Business, Educational Officials Tour Luminant Academy Tyler Morning Telegraph   |   Mar 26, 2008

Officials from Tyler's business development and educational communities toured the new Luminant Academy Wednesday morning during an open house for the facility on the Tyler Junior College West Campus.

The academy provides training for people who work at Luminant power generating facilities in Texas. Luminant, a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corp., formerly TXU Corp., is a power generation business that includes mining, wholesale marketing and trading, construction and development operations.

"TEDC began working with Tyler Junior College in 2006 to convince Luminant that this was the place for this academy," said Barham Fulmer, Tyler Economic Development Council board chairman.

Unoccupied space on the north end of TJC's Skills Training Center was reconstructed, beginning last summer, to create the training facility. Luminant has invested $1.7 million into building the academy, which occupies 24,000 square feet of upstairs and downstairs space in the Skills Training Center.

Luminant Academy houses 10 classrooms and office space for 10 permanent staff members. It is expected to train 300 students per year.

Based on projections of the number of out-of-town academy students who stay in Tyler hotels and shop at area businesses during their training, the economic impact of Luminant Academy on Tyler is conservatively estimated at $923,000 per year, officials said.

Luminant's total investment is about $5.9 million, which includes $3.7 million for simulators and another $500,000 for training lab equipment.

Students will earn continuing education hours for courses or certificates of completion from the college while being trained to work at generation, mining and construction operations for Luminant, which operates power plants in nearby Rusk and Titus counties.

Five simulators will be added in September and students will return for specialized, plant operator training.

The facility offers technical, leadership and operating systems training and houses a state-of-the-art videoconference suite that allows simultaneous communication between all of the company's mines and plants.