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Marcy Drummond, vice president of academic affairs at LATTC is a passionate advocate for getting newly skilled workers into the green workforce. |
California is banking heavily on green technology industries and on the new job opportunities that they will bring. Estimates show that over 70 percent of new jobs will be in green industry or green technology – which means that tens of thousands of workers with specialized training will be required to meet the needs of this booming sector. Mobilizing to understand and meet future workforce needs is no small feat, but in Los Angeles, a consortia including community colleges, unions, universities, industry and nonprofit organizations is working to design these new career paths. You might even say they are designing the new economy.
A large
number of the jobs will be in technical trades, with job titles emerging
that reflect the specialized needs: green power technician, energy broker,
power marketer, efficiency manager, solar installer technician,
deconstruction worker, or energy specialist. By and large, these are
technical positions that require not only specialty or "green" training,
but also a basic knowledge of trades, like construction, automotive, and
electrical. The Los Angeles Infrastructure and Sustainability Jobs Collaborative at the Regional Economic Development Institute is bringing together key public, private and community partners to plan and implement a seamless education, training and workforce infrastructure that connects low income, disadvantaged populations to livable wage jobs with career paths within the energy-utility industry. The Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI) at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College was started with a seed grant from Bank of America, and it has provided the resources for research into emerging trends in technologies and jobs. That the newly skilled workers will be fed into jobs in their own communities is a major driver of the program for Marcy Drummond, vice president of Academic Affairs at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College (LATTC) and a passionate advocate for what the Collaborative can accomplish. “One of the unique things about LATTC is that we actually have a community and economic development department – the only two-year program in the country – and it really is about investing in the community and building up the economic viability of communities,” explains Drummond. “Because we teach how to do that, we are committed to being a living example. So this green initiative is focused on getting people who live in our service area into the green jobs that are going to help that community, or be in that community.” LATTC is located just south of downtown Los Angeles and its students are primarily from south central LA. “The students we serve really need employment while they’re in school and immediately when they’re done,” she explains. “It is incumbent on us to make sure there will be jobs for them.” With that in mind, LATTC has invested a lot of time and energy in bringing people together – industry, educators, unions – to define what the current job opportunities are and to project out into the next five years. The Collaborative started by focusing on the energy sector, identifying energy companies, utility companies and construction as a place where a bulk of the jobs will be. “However, transportation and automotive are really emerging as another key sector for jobs,” says Drummond. For example, “as alternative fuels and new emissions standards for diesel arise, we will need to develop another collaborative around those technologies.” “We have to have a strong industry collaborative, because we need their help, not only in designing curriculum, but to make sure that the jobs will be there.” Industry partners also provide the tools for students learning these new trades, such as photovoltaic (solar) panels that can be taken apart and put together again.
At LATTC,
75 percent of the courses are career oriented, certificate or degree
programs that are career-technical. In two short years the community
college has gone from virtually no green-oriented classes to 52
green-integrated courses and four green-related degree and certificate
programs in career-technical, science, health and liberal arts.
A partner
in the collaborative who is close to the job market is the Joint Labor
Management Cooperation Committee (LMCC), a joint venture of the National
Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) and the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, in California. IBEW represents
electricians in fields including utilities,
construction,
telecommunications, broadcasting, manufacturing, railroads and government.
NECA is also a voice for the industry responsible for bringing electrical
power, lighting, and communications to buildings and communities across
the United States. “As a society, we need to do these things for our future, for national security, to save money and to protect the environment and fight climate change. It is the right thing to do,” said Kotlier. “We recognize we are at the beginning of a green energy revolution. How we do our jobs will change dramatically because of both scarcity and cost of resources.” To that end, the LMCC is increasing training opportunities for new students as well as experienced journeymen electricians, including new courses on conservation, energy efficiency, and solar and wind technologies. In the last 12 months alone, the LMCC put 2,000 journeymen through continuing education courses on photovoltaic technology. Jane Templin, a journeyman electrician and senior instructor at the Electrial Training Institute in Los Angeles, is an outreach director taking the LMCC’s message to the public. The LMCC has made a commitment as a Platinum sponsor of the Los Angeles Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council. Sitting on the board of the collaborative means Jane has had the opportunity to both give and get valuable perspective. “From the union perspective, we know that students need both the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ job skills to succeed,” she says. “For example, most apprenticeships and employers require, at a minimum, GED (general education degree, often obtained in lieu of an academic high school diploma) and math skills. It’s surprising how many youth don’t have that. They need guidance to get into the right programs. But they also need to learn life skills, like showing up to work on time, having reliable transportation, learning to plan ahead and to work as a team. They also need physical training to handle construction jobs, which involve working with your hands as well as your brain.” Templin is available to monitor and evaluate programs, like those at LATTC, and to go into classrooms to talk with students about the union program, what to expect, and the pros and cons of working in construction. As far as green technologies and green construction go, Templin says it’s simple: “We do the work.” To that end, the ETI is a leader in training in emerging technologies. Sharing its knowledge base and resources with the Collaborative just makes good sense, she says. And in terms of sharing, the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI) at LATTC is funded not only to synthesize all of this data on emerging job trends, but also to share it. To date, LATTC has convened a two-day Sustainability Industry and Educators Forum to define trends and needs for career and academic pathways, occupations, skills and competencies. The group has also completed research on the demand/supply side of green construction, transportation and energy sectors in the Log Angeles Region and identified and prioritized industry sectors and occupations for developing green workforce training programs. The forums have attracted industry representatives throughout Southern California and educators from other community and trade-technical colleges as well as some K-12 educators. The school’s new website, the Green College Initiative, is designed to be a clearinghouse of information. “We’re committed to sharing what we have learned, because it is very difficult for community colleges to do this kind of work,” says Drummond. “It’s imperative that you do the research and outreach to develop the curriculum. We have changed our thinking completely in the course of this exercise, moving away from a ‘Green 101’ or ‘Energy 101’ type of curriculum after we got the input from stakeholders. Currently, REDI is developing curriculum for Alternative Fuels and Solar Technician programs. Next in the pipeline is the potential to develop a fuel cell technician program, and a Green Business Certification Program.
The Los
Angeles Infrastructure and Sustainability Jobs Collaborative is poised to
bring all the promise of the new, green economy to Southern California.
Look for upcoming articles on industry’s perspective, as we continue to
explore the potential of this and other powerful community college and
trade tech-based collaboratives. |
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