Joe Klebenow was among the 1,500 Micron Technology workers that the semiconductor manufacturer began furloughing in Boise in October.

A Micron electronic technician for 13 years, Klebenow had been laid off by the company several times over the years. By the time the latest furlough came on Oct. 22, he had a plan.

On Jan. 20, Klebenow will begin retraining in diesel technology at the Larry Selland College of Applied Technology on the campus of Boise State University. His goal is to land a job in the energy or transportation fields, industries where he believes those skills will be in demand.

Klebenow's story has become all-too-common in the Treasure Valley, where a stagnant economy has more than doubled the area's unemployment rate in the past year. With economists predicting high unemployment well into 2010, some people are making new career plans in case they get caught in the economic downdraft.

Like hundreds of displaced Micron workers, Klebenow's retraining is being financed under The Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, a federally funded program that offers retraining to workers whose jobs have moved off-shore. The program will cover tuition, materials and extended unemployment benefits during the two years he is in school.

"I feel confident that the TAA (training) is going to open some doors for me," Klebenow said.

According to the Idaho Department of Labor, 341 area residents got retraining under the TAA program, at a cost of $980,278 in the last six months of 2008, compared with 219 students at a cost of $623,651 for the comparable period in 2007.

HEALTH CARE JOBS EXPECTED TO BOOM

State officials say many Treasure Valley residents are eyeing the health care industry as a new career path.

The Department of Labor estimates that Idaho will need an additional 7,500 nurses by 2013.

For the 2007-2008 school year, the state's colleges and universities accepted 800 nursing applications. They had to turn away or defer another 785 because of a lack of capacity, said Sara Scudder, a research analyst with the Department of Labor.

Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Ore., already is seeing increasing interest in its nursing program, said spokeswoman Abby Lee. The program historically accepts between 30 and 35 nursing applications a year. In 2007, there were 80 applicants. In 2008 the number increased to 100 - all vying for the same 30 to 35 slots.

"Attendance is up at the monthly information sessions for prospective nursing students, and we expect applications to be even higher this year," Lee said. "Enrollment in the prerequisite classes that prospective nursing students must complete is also up across-the-board."

Assuming there is no drop in their funding, Idaho colleges and universities expected to turn out 9,400 nurses between 2007 and 2013, based on a 5.9 percent a year increase in the number of nursing graduates, Scudder said.

"The question then will be whether they all stay in Idaho after they graduate," she added.

One graduate who will likely stay in the area is Caldwell resident Robert Hagewood, 43, who did not wait until he was unemployed before going back to school.

In January 2007, Hagewood decided 20 years as a welder was enough and began taking his prerequisite classes to enter the TVCC nursing program. It has meant making the 45-minute drive to Ontario daily and putting in more hours than when he was helping put up many of the buildings in the Treasure Valley, but the sacrifices have been worth it.

"It was about doing something that was a little more satisfying, something that was more than just making a living," he said.

Hagewood, who has financed his retraining with student loans, is now in his first year in the school's nursing program and hopes to be a registered nurse within two years.

He concedes that knowing that nurses are going to be in demand for years has helped make the decision easier.

"I'd be lying if I said it didn't weigh in the decision," he said.

AN EXPLOSION IN UNEMPLOYMENT

Not everybody got to make the decision to enter retraining on their own.

Vera McCrink, dean of the Selland College, said Idaho's surging unemployment numbers have produced the expected spike in inquiries concerning retraining classes - most from former Micron workers.

By early last week, the college had 117 students enrolled for its spring professional training programs. But with one more registration period remaining before classes begin on Jan. 20, the final number of new students was expected to approach 200, or about 60 percent higher than the 2008 spring semester, said Selland College Senior Enrollment Specialist Adrian San Miguel.

Those numbers do not include "several hundred" additional students preparing to take prerequisite classes required before moving on to the more technical curriculums, San Miguel added.

Some people are pursuing complete career changes. The culinary arts program, for example, which typically does not produce large enrollment numbers, is already full for the coming semester, San Miguel said.

"We have people who are changing areas completely and want to find something else to do," San Miguel said.

Even so, the real increase in enrollment may not come until the Selland College is folded into the College of Western Idaho in July, and tuition rates fall by as much as 50 percent, McCrink said.

"Tuition will be half because CWI is a community college," McCrink said. "So it makes good financial sense to wait. I can't think of a better gift we could give folks than a quality education at half the price."

THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES

But just because a person wants to learn a new career does not mean that the opportunity will be there.

Federal dollars allocated to Idaho under the Workforce Investment Act, which focuses on low-income and displaced workers, have fallen from about $15 million in 2002 to $7 million in 2008.

"If things keep going that way, that option for retraining is going to dry up," Department of Labor spokesman Bob Fick said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Labor has only released $860,000 of a $2 million National Emergency Grant awarded to Idaho to help pay for training after mass layoffs. The state applied for the grant because of the more than 2,600 furloughs at Micron since July 2007.

"We've asked them (the federal government) about releasing more of that money, but the only thing we've heard is that it's under review," Fick said.

Joe Estrella: 377-6465