POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — There’s a job fair in Mason County on Tuesday to highlight positions available with the coming Nscale data center.
AI infrastructure company Nscale is taking over and expanding the Monarch Compute Campus in the county.
The job fair will be held at the former Mason County Armory in Point Pleasant from noon until 7 p.m.
Jason Bechtle, Monarch site manager for Nscale, told WMOV Radio that the job fair is a great event for the community.
“This will be an opportunity for anybody in the job-seeking category with any of our employers, contractors, and vendors that are helping build Project Monarch,” Bechtle said.
Vendors will include several educational representatives, Bechtle said.
“From West Virginia University, Marshall University, Mountwest (Community and) Technical College, as well as the Mason County Vocational Center that will be supplying some entry-level talent opportunities and certificates, as well as associate’s, even bachelor’s degrees from the two universities,” Bechtle said.
The educational component is very important, Bechtle noted. He said the education representatives will aim to set job fair visitors up for success.
“If you have an interest in a certain scope of this project, here are some resources that we can provide,” Bechtle said. “Whether that be a four-year degree for someone looking to be in the engineering side of things, or whether that be a certificate through someone like Mountwest for an electrical, a pipe-fitting, a trade job.”
Bechtle said they’re preparing for “multiple thousand” construction workers during the early stages of the project. He said hundreds of permanent jobs are coming with Project Monarch.
The job fair connects people with positions, Bechtle said. Representatives from Ames Construction, Kiewitt Construction, Apex Pipeline, Thrasher Engineering, and Ritu Engineering will all be on hand. Bechtle said those companies are all involved in the data center project.
Bechtle said all these partners will be there at the data center to represent all the different scopes of the project. He said people will be able to chat one-on-one with those representatives and get an idea of what qualifications are needed for these jobs.
“Maybe it’s skills you don’t have right now, but they can help you, direct you, to develop those skills so that you could obtain a job,” Bechtle explained.
Bechtle is a former Mason County manager. He said it’s great to continue working in the county, now with Nscale. He added that he’s looking forward to helping other Mason County residents, in addition to people from surrounding counties, gain employment.
“Be able to help recruit some of the other guys and girls from Mason County and surrounding counties that can have the same opportunity that I have,” Bechtle said. “To work on a project like this, to make a good, livable wage and to be able to stay right here at home.”
Read more about Tuesday’s job fair here.