GBC will offer new Instrumentation course during the fall semester

Come August, Great Basin College (GBC) will kick off a new program at the Winnemucca campus, helping students to earn their certifications in Instrumentation Technology. 

Instrumentation often goes hand-in-hand with electrical work and involves the technology of creating, reading and operating control devices and systems that measure pressure, level of flow (whether it’s air or water) or speed of a motor, according to Instrumentation Instructor Dakota Woolever. 

Currently, Woolever is building the curriculum for the program and ordering parts for the state of the art lab that students will do most of their learning in. 

“[If students already] come from an electrical background, they can expect to expand on that, so we’re taking what you learned in the electrical world and then applying it from a process control standpoint—a little bit more real world applications—and then, a lot of it’s going to be lab driven.”

Instrumentation is incredibly versatile. Possible career paths include technician positions in: mining, water treatment, pharmaceuticals, elevators, food processing, power generation, manufacturing, process control systems, process automation, and so many more. 

“We put an emphasis on more of an industrial side of things. So primarily, [students are] going to find instrumentation in heavy industry like mining or power plants. If they’re trying to branch out from the residential world, and they want to break into mining perhaps, getting this certificate will help them expand their horizons in that direction,” said Woolever. 

Woolever also explained that the recommended course sequence and prerequisites will set students up for managerial, forward thinking positions and the hybrid nature (electrical and instrumentation) will give them an advantage when applying to jobs anywhere. The instrumentation course can also be completed in just one regular school year (August-May). 

“If you really have an interest in tech—like technology— this is definitely a course that someone like that should be looking into because it’s an ever changing field. So if you’d like to learn and keep learning, it’s always going to be something different down the road,” he said.  

With over a decade of experience as an electrical and instrumentation technician, Woolever’s  work in the Career and Technical Education department at GBC stems from his own participation in GBC’s electrical courses in the early 2000s. He expressed excitement to help students learn more about Instrumentation like he did. 

“What I’ve found is that going back to fundamentals makes you a better technician and makes you relearn…I’m excited just to be able to expand my own knowledge in that field, but also, the best thing is seeing something click for somebody—that they learned something.”