Duke Energy is taking a different tack on making sure that the applicants they will consider will be well-trained and ready to work when the new power plant in Gaffney opens. While the plant isn’t built yet, the students area already training for those jobs. Echostar did the same thing, screening and training potential applicants before they accepted their resumes. This way, the plant never just sits and waits for the influx of the workers, but is reading to go into operation as soon as it is built.
The new nuclear protection lab is a mock-up of an auxiliary room where the technicians learn how to monitor the air, walls and floor for radiation. Everything is marked just as it would be in a real situation, but there is no radiation. Instructor Sandra Bayer explains a procedure to student Ashley Morrisey, who is wearing her clean suit coveralls and hard hat.
Instructors have radio controlled devices to simulate the readings on students’ equipment. Students check air quality with a machine that filters particulates, ions and even tritium from the air through a series of filters and . They take samples of dirt from the floor, and they have long poles to learn how to monitor pipes in the upper levels as well as learning to move in small 
spaces. A small computer lab adjoins the power plant lab for lecture and hands-on classroom space.
The larger classroom is divided into several sections with piping and partitions to help simulate the confined spaces where the technicians will be working when they graduate. In addition, there is a personal walk-through scanner to check students for radioactivity, and an equipment scanner that allows pass-through from the container to outside teh lab area. Providing a safe training environment for learning best practice proceedures keeps students safe now and later when they are employed as technicians because they learn by doing.
This educational partnership benefits the community as well as both institutions. Duke Energy provides technical instructors trained in the INPO accredited system. SCC provides the classroom space, equipped by Duke Energy, and general education instruction to complete the associates degree with classes that will transfer to a four-year college if students wish to continue their education. It’s the kind of partnership that SCC hopes to maintain and create with other businesses in our service area.
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