Ascending The Heights
Sioux Falls Argus Leader, April 17, 2008 

CANBY — Kevin Froslan and Jacob Knutson don't aspire to ascend the Alps.

Froslan, in fact, once dreaded climbing the 60-foot silo on his parents' southwestern Minnesota farm.

"I used to be scared to climb on my own roof," he says.

But now the two 20-year-olds have climbed the Pyrenees of the plains, those lazily-spinning wind turbines you see in a distance while driving highways and interstate.

Froslan and Knutson now think nothing about standing 275 feet - almost the length of a football field from goal line to goal line - above the ground, where they can see for miles in every direction.

"The first couple times are scary, but you get used to it," Knutson says.

Nose-to-beak with soaring hawks, Froslan and Knutson have chosen a profession that will give them a view few other flat-landers have seen without first climbing a mountain or peering from the window of a descending airplane.

To try to convey to family and friends the heights to which they ascend - more mundanely, what their work environment will be like after they graduate this spring - Froslan and Knutson slipped digital cameras into their pockets last fall.

After climbing the tube tower - named for the cylinder that holds the blades - the cameras came out.

Froslan took a photo of Knutson, right hand shading the sun from his eyes, as they stood atop a wind turbine west of Pipestone almost to the South Dakota border.

What happened afterward also put their head in the clouds, this time figuratively.

The photo since has appeared on the cover of the current Minnesota West Community and Technical College catalog and on other publication covers. It won a Bronze Paragon Award from the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations.

"I got the camera just before I went on a senior class trip," Froslan says. "It's 5.2 or 5.3 megapixels, nothing fancy. I don't have an eye for photography. I got lucky. I was at the right place at the right time."

Froslan, a 2006 graduate of Truman High School in Truman, Minn., and Knutson, a 2005 graduate of Marshall High School in Marshall, Minn., met in the fall of 2006 when they enrolled in the wind energy technology program at Minnesota West's Canby campus.

They had practiced climbing wind turbines using a smaller lattice turbine - the type where the top is reached through an exterior ladder - but the wind turbines overlooking Minnesota's Buffalo Ridge are much taller and more demanding.

On the day the photo was taken, it was a foggy morning, the clouds so low that the students feared they'd be late for their assignment.

"We were afraid we'd be late because we got stuck behind a semi," Froslan says.

But no matter what, the adrenaline would have been pumping that morning.

Knuston always had been fascinated by anything that took his feet off the ground. He had piloted a plane when he turned 16, but his lessons were cut short when his instructor moved.

Then, the wind turbines that are sprouting up in the area caught his eye.

"Dad and I would go fishing, and I'd see the wind turbines on the side of the road," Knutson said.

"I thought it would be amazing to work on them, but I never thought it would happen."

That was before Knutson learned he could train to become a wind technician through Minnesota West.

Froslan enrolled in the program after his father took him to see a wind farm near Trimont, Minn.

"I wanted to do something different," he said.

He rid himself of his discomfort with heights simply: He showed up for class on the day of the first climb unwilling to wimp out in front of 10 others.

"It's a guy thing," he says.

That first day, it was intimidating walking up to the Buffalo Ridge wind turbine and bending their heads back, way back, to look up to the top.

Strapping on the harness also meant another reality check. Then it was time to step inside the turbine tube, ready to make the ascension.

"This is the highest you can be around here, other than on a plane," Knutson says.

Both Froslan and Knutson will work for Outland Renewable Energy after this spring's graduation. They primarily will work on new turbine setup and installation.

For now, that means a lot of traveling. Froslan expects to begin his career in Illinois.

Eventually, after he finds a wind farm he likes, Froslan will settle down.

"I'm one of a few people who actually do this for a living," he says.

"You get a different perspective on everything, seeing it from above."

Knutson also will travel first for Outland Renewable Energy. If he decides to live close to home, he'll have options.

"There are a few places around here to be stationary," he says. "But a lot of it is traveling."

Knutson knows some people don't like the wind turbines, feeling they spoil the landscape.

He doesn't think so.

"I think they're cool," Knutson says. "A lot of people think they're eyesores. I don't think they're that terrible looking, not that ugly a machine."

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