A day in the life of Kansas’ newest career: a wheat and wind farmer
When Chance Jacobson graduated high school, he faced a conundrum likely familiar to many young people who grew up in the rural plains. He’d spent the past 18 years on his family farm about 40 miles east of Salina learning the trade from his father and grandfather.
“I wanted to farm with my dad, and there just wasn’t enough money,” Jacobson said. “Between my dad and grandpa farming together, and for me to come in and be the third person in the operation, there just wasn’t really room for me.”
He’d be the sixth generation farmer on this land if he stayed, and with their family operation growing crops and raising cattle, they could use the help. But in the rural area where he grew up, the nearest town unincorporated long ago, there were limited options for supplemental income.
That’s when a tractor repairman who’d been talking to Jacobson’s father mentioned that he wished he’d have gone into wind energy instead of working on tractors because it seemed to be a much better gig.
There is a wind farm just a few miles away, so after a bit of research told Jacobson that it’d be good pay for honest work and a dependable job, a whole new door opened.
Now, Jacobson, who just turned 20, works as a wind technician for Enel Green Power at the Diamond Vista wind farm and farms and ranches on the side.
Diamond Vista is a 300-megawatt wind farm in Marion and Dickinson counties. It has 95 wind turbines on the properties of 300 landowners, whom they pay to use their property, according to an Enel Green Power spokesperson.
“I never anticipated working for Enel and being in wind and then also farming at the same time,” Jacobson said.
Enel Green Power operates 59 renewable energy plants —including wind, geothermal and solar energy — in 15 states. Six of its wind farms are in Kansas.
Jacobson is one of several young wind technicians working in rural Kansas, which illustrates a new opportunity for those wanting to stay in rural areas and earn a livable wage.
One of the fastest-growing professions in the U.S., wind technician employment is expected to grow 61% in the next ten years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most of the wind farms are expected to grow in the Great Plains and Midwest.
“For a young person that wants to stay home or near home to work and raise a family, there just aren’t many options for high-paying jobs,” said Josh Svaty of Kansas Advanced Power Alliance, a wind, solar and battery storage trade association.
In May 2020, the median annual wage was $56,230, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Kansas median is a bit higher at $30.41 an hour or $63,250 a year.
“To have an industry that invests hundreds of millions of dollars in a single county...not only creates jobs at the wind farm, but the investment impact ripples through the community creating new jobs...and other opportunities for businesses and families, at levels a rural county would otherwise never see,” Svaty added.
A day in Jacobson’s shoes
Every day Jacobson works, he starts on-site at Diamond Vista at 7 a.m., where they have a morning meeting and distribute assignments for general maintenance or fixing the towers.
“This job is mostly troubleshooting, so getting the towers running when they go down, making its electrical hydraulic work, and just basically solving problems,” Jacobson said.
He climbs the turbines nearly every day, wearing about 30 pounds of equipment, and uses a ladder inside the turbine. The technicians are required to wear hard hats, safety glasses, steel-toe boots, and gloves. Jacobson also wears hearing protection to protect his ears from the noise of the hydraulics.
When it’s working, he uses the climb assist, a remote-controlled steel cable that removes 100 pounds of weight to help technicians climb. But even without it, he can scale the about 287-foot tall ladder in about 8 minutes.
“It’s hard work, you stay active, and it keeps you in shape to do it,” Jacobson said. “I had a few reservations (about height) before I started in wind, and then it’s like, ‘Well, I want to get paid, so I got to do it.’ Now I can stand up there and look down and it doesn’t affect me at all.”
His shift is generally over at 3:30 p.m., and he drives the 15 minutes or so to either his dad or grandfather’s operations to start working on the farm. Jacobson regularly works 8 hours a day at Diamond Vista and then another 4 or 5 at home.
“I’m usually making a phone call to my dad as I’m walking into my truck, like ‘Hey what you need help with or where you at?’” Jacobson said. “We’re a little spread out, but whether we’re working with cattle or we’re working the field and crops, it’s a different day every day.”
Jacobson’s drive to the farm is short but scenic. The road weaves in and around hills as he drives next to blackened fields from the yearly prescribed burns. Sometimes the hills give rise to such sharp horizon lines that it just appears to be green wheat touching the blue sky. Then, he turns and is greeted with layered, hilly vistas filled with trees, fields, farm buildings, and wind turbines.
A gravel road serves as almost a long driveway to their home, which, like all well-used country roads, has two groves down the center for drivers to put their tires in, lest they skid and swerve.
The house and barn were built recently, in 2006, replacing the homestead and barn that were there before. His father, Michael, mother, Annette, and his two siblings still live there.
Today his dad and Grandpa Roy are “working cows,” meaning they’re getting their vaccines, branding the cows, removing horns, and separating the calves from their mothers to help wean them. It’s a big process, Michael Jacobson says.
“When you have cattle, it’s a 24/7 job,” said Michael Jacobson. “There’s always something to do on the farm.”
Chance Jacobson rents his own place now and put in 100 acres of wheat. This will be his first year buying cows.
“I never imagined getting to do it so soon,” Jacobson said. “I thought I’d have to be 30 before I could come back.”
His dream is to one day farm with his younger brother, who’s still in high school. Jacobson is passionate about clean energy and growing and raising cows and crops but worries about the misinformation about farmers and their role in climate change.
“You put carbon back in the ground, and it helps with climate change,” Jacobson said.
The Jacobsons are switching to No-Till, a farming practice that is supposed to be more environmentally friendly and reduce topsoil erosion. They’ve also been trying to reduce the number of chemicals they use, and create quality beef and grain products, Michael Jacobson said.
“Enel hired me on, and it kept me in the area,” Chance Jacobson said. “There’s not a lot of jobs in the community, and I’m glad this worked out. I’m happy here.”
“I’d like to think we’re blessed,” his dad added.
