Recuiting underway on Long Island as work on offshore wind farm begins

BRENTWOOD, N.Y. -- The nation's first large offshore wind farms are being built off of New York.

It's a fast-growing industry looking to hire thousands of people.

CBS2's Carolyn Gusoff went to a forum on Long Island that is matching local companies and job seekers with opportunities.

New York is leading the nation in offshore wind projects planned, and here come the jobs.

The first of 10,000 were previewed Tuesday at a Brentwood forum for local companies and a future workforce.

Training is available through unions, Suffolk Community College and United Way.

"A whole bunch of new technology that I never even heard of before, so I just started falling in love with it," job seekers Justin Adames-Reyes said.

"The opportunities are endless. I mean, really, they're young people, and renewable energy is the future," said Jenette Adams, with United Way's YouthBuild program.

An army of people is needed to build Sunrise Wind, New York's second windfarm, 30 miles off of Montauk, dwarfing South Fork wind farm, which will be operational later this year.

• Read more: New York to launch South Fork off of Long Island, first major offshore wind farm in U.S., this year

Some components are being built in Rhode Island, but off- and on-shore work to snake the cable to the electric grid is coming to Long Island.

"We have green energy, and now we are creating a whole new industry of employment," said Peter Rooney, vice president of construction for Eversource Energy. "From electricians, laborers, carpenters, equipment operators, traffic management, safety expertise, engineers, construction managers -- the entire gamut of the construction industry."

"Offshore wind technicians, so the ones that are actually going to do the maintenance activities. We have vessel crews, we have protective species observers," said Ryan Chaytors, program development director for Orsted.

Melville-based Haugland Group is looking for 400 union workers to trench the cable.

"Somebody that's just graduating high school, maybe went through the BOCES program, has a skill, doesn't necessarily want to go down the college path, we want you," said Haugland Group CEO Billy Haugland.

Recruiting is underway now. Sunrise Wind breaks ground around Labor Day, producing energy for 600,000 homes by 2025.