Vestas ramps up to build turbine blades

WINDSOR – With global oil prices hovering at just under $100 per barrel, and the demand for wind-energy systems soaring proportionately, Vestas Wind Systems has begun hiring in advance of opening its Windsor plant in March.

And production workers who enter training programs at the rate of 15 to 20 each week will find themselves in jobs that carry benefits that few American employers can match.

The Danish company that is the world leader in building wind-energy generating systems, having first trained the trainers at sites in Britain and Denmark, has assembled a management team that is gearing up to teach new production workers how to work in teams building the eight-ton, 131-foot-long blades.

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“I’ve been working in human relations in this area for a long time, and these are the best jobs I’ve ever seen,´ said Kevin Cory, Vestas’ manager of People and Culture, a title that illustrates the difference between the Danish company and domestic manufacturers.

“I want to make sure that all the people in this region know about Vestas. If there are people interested in being part of our production group, we want to meet them.”

The benefit package that workers who land the $32,000-per-year jobs at the plant now under construction in Windsor carries health, dental, vision, life insurance, disability and vacation allowances beyond those offered by other employers in the region.

“We really think we should toot our own horn,´ said Windsor plant manger Hans Jesperson, who moved to Windsor last year from Denmark after building a blade factory there to start his seven-year Vestas career. “We think we will be a great employer.”

When workers begin assembling into teams that will move the huge turbine blades through the production process, their jobs will be like few in any manufacturing industry.

The blades are each handmade, beginning with an internal skeleton of balsa wood and carbon fiber that will be coated with epoxy resin and a durable paint finish, all designed to give each a 20-year life span.

“Our production is quite labor-intensive,” Jesperson said. “It’s very hard to see how you could possibly automate this process. It really is people who are making these, not machines.”

Work force already growing

Cory described an evolution of the Windsor plant that will bring 300 employees to work on opening day, with the eventual goal of having 600 workers in Windsor within a few years. The company announced late last year that demand for wind-energy systems would require doubling the size of the 200,000-square-foot Windsor plant, and a 50 percent boost in the work force.

Last fall Vestas began sending key employees to destinations in Europe to acquaint them with the turbine blade manufacturing process. Longmont resident Joe Wintergerst, who had worked previously in the aerospace industry, spent two weeks at a blade factory on the Isle of Wight, off Great Britain’s southern coast, and another three at a blade factory in Lem, Denmark.

“I was just amazed at the size, the scale of the product,” Wintergerst said, recalling his first visit to the British factory. “I was amazed at the craftsmanship, and the technical skill. I had worked in the aircraft and satellite industries, but this just blew it out of the water.”

Northern Colorado employees who traveled to Europe for training received rave reviews from Vestas trainers there for their skills and their adaptability to the company’s team-oriented systems, Cory said.

His task now is to find others like them to staff the process of cranking out the huge blades at the rate of four per day to start, and more as capacity increases.

“For me, I’m looking for people who like to do production work, who like to work in teams, who like to learn something new, and who like to work with their hands,” Cory said.

Cory said Vestas executives would evaluate closely the productivity of the Windsor plant, and the quality of the products built there, with an eye on possible expansions that could lead to even more Vestas jobs in the region. The possibility of building the housings for the gearboxes and generators that the big blades drive remains on the horizon.

“I don’t think there’s a reason to rule that out,” Cory said.