series, where the jobs are, mary thompson now reports from houston, texas where national oil well varco brought employee training in house developing their own pipeline of talent. >> reporter: 24 feet above ground, service technicians in training are getting a lesson in safety. this training required at national oil well barko technical college in houston. >> i think we could grow a little faster if we could source great employees. ceo clay williams says technical colleges are helping to solve a problem detected seven years ago when it faced a jump in demand for the multimillion dollar drilling systems is makes and a shortage of skilled workers to repair, install and maintain them. >> we try to take people with a different background, with different skills, and teach them the skills they need to progress in this field. >> reporter: paul gunderson is a trainer at the college. over 6 to 12 months his students take classes in hydraulics, electronics and mechanics. in a simulator, they learn the software systems controlling novs drilling systems. and the high training that you see behind me

i'm here at one of national oil well varco or n.o.v.'s six technical colleges.n see there's a class going on in height training. why height training? a couple years ago, one of the program's graduates was climbing around on a rig and froze. he basically couldn't solve the problem he was sent out to fix. now all these service technicians in training get a little hands-on experience with height. of course, depending on their comfort with height, this could be one of the easiest classes they take over six to 12 months. most of their time here is spent in the classroom learning hydraulics or mechanics or in a simulator to better understand the multi million dollar drilling systems n.o.v. sells to its clients who are drilling deeper and farther out in the water to find oil. >> in order to go after this oil in these locations, we have to have more sophisticated equipment. the equipment is more complex and it requires more knowledge for the service people, for the engineers that have to go out and repair it. >> reporter: paul gunderson is an instructor at the houston-b

this is part of a simulator at national oil well varco or the technical college here in houston.ey get hands-on experience. why do they need to know how to operate that? they will repair, install and maintain the multimillion dollar drilling systems that nov produces. what i'm going to be doing is releasing the brake on what's known as a top drive. it's that red thing there. and what you can do from here as soon as i release the brake, sorry, guys, release the brake and then the top drive can be lowered to right above the well head. now, attached to the truck drive will be a drilling string, which is attached to a drilling bit which in turn will drill the hole. what happens is the technicians in training can take these classes in the simulator along with a number of others at nov, six technical colleges around the world. there are two more coming online. why bring the training in house? years ago, n 0. v knew it was on the verge of an energy boom but couldn't find the workers familiar with the technology on the rigs they decided to bring the training in-house. >> there are big ch