Launching Veteran Careers: Tower Training Academy

Nick Martocci, founder of Tower Training Academy and former Marine, joins the podcast to discuss his program that provides comprehensive wind turbine technician training with career development support and job placement assistance. With an accredited apprenticeship program approved by the Department of Labor, Tower Training Academy is well-positioned to help meet the growing demand for skilled technicians in the wind energy industry. Visit https://towertrainingacademy.com/ for more info! Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Pardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen Hall: Welcome to the special edition of the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall, and I'm here with the Chief Commercial Officer at Weather Guard, Joel Saxum. We're in San Diego at ACP OM&S. We have a special guest, Nick Martocci of Tower Training Academy. Nick is a former Marine and he has a training facility in Las Vegas, Nevada. Which Joel and I didn't know about, and we just met you on the floor. And this sounds tremendous, because we've been trying to do more outreach to potential technicians, and give them outlets of where to go to become a technician, because every operator in the United States needs people, and they need educated people that are ready to go to work, and we're just trying to elevate. All these training facilities yours being one of them. So Nick, welcome to the podcast. Nick Martocci: Thanks for having me. Yep I know there's probably some other Marines in there Just wanted to make sure to make the correction once a Marine always a Marine. So He's a former or prior Marine. I started out in the Marine Corps and then I finished up my career in the Army National Guard as a CH 47 pilot and then as I was making that transition out of the military like a lot of veterans do, I Yeah. Was playing, Hey, what do I want to be when I grow up? A situation. Yeah. And so I tried a lot of different things. One of the things we naturally gravitate to is obviously security and Sure. Things of that nature. And when I found out, that's just not where I wanted to be I sprawled out and said, Hey, let me find something else. And when I eventually found the wind industry, I absolutely just fell in love. Fell in love with the opportunities, the welcoming and familiarity, if you will, of the military as it is. And I just absolutely fell in love. And so that's why, later on, after I did a lot of different things in the field blade repair, torque contention operations, things of that nature eventually became an instructor and built my own program for GWO, because I knew What individuals were really needing from the certification side, especially having been out in the field and then knowing what the technicians really need to be ready for. Seeing those gaps. Absolutely. And that's why for Tower Training Academy, our motto is not just ready for today, but we're prepared for tomorrow. And so I want to make sure when I built my program, that technicians that are going to be coming out of the field and out of my, or into the field out of my program, Would be ready for today and prepared for everything tomorrow because there's a lot of booming changes that are going to be going on in the wind industry. One of the comparisons I make with the wind turbine industry is very similar to the computer industry. When you buy a laptop, a few days later, it's out of date, because the technology is constantly changing.