Tuesday, June 5, 2007 The BirminghamNews j 5AFROM PAGE ONE**

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TRIATHLON:Double Oak Lakeswim part of runFrom Page 1A

“It’s got a little bit ofclimb, it’s got some rockysections, it’s got somesingle-track hard packareas, places where it’sabout as hard as a pavedroad, where you can goreally fast.”Triathlete Casey Fannin

Saturday, and the Sunday triath-lon, which is expected to featureprofessional triathletes.

“We get the die-hard athletesand the people who just comeout and try to accomplish some-thing,” said Xterra spokesmanTrey Garman.

On Saturday and Sunday, theXterra Village will have musicand food for spectators andcompetitors.

Sunday’s championship com-petition will include a one-mileswim in Double Oak Lake, a20-mile mountain bike race anda 10K off-road run, according toGarman.

Jackie Ryan bikes the OakMountain trail three times aweek, something she hopes willgive her an edge when she com-petes in Sunday’s championshiptriathlon.

Ryan, a Shelby County resi-dent, has competed in Xterraraces in Georgia, Tennessee, Ne-vada, and in the world champi-onship in Hawaii.

“It (the Oak Mountain trail)may be one of the best courseson the Xterra circuit in thestates; it’s almost tougher thanthe one I did in Hawaii,” Ryansaid.

Casey Fannin, a triathlete who

lives in Hoover and was the 2005Xterra world champion in the45-49 age division, said OakMountain’s nearly 17-mile loophas “a little bit of everythingwhen it comes to mountain bik-ing.”

“It’s got a little bit of climb,it’s got some rocky sections, it’sgot some single-track hard packareas, places where it’s about ashard as a paved road, where youcan go really fast.

“The track is known in theSoutheast and even nationally tomountain biking guys,” Fanninsaid.

Ryan said the course, with its“tight, twisty trails and steep,rocky inclines,” may be formid-able to her opponents.

“They think it’s very challeng-ing, but that’s my trainingcourse. I’m hoping that gives mean edge.”

For more information visitwww.xterraplanet.com.

E-MAIL: jgray@bhamnews.com

TRAINING:Targets specificjobs, industriesFrom Page 1A

students. And they wanted toalign the courses with industrycertification so that studentswho take classes and the peoplewho hire them know the stu-dents have been prepared forthe work world.

“If we hadn’t done that, Ithink we’d be in the dark ages,probably,” said Ed Castile, exec-utive director of Alabama Indus-trial Development Training. Theorganization is an arm of thestate Department of Education’spostsecondary training depart-ment.

Courses such as shop andwoodworking quickly becameobsolete when the state beganits annual review of career techcourses.

“There was a time when wetaught upholstery and shoe re-pair,” said Fred Braswell, direc-tor of career technical educationfor Birmingham schools. “Therewas dry cleaning at Parker (HighSchool). But there’s no jobs inthose fields. You need rigor andrelevance or else you’re notgoing to exist today.”

Inside classrooms, chemistrylessons come alive when weld-ing students see heat react tometal. And physics has becomean integral part of automotiveclasses.

“Career tech has been doingthat for a long time; people justdidn’t realize it,” said Keith Ma-haffey, director of the BessemerCenter for Technology. “Teach-ers try to add those skills asmuch as they can and in anyarea they can.”

The state Department of Edu-cation rewrites its career techni-cal education curriculum everyfive years to keep pace with con-stantly changing work forcetrends and to better serve theneeds of Alabama’s work force.The newest changes won’t beimplemented until 2009, Keysaid

“Our job at the state depart-ment is to figure out how weprepare students for jobs thatdon’t exist yet,” she said.

Filling the labor poolWith Alabama establishing it-

self as a manufacturing state,the demand for employees hascrept upward in recent years.However, the employee pool hasremained stagnant, forcing em-ployers to pull workers from

other states, said Sallie Law-rence, a special needs counselorfor Birmingham City Schools.

Projections from the U.S. Bu-reau of Labor Statistics paint thefollowing picture:

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