 percent statewide.
The Mesa County Workforce Center has 2,500 job openings listed but only 1,000 people in search of jobs. Twenty-five to 30 new job openings are posted each day. At the same time that the oil-and- gas industry creates this demand, fewer migrant workers are available because of more stringent laws pertaining to worker documentation in Colorado.
“If someone doesn’t have a job now, it’s because they don’t want to work,” said Beau Searle, district manager of Calfrac Well Services Corp., a company looking to add 20 employees.
Chuck Thompson, owner of Alpine Tree Service, is trying to add two tree climbers but said it has been tough even though he upped hourly pay for experienced workers from $15 to $20.
“The last two guys I trained and have gotten going have taken off to the oil fields. I’ve ended up doing most of the work myself,” Thompson said.
The Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce recently set up a task force to deal with labor-shortage issues after a member survey showed it is now their top-priority concern.
That task force is looking into using the federal guest-worker program to bring in foreign workers, improve training and create an internship program.
“It cuts across all sectors,” chamber president Diane Schwen ke said.
That includes the energy sector.
A recruiter for a hauling company said she has gone into pool halls looking for able-bodied job candidates and doesn’t hesitate to approach possible workers in checkout lines or at sports events.
“If I’m somewhere and see somebody who might fit, I’ll start talking to them and ask how much they make and all,” said Patty Kelly with Speedy Heavy Hauling, a company that moves drilling rigs between sites.
Speedy had a large “Now Hiring” banner on its booth at an energy expo and job fair in Grand Junction last week.
Buses brought high school students to that event, where they were greeted by energy-company executives handing out key chains, lip gloss, sun visors, candy, career advice and job applications.
Many companies – energy and otherwise – say they also advertise nationally in trade magazines, and they are giving referral bonuses to employees who bring in other workers. The friend who referred Bryant earned $300.
Recruiting from military
Brooke McElley with Pure Energy said the “aggressively growing” company sends representatives to Fort Carson to military career fairs. She said the oil field is a good fit for those leaving the military.
Mark Lamborn, district manager for Cudd Energy Services, said his company has been lucky to be able to attract 100 workers through job fairs and print ads since it opened in Fruita last year. His workers now include two former commercial airline pilots, a 26-year teacher, a master electrician who owned his company and a longtime railroad mechanic.
Some workers are leaving the oil fields, worn out by long hours and tough labor. High demand in the fields of health care, construction and transportation also is luring some back.
“We have too many jobs rather than too few,” said Sue Tuffin, director of the Mesa County Workforce Center. “That’s the better problem to have.”
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
