Tehachapi News

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Tehachapi’s California Wind Energy Museum and Resource Center has moved closer to becoming a reality with the naming of Jay Prisco as executive director and selection of a site on J Street for the facility.
The projected opening date is little more than two months away.
“We are shooting for August 15,” said Rex Moen, chairman of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council steering committee that has been meeting every Monday for a year to organize the project.
The facility, which also will be known as the Wind Museum, will include museum exhibits of electric-generating wind turbines, educational resource material and college classes on wind energy and turbines.
Moen called the three functions of the museum a “synergism.”
As a resource center, Moen said, the Wind Museum will provide field trips for students and a meeting place for people in the wind energy business.
“There will be physical displays and pictures and actual equipment,” Moen said. “We are bringing in a cutaway turbine. The museum will be a destination of outdated turbines from other areas.”
The college classes may be presented by Cerro Coso Community College, the main campus of which is in Ridgecrest.
“We are in the process of negotiating with Cerro Coso College to form a partnership,” Moen said. “It looks very promising. It’s going to be a great partnership.”
Prisco, owner of The Art Dept., Ink., of Tehachapi and Dublin, California, who was named executive director June 4, said the museum steering committee made a presentation to Cerro Coso officials a month ago and “They liked what they saw.” The college delegates were scheduled to tour the proposed facility site on June 11.
Joann Handeland, Cerro Coso director of information for development and alumni relations, said the college is waiting to confirm a Tehachapi location before officially offering the class.
“At this time there is no identified space to teach the courses. The ‘Introduction to Wind Technology’ course we have scheduled for Fall 2008 is on the Indian Wells Valley campus in Ridgecrest. We hope to add a class in Tehachapi once we have the facility nailed down.”
The museum is a 4,000-square-foot empty building at 430 J Street. Formerly the home of Henry’s Home for Less, it is owned by John Rambouts.
Moen said that local wind energy companies, including Oak Creek, Clipper Wind and General Electric, have been “very proactive in supporting the museum.”
Airstreams LLC, a local wind turbine technical consulting and training company also is involved with the museum and currently provides instruction for the Tehachapi High School wind turbine technician class offered through the Kern County Regional Occupational Program (ROP). Mike Messier, vice president of Airstreams Training Services, teaches the ROP program at the company’s West J Street office.
The ROP and the college courses are different levels of instruction, said Airstreams Vice President Jeff Duff.
“We wrote the curriculum the Cerro Coso is using,” Duff said. “We’ll be out there teaching their instructors.”
The two-year college course leads to a degree that will provide technicians for the growing wind industry.
Lori Andreasen, Tehachapi High School career technician, said she has a sizeable waiting list for the ROP wind turbine technician class, which was renewed after being dormant for a number of years.
 “It’s really popular,” Andreasen said. “Adults can take the ROP courses. Students have to be 16 to take ROP.”
According to the museum steering committee, Tehachapi is a good location for the facility because it is the largest of California’s wind resource areas, it is centrally located, it has strong public support and is the center of a growing infrastructure.
The other wind resource areas are Altamont Pass, San Gorgonio Pass and Solano County.
In terms of economic development, the museum will encourage tourism, inform communities about renewable energy option and provide education to both students and teachers.
In addition to providing job training and placement, the museum will feature a wind lab for research, the steering committee said.