It Takes More Than Sidney Crosby to Have a Hockey Night in Pittsburgh

The Mentorship Academy, an initiative of CNX Foundation, held its first combined male-female site visit at the PPG Paints Arena this past weekend. Our hosts were Kat, Gary, and Nick from the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins, ASM Global (arena operator) and Aramark (concessions manager). All three leaders and their organizations were amazing, especially considering the Academy visit was held on a busy weekend game night.

The students were provided a behind-the-scenes tour of the state-of-the-art PPG Paints Arena amidst a coordinated army of dedicated employees buzzing across the facility preparing for the 7 p.m. puck drop. It was a surreal experience to start the event in mid-afternoon with an empty, quiet arena and to watch it transform in a few short hours into a packed, noisy venue with 18,000 people in attendance.

Keeping those 18,000 spectators safe, comfortable, hydrated, fed, happy, and entertained through a three-hour hockey game is an epic task requiring the focus and dedication of hundreds of skilled and varied workers.

ASM employs a team of carpenters, riggers, engineers, security personnel, and affiliated staff to maintain and efficiently run the arena. Aramark depends on an army of skilled chefs, kitchen staff, cashiers, and wait staff to provide food and beverage services ranging from concessions to formal dining rooms. Both entities provide employees opportunities for growth within the ranks of the venue team as well as opportunity for advancement through transfer to venues in other cities across the country that ASM and Aramark operate or serve.

There was one overriding trait that Kat, Gary, and Nick emphasized as being key to a successful career in sports and entertainment or venue management: a passion for customer service. If a motivated young adult catches that bug, a career path in this industry has a very high ceiling.

In addition to this being the Academy’s first combined male-female visit, our visit to PPG Paints Arena was also the first time all Academy mentors gathered in one spot at the same time. I’ve said it before: the mentors are the second-most critical piece of the CNX Mentorship Academy effort, second only to the students. Watching the mentors in action that Saturday evening made me more convinced of that than ever.

November is a huge month for the CNX Mentorship Academy. We have scheduled visits to the Shell petrochemical facility (aka, the cracker) in Monaca, Pa., and the Beaver County Community College training facility. Both locations will open eyes to the scale and scope of one of the least understood major industries in western Pennsylvania: petrochemical manufacturing. Stay tuned for a report.

In the meantime, if you are interested in being a mentor in the CNX Mentorship Academy, if your business or organization would like to host a future site visit, or if you want to nominate a high school junior for the CNX Mentorship Academy’s next class in 2022-2023, please contact us at communityrelations@cnx.com.

The Mentorship Academy is an initiative of CNX Foundation and part of CNX’s commitment to investing in its local community. Designed for high school students who do not plan to immediately attend a four-year college, the Academy is focused on providing urban and rural youth from economically disadvantaged regional Appalachian communities with greater opportunities—helping provide these young adults a bridge to family-sustaining careers. Following the mentorship program, students will have developed new relationships with peers and business leaders across western Pennsylvania, a new excitement for the region’s career opportunities and an understanding of how to pursue those careers.

Bloomberg Profiles Nick Deiuliis

In a recent news story, Bloomberg reporter Gerson Freitas, Jr., highlighted Nick Deiuliis’ career, his advocacy for the natural gas industry, and CNX Resources latest corporate responsibility report.

Freitas writes:

“DeIuliis’s rise at CNX coincided with the advance of fracking — the process that revolutionized the U.S. energy industry by making it possible to extract oil and gas from shale rocks — and Consol’s move into natural gas. The shale revolution had a major impact on Pennsylvania, where gas output soared to about 7 trillion cubic feet last year — 35 times the amount produced in 2008. The state now produces almost 20% of U.S. gas output, second only to Texas. The industry accounts for about 245,000 direct and indirect jobs in the state, according to a July study by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“The gas industry ‘basically returned the middle class, the family-sustaining wages, the economic growth engines’ for Appalachia, DeIuliis said.

“While climate scientists warn of global warming’s world-destroying potential, DeIuliis says the Appalachian gas industry is facing an existential threat of its own — from the energy transition. He notes that the fuel has come under attack from environmental groups because of its impact on climate change, and in recent years, pipeline projects aimed at moving gas from Pennsylvania to markets such as New Jersey and New York have been killed because of such concerns, limiting the ability of CNX and other shale explorers to boost output. Unleashing the region’s full production potential could help boost living standards in poor, energy-scarce countries, he added…

“DeIuliis argues that underinvestment in natural gas will put the U.S. at risk of a similar energy crunch, boosting the risk of power outages.

“‘It’s inevitable that New York or Boston is going to face an energy crisis, if winter gets cold and if supply and demand is imbalanced in part because of these types of policies,’ he said.”

Click here for the full article.

Nick Discusses Global and U.S. Energy Demand with CNBC

Nick joined CNBC on Friday, Oct. 29, to discuss global energy demand and resulting price increases. “It’s supply and demand with a new twist,” says Nick. He points to deferred and deterred investment in pipeline infrastructure as a major factor in gas supply not being able to meet demand.

Building Trades on a Roll: Female Academy Class Visits the Carpenters

The Mentorship Academy’s female class held its first career site visit this past week, and our hosts, Local 432 of the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, did not disappoint! Students’ heads were spinning after hearing about and seeing what the carpenters trade has to offer.

Carpenters lead presenters Alex and Rich walked the class through all the varied careers that membership in the Carpenters would offer: commercial carpentry, residential carpentry, heavy highway, pile driving, floor laying, cabinet making, and more. After questions, our class split into groups to tour the impressive and state-of-the-art carpenter training center off the Parkway West. The facility buzzed with activity all morning as the next generation of our region’s carpenters were refining their skills at different stations.

Guest speaker Jillian gave a powerful, personal talk to the class; explaining how she decided to join the Carpenters, what it’s like to be a woman in the craft, and how her profession allowed her to live her life as she desired. She shared a great video titled “Sisters in the Brotherhood” that everyone should watch (check it out here).

The class discussed the difference between a job and a career/profession, and how the latter sets the individual up for great wages, differentiated skills that are mobile and in demand, and a sense of pride in performing their skill daily.

We also reviewed how to evaluate different career options when it comes to wages, health care, pensions, 401ks, and profit sharing. Lots of new, technical terms were thrown out there and minds were swimming. However, over the course of the next few months these terms will become second nature to the students, and that knowledge will provide them a leg-up to stand out from the crowd when opportunity knocks.

Another great day for the Mentorship Academy. Now that we wrapped our first site visits for each class, we are going to make a few improvements and make the next visits even better (one of the most important: mandating pizza for lunch for all site visits from here on out!). Stay tuned for a report from our next experience. Till then…best.

Trades Showcase Rewarding Careers to Academy Students

The Mentorship Academy’s male class held its first career site visits this past week. Pittsburgh’s Steamfitters Local 449 and Iron Workers Local 3 were exceptional hosts for the day’s two sessions. Thanks to these hosts, our young adults enjoyed eye-opening experiences that will impact how they think about their career paths.

At the morning session, Tom and Mike from the Steamfitters spoke to the class about the different variations of career paths working in this wide-ranging building trade. Steamfitters do everything from welding and threading pipe to HVAC and power plant turbine installations. If it involves heating or cooling, a steamfitter is a go-to skill required to get the job built or maintained.

Students asked Tom and Mike a range of questions about pay, the training required to become certified, how jobs are scheduled, and the impressive suite of benefits that include healthcare, pension, and 401k. The class next went to the state-of-the-art training floor Local 441 built in Harmony, Pa., to do some hands-on welding under the supervision of Mike and team.

Following their introduction to welding, the class heard from Paul and Rick of Iron Workers Local 3 during a quick lunch in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. Anytime you see a construction crane, structural steel being erected, or the long cables of steel rebar being set for a big concrete pour, rest assured the iron workers are getting it done. If I had to describe the culture of Iron Workers Local 3 in one word, it would be ‘proud.’

Similar to the morning session, Paul and Rick fielded a flurry of questions from the class regarding a career in iron working. The class was escorted through different instructional stations where they learned about rigging, cranes, tying rebar, and scaling steel beams (we even had a student who made it to the top of the steel beam at the training station and rang the bell).

The day concluded with a pair of talks by Taili and Eric, special Academy guest speakers. Taili spoke about his life journey: from a basketball star and student leader at Pittsburgh’s Perry High, to incarcerated in federal prison for years, to a returning citizen living a productive and fulfilling life. His message hit home to the class: think carefully about what you choose as your identity/association in life and when circumstances change, make sure you refine that identity/association in positive ways. Listening to Taili had me thinking about ways to get his impactful message broadcast far beyond the Mentorship Academy classes.

We wrapped the day with an exercise by Eric where the students thought about the core attributes they want people in their lives to associate with them. And how those attributes could craft a life mission. Food for thought that will hopefully stay with the young adults through the year and beyond.

Key takeaways from this long but productive day: careers that pay family-sustaining wages get young adults’ attention and hand-on experiences (welding, scaling beams, tying rebar) excite. Dynamic site visits, such as today’s, are what the Mentorship Academy is all about. We look forward to continuing to showcase rewarding careers and exciting students for their bright future.