Good morning. Welcome to the Driller Newscast, a weekly update on the news and stories impacting the drilling, the construction, and the geothermal industry. I'm your host, Brock Yordy, and we've just wrapped up the pilot training tutorial at HEET in downtown Boston.  

We graduated seven amazing new individuals, the geothermal industry, and we couldn't have done this without HEET. In collaboration with IGSHPA, the Geothermal Drillers Association and the drillers who contributed from Skillings to Midwest, Geothermal, RotoTec, Matrix Tooling Products popped up in there. Thermax Geothermal, Robert Meyer, Dave Bowers with the Local 150 Operators Union in Wilmington, Illinois. Operators Union of Chicago, Garrett Carino with American Drilling in New York. It's been an amazing 10 days and we're exhausted. And our feature this week will be with Angie and Stacy to talk about their experiences of this. But before we jump into that feature, let's talk some safety and professionalism for the industry.

Safety – Brewing and Drilling: how do they connect? 

So I want to shift gears this week, safety and professionalism. And as we're developing new professionals for this industry, it's about our professional presence and our ability to: 

1. See the opportunities in front of us. 
2. Execute them safely. 

Skillings and Sons well drilling, geothermal drilling — they were world-class. I can't thank them enough for inviting us to sites across Massachusetts where they were drilling, working together, grouting, and doing the processes — smart, safe, and methodical. It can also show in the growth of that company and its professionalism. Well done!  

With those thoughts, I want you to consider as we build these centers of excellence and we start graduating new industry professionals, we have this situation just like the brewing industry did. Where you had self-taught tribal brewers, and suddenly community colleges and technical colleges across the country started developing scientifically fundamental brewers. And, of course, without water, without drilling, you don't have beer. So that's why I think there's a great correlation, but we have plenty of drillers out there who understand the science of fundamentals and the math. And then we also have our tribalism and experiences is what we've gotten out of this industry and how we develop.  

That moves right into safety, where one out of three professionals onsite feels unsafe to act. I see posts still asking about Murphy plugs. There's hands-free rod handling. I see billion dollar companies telling new hires that, “Nope, you're going to be handling drill rods”. And the new hires going, “Wait, what? Those rods, Brock just did the math with me. They're 291 pounds per rod!” 

That leads into professionalism, standard operating procedures, a safety policy that is strong and robust, that understands about work alone policies and how we effectively execute, how we report near misses. How do we have full amnesty to make sure professionals continue to grow or if they feel unsafe? So right now, Massachusetts, the New England states, New York, Illinois, they're all moving towards developing drillers, developing Field Technicians, developing Assistant Drillers. And this pilot training that we just did was to develop Field Technicians, Geothermal Field Technicians to understand the roles and responsibilities and their tasks to support an Assistant Driller and a Driller. 

We didn't call them a grouter, we didn't call them a helper, we didn't call them a pusher or whatever the industry tribalism is trying to force down their throat. We call them Field Technicians so that there is a milestone for them to level up because every bit of this new generation are gamers. Every bit of this new generation understands milestones and everything. So we start as Field Technicians, we give them the playbook in our standard operating procedures: 

• how we lay out a job site.
• how we effectively manage tools.
• how we support an Assistant Driller in tripping in and tripping out tool handling, makeup breakout, the right components.
• And then ultimately with that, the goal is whole completion.  

You talk to these seven students, you ask them what their goals are for the day and they say: 

“Operate safely and work towards whole completion and job completion.”  

So we obviously can always have a war on knowledge or book-learn versus tribal-learned, but we should be able to see the middle ground of setting professionals up to be able to step on a job site, recognize hazards, unsafe acts, unsafe conditions, and then be able to do the tasks at hand. If your company doesn't have standard operating procedures and doesn't have a safety handbook, how do you effectively hire a new generation? And what does that cost you when they get hurt or they leave to do something else? Professionalism and safety work hand in hand, and that's what we have to be considering. 

Feature Interview - Angie and Stacy of HEET

Our feature this week is with Angie and Stacy of HEET along with multiple other members of the HEET team. These two were integral parts of developing the relationships and the opportunities and the possibilities to be onsite, to operate safely. To build all that we needed to have a successful 10 day intensive. I can't thank them enough, and I can't thank Andrew enough, and the entire HEET team, including Zeyneb, who is doing so much in the state of Massachusetts, new England, and across the globe.  

And so as I think about these things, we set students up to be positive, effective professionals. We talked about career choices. We talked about the choice to make an unsafe act, understanding how to recognize an unsafe condition. We did the math for borehole on multiple different grout combinations. We talked about the importance of water quality. We talked about the importance of why we keep a site clean and the importance of environmentalism and everything it takes to effectively to mitigate noise, to identifying when it's too hot or what is happening with the neighbor. 

So we will continue to talk about this, and this pilot program will continue to develop more professionals looking to jump in. These young men and women are ready to be hired. And I think you're going to see this with the enthusiasm. We have plenty of social media pieces coming out, commentaries, everything that we want to think about. But when it comes to the geothermal industry right now, I said this in our safety part. Standard operating procedures, understanding how we define roles and responsibilities and tasks and setting jobs up to be effective and productive.  

I want to introduce you to Angie and Stacy right. We have just had this wild two weeks, but really it has been months in the making at HEET along with collaboration of IGSHPA and the Geothermal Drillers Association. If you haven't met or went to the HEET website, go there!  

We talked last week with Angie who talked about HEET being spunky and all of these great aspects of what HEET 's doing. But I have Stacy with me who I'll allow a moment to introduce herself. But as we go spunky to the left of me, we have 100% executioner on the right who has helped us put together a pilot training program on the fly that we had curriculum. But let's face the drilling industry. Drills, move drills don't get mobilized, cell phones aren't allowed on drill sites. There's all sorts of aspects that need to be considered. And so we've brought seven people together and we just graduated them today. And you'll see this next Monday and we will be back to our professional careers on so many levels. But it's been a whirlwind and we're all in this high right now. And so I'm going to pass it over to Stacy to introduce herself and your experience with this.

Stacy Kinnaly 

Hi, Stacy Kinnaly, on the HEET team. I actually joined initially with grants and fundraising and ended up transitioning to project management and really moving forward important programs. I got involved in workforce development; I have been collaborating with, like we said, IGSHPA and GDA (Geothermal Drillers Association) and many other industry groups to hopefully, down the road, form a center of excellence around geothermal drilling that this pilot was an initial kickoff for. Thrilled to be part of this!   

The students were incredible. We spent some wonderful time really trying to find the right group that would be interested and did a terrific job. I think it has been a whirlwind. We have been in the classroom a fair amount out on site, a ton to really reinforce what we've learned in the classroom. Tons of high energy and lots of laughing. So the combination of true engagement in the technology and also true engagement around getting to know each other. That combination is really nice. So anyway, that's a little bit about me and we'll go from there.

Brock Yordy

Angie. We brought seven professionals together and you had a big piece to do with that. How do you think this wrapped up?

Angie Alberto Escobar 

Yeah, I saw every single one of those fine young men and women beaming at the end of this. We each shared a single word when we went around the table after certificates and graduation ceremonies were had. And I can just say that every single one of the comments that were made were around being empowered, being proud of themselves, being inspired and motivated. To have that impact on somebody's life is so meaningful and we are excited to stay connected with them, to support them through their journey and their career, hopefully in geothermal drilling. That's really the path that we've set out for them. So really hope that they take that up.

Brock Yordy 

So from a grant writing, you have a fantastic career of all of these great things you've brought to the HEET team along with everybody at HEET having these different perspectives. But how about trying to build a training around active drill sites and like that? How was that?

Stacy Kinnaly 

Well, it certainly would've been easier if we had the equipment and a site that we just knew we could go to each day to learn, not just in a classroom but there on site. So we had to put it together ad hoc, leveraging the wonderful volunteerism of some of the drill companies that were local. So yeah, a lot of moving parts. Actually we had probably five or six different plans that in some way morphed or got rescheduled or that kind of thing. Even the day of sometimes we'd find out that something changed and to your point, you never know what's going to be under the subsurface that changes the plan or where a drill company may be. So it did as planned as we tried to be. It did feel a bit on the fly because of these changes, but I think we succeeded, and that is really a credit to Brock and his relationship with and kindness in terms of meeting the people on the sites when we get there. I also think it's just super generous of the companies that took us on to be generous and have a view towards the future and understand the value of this kind of training. In fact, I think there wasn't a place we visited that someone didn't sort of on the side say to me, “I really wish this had existed when I got started.” So that was super-validating.

Brock Yordy 

Angie, we talk about my relationships, but you as director of Gas-to-Geo have developed relationships with drilling companies. Are there any shout-outs or things that come to mind as you reached out and said, can we visit the site?

Angie Alberto Escobar 

Yeah, absolutely. To Stacy's point, a lot of options were out there when it came to the rubber really hitting the road. I just want to give a massive shout out to Skillings and Co. I would not endorse a single company, that is not really HEET style, but Skillings really did a lot for this particular program. The first, the pilot, driller training tutorial. So I just have to thank them. 

We were out on their site for three days and they were engaging with the students. The other students got to interact with some of the equipment on site. Some of the, well, maybe I shouldn't say that, not the equipment, not the drill rig, but they got to see what a grouted hole looks like, what the loop looks like, what materials made, how pliable it is, things like that is what they got to interact with. And I just got to say that the students were beaming — not just because they got to interact with certain elements on site, but because of the reception of the drillers on site. Their willingness to come up and share some of their knowledge, some of the tribal knowledge as Brock calls it, which is actually super, super valuable. And I think I said in the call to action last episode, please, please share your knowledge. But that's what they were privy to, not just by being on site, but by having a collaborative energy on site.

Brock Yordy 

So last words, as we're running out of time here at the CIC, I'm going to hand back over to Stacy in this feature because of writing grants. Now you got into the field and you got to see some things and you got to interact with drillers and students. Was there any aha moments or anything that was like, oh, this is this part.

Stacy Kinnaly 

I mean, gosh, there a ton. There were so many that I probably didn't know how to articulate or narrow them down. Literally seeing the rigs themselves in action. At one point, we talked about this. The students were all gathered around, and one of the drillers was both informing and, I think well, creating laughter. And to me, and I mentioned this a minute ago, but to me that's this aha, that the industry does seem to be older and we need fresh interest and ambition and the building of careers. And so to see that combination of the new and the older and wanting to help each other and everybody combined in their vision for or the future of geothermal drilling — super-inspiring.

Brock Yordy 

I love it! I cannot thank these two enough along with Andrew and the entire HEET team. I don't want to miss anybody but Andrew again, including bringing donuts on his bike today to the Boston University Jenga building. But this was awesome. And it's just the first one! As the photos and videos start coming out, industry pay attention. Because we're going to continue this and next time you should be contributing with us! 

Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Stacy. Thank you, Angie. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Isabel. Zeyneb, Rachel, and the entire team! Eric who came out and showed us the integrator and how we can measure loops. Eric Bosworth with Eversource came out and showed us the control rooms. We walked the BU building that has 1500-foot Rygan loops set in at 31 of them that Skillings kicked butt doing. 

We are on the edge of the biggest geothermal revolution ever, and it will take all of us. So I want you to think right now as a drilling company, are you diversifying in geothermal? I want you to think as HVAC company, are you? Why not? Why not find a standard partnership? If you're not drilling geothermal along with water wells, you're missing out on an opportunity. 

Thanks again to HEET, IGSHPA, Geothermal Drillers Association, Eversource, American Well & Pump, The Local 150, Midwest Geothermal, RotoTec, Skillings and Sons. Thank you! Brightcore HR came in and gave a discussion about expectations on a job. Saw a lot go on, and a lot of great other professionals want to be involved in the next one. And I can't wait to have you. Thanks, everybody!