STEAG to build training workshop in Herne

Herne. Dr. Frank Dudda, Mayor of Herne, and STEAG Industrial Relations Director Alfred Geißler kick off construction of the new training workshop with a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony.

The energy company STEAG has begun construction of a new training workshop situated in Herne’s Forellstraße. Dr. Frank Dudda, Mayor of Herne, and STEAG GmbH Industrial Relations Director Alfred Geißler today broke the ground in a symbolic act marking the commencement of the building work. Over an area of 900 square meters, new premises for STEAG’s industrial trainees are to be developed here between now and the summer of 2020. The facilities are to include a new building for the changing rooms, showers, washrooms, communal rooms and meeting rooms, as well as an existing vehicle hangar which will accommodate the workshop itself. The training workshop will enable supervision of up to 16 trainees at one and the same time in the four years of their training. As well as workbenches, upright drilling machines, lathes and milling machines, the workshop provides a modern training environment for programmable logic controllers.

“I am delighted that the training workshop here in our town will mark the birth of a new location enabling large numbers of trainees from Herne and the surrounding area to shape their future. Offering young people good prospects is what the Jobs Alliance in Herne is all about – especially with regard to dual training”, Mayor Frank Dudda emphasizes.

“Today’s trainees are tomorrow’s specialists. We have to train them well now, so that we have the necessary skills in the company later on. In many sectors, for example electrical and service engineering, we need specialized people who are hard to find on the job market. That’s why STEAG attaches such great importance to the quality of the training”, Alfred Geißler explains. The Industrial Relations Director points out that STEAG will henceforth be providing needs-based training, giving the qualified trainees the opportunity to be employed on a permanent basis. Torsten Koch, Head of Training at the STEAG subsidiary STEAG Technischer Service (STS), explains: “As of the coming year, Herne will become the central training location for our industrial and technical professions. We will be bundling expertise and equipment here in keeping with our future-oriented training concept.” The choice of location is based on the need for specialized staff shifting from power plants to business with all technical services relating to power generation. The STEAG subsidiary STS, which provides maintenance services for its clients in the energy sector, local authorities and industry, will hence be taking charge of the industrial and technical training within the STEAG Group.

STEAG is currently training young people as electronics technicians for industrial engineering and as industrial mechanics, and at present employs a total of 58 industrial and technical trainees. Before being deployed in the divisions, they spend 18 months at the company workshop. Training currently still takes place in the training facilities in Duisburg-Walsum and, up to summer 2020, at the Lünen power plant which has now been shut down. The end of 2019 will bring a change of ownership for this site.
 

Credit: Groundbreaking ceremony in Herne: Philip Leon Gerding, Trainee, Torsten Koch, training manager STEAG Technischer Service, Lord Major Dr. Frank Dudda, City of Herne, Alfred Geißler, STEAG labour director und Christoph Pietruszk, Trainee