AFCOM eyes program to train IT workers for mainframe work

Computerworld - LAS VEGAS -- The mainframe skills shortage is emerging as subtly as gray hair. It's bumping up training costs and raising concerns among data center managers who wonder how they will replace retiring green-screen wizards with workers weaned on Microsoft and open systems.
In a time of corporate downsizing, it may seem counterintuitive to believe there could be an IT skills shortage of anything. But today, data center professional association AFCOM intends to announce a program to help companies train and attract IT professionals for mainframe work.
At its semiannual conference here this week, Orange, Calif.-based AFCOM (the Association for Computer Operations Management), has created a "Data Center Knowledge Initiative" that will offer online courses in data center skills in conjunction with Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based Marist College. The program also includes collaboration with IT vendors to improve data center management with technologies such as remote wireless control of data center operations. It's a capability that might make mainframe operations more attractive to younger IT professionals, according to conference organizers.
A study last year by Meta Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn., found that 55% of IT workers with mainframe experience are over 50 years old. Conference attendees, such as Gerald Tucker, the data center operations manager at Foster Farms Inc., one of the largest poultry operations in the U.S., readily agreed with that finding. But he isn't sure what to do to fix the problem.
Tucker has two mainframe operators with 20-plus years of experience who will be retiring in six or so years, and finding replacements could be a problem. "The solution could be an outsourcing possibility at that time," he said.
The Livingston, Calif.-based company needs to find people with a unique set of characteristics: They must have good technical skills and be comfortable dealing with repetitive and mundane tasks, said Tucker. "They are usually one or the other," he said.
Getting IT professionals, especially young ones, interested in learning mainframe work isn't easy. But Ruben Trujillo, a Phoenix-based technical specialist at U.S. Foodservice, a major national distributor, said a company program seems to be helping. New IT employees who may be destined to work in finance, for instance, can volunteer to tour the data center and be exposed to its operations. "It's opened up interest," he said.
One of the data center's selling points is its critical nature, said Trujillo. It operates 365 days a year, around the clock, and is as important to managing business operations as air traffic control operations are to an airport. "The pressure and