Gas Drilling and Jobs

Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling is in the news every day. The Marcellus Shale runs through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and parts of Ohio and Maryland. The latest rants in the press have been about out of towners taking "our" jobs since many of the oil field workers come from TX and OK. Should we fault an out of work oil worker for coming to where the jobs are? Should we expect the drilling rig owners to turn over a $3M piece of equipment to someone who doesn't have the training or skill to operate it. On any given drill site there are about 150 different people who have been involved. From the gas company geologist, to the landman and attorney who negotiated the lease to the site preparation crews cutting trees and laying in roads and the truckers who haul in the heavy equipment, the stone for the road, the office trailers, port-a-potties, drill pipe, lights and generators and finally the drilling rig. Then there are the roustabouts, the laborers that set it all up. Once they are ready to drill there is a steady stream of people coming and going. There are the crews that build the water pit for the eventual fracking. There is the mud guy who delivers and mixes the drilling mud. Crews line the site with 24 mil plastic sheeting so any spill does not leak into the environment. There are bolting crews who build and test the BOP stack (Blow Out Preventer), valves delivered and set up to contain the drilling and eventually the gas. Finally the drillers start drilling.
About half of the jobs require little training or experience. Many of the downstream contractors hire and train their own people for the specialized work that they do. There are companies that build and repair valves and other pressure control equipment. Companies that specialize in hauling all manner of equipment and supplies, fuel companies who fuel all these trucks. Even bulldozer driver who pull many of these trucks onto the site. Then there are the cement crews who cement in the casing before fracking and all the fracking crews.
All in all there are hundreds of jobs and most of the people I talk to want people who will show up on time, work hard and learn and get dirty. After that the gas companies, the drilling companies, the fracking companies will train you. Yeh, there are some specialized skills needed like welding or heavy equipment operator but by and large anyone with a high school diploma and the ability to work hard can get a job that pays $50k per year easily.
Let's stop with the noise about out of state workers and concentrate on how we can find these companies the employees they need.