About Us

Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center

About Us

The Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center focus is on providing training opportunities for Alaskans to enter into registered construction apprenticeship programs for careers in the oil and gas, and construction industries. The Center offers training programs structured to meet market demands in all sectors of the Alaska’s oil and gas industry, including the construction, operation and maintenance of mainline pipelines, gathering lines, pump stations, flow stations, gatherings stations, compressor stations, and the construction and operation of oil and gas facilities.

The Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center Trust is a labor-management trust organized exclusively for educational purposes under Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We are recognized as a Regional Training Center by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

FPTC Brochure

Our Mission

Provide Alaska a modern training facility and field site for delivering courses and demonstrating skills associated with building and maintaining oil, gas and pipeline infrastructure.
Train new and current workers through industry-based courses for pipeline trades and occupations.
Provide a central location for industry certificate training to meet worker environmental, occupational safety and health, equipment operation and product application requirements.
Provide training space for educators to provide instruction to students following career paths associated with work in the oil, gas and pipeline industry.
Work with industry employers, trade unions, apprenticeship programs, native organizations, state and local government and vendors to meet pipeline training demands.
Outreach and recruitment of Alaskans into certified training and apprenticeship programs, with emphasis on the recruitment and training of rural Alaskans.

History

In the mid to late 1990’s, as North Slope producers were developing new satellite oil fields such as North Star and Alpine, it became clear to pipeline companies and labor in Alaska that unless they mobilized training efforts, they were facing a labor shortage.

The North Slope Contractors Association, led by Mr. Scott Eliason, then President of Houston Contractors and the four pipeline trades developed joint pipeline training exercises in Fairbanks, Alaska to prepare Alaska pipeline workers for work being planned at Prudhoe Bay and other adjacent oilfields. Those initial private sector efforts by pipeline companies in Alaska and organized labor eventually led to a public private effort to build the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center.

In late 2003, the late Senior Senator Ted Stevens and Senator Lisa Murkowski included language in the Alaska Pipeline Act to assist with the “design and construction of a pipeline training center in Fairbanks, Alaska”. With support from Labor and Industry, the Fairbanks Interior Delegation, the Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor’s Office and Assembly, the Alaska Legislature and support from Governors Knowles, Murkowski, Palin and Parnell, the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center has become an important regional training center for Interior Alaska.