CINCINNATI — Raymond Miller doesn't want to flip on a light switch one night and find out he's in the dark because there weren't enough workers to keep the country's power plants going.

"I think there's a good chance there will be a serious problem if the industry can't find enough people quickly enough to fill jobs that are already coming open," said Miller, the University of Cincinnati's superintendent of utilities and a former commercial power manager.

Figures vary among companies, but industry officials estimate that about half of the approximately 400,000 employees in the work force will be eligible for retirement over the next five to 10 years. These include workers who operate power plant equipment and repair the lines carrying electricity to homes and businesses.

"It's become increasingly apparent that this is an industrywide situation and that we need a more national, industrywide approach to meeting critical work force needs," said Mary Miller, president of the newly formed Center for Energy Workforce Development and vice president of Edison Electric Institute.

And it's a situation that has caused some concern for a number of years, according to David Eskelsen, spokesman for Rocky Mountain Power, Utah's largest electric utility.

"(Rocky Mountain Power) has apprenticeship programs for both linemen and power plant workers, and departments are required to conduct succession planning, so that not only do they have the skilled trades jobs but also appropriate supervisory and management positions," Eskelsen said.

"We don't have many concerns. ... But it does require constant attention."

As the first of the baby boomers reach 60 this year, some utilities have grown worried enough about the potential worker exodus that they are asking more career and technical schools and colleges to offer courses in power plant operations.

The companies also are offering grants and scholarships and helping develop curriculums that include algebra and calculus as well as courses on environmental regulations, combustion engines and electrical circuits.

A handful of schools have offered power industry training programs for years, including Utah Valley State College in Orem.

UVSC associate professor Max Christofferson, program coordinator in the school's Department of Lineman Technology, said its program was started in the late 1970s by a former Utah Power lineman who saw that municipal utilities in the area needed help training employees.

"It's grown by a whole bunch since those days," Christofferson said. "We now have 70 apprentices representing the small municipalities through Utah, a little bit into Arizona, a little bit into Nevada, a little bit into Wyoming."