Towards the end of 2017, the 501 (c)(3) organization Conservations Corps of Long Beach (CCLB) leveraged funding that let them open up opportunity for individuals interested in solar throughout the surrounding cities and communities. The resulting educational initiative is the Long Beach Solar Jobs Training Program, a project almost a year long that will provide dozens of teens and young adults a major step forward on their journeys towards success! Over a span of a dozen weeks at a time, GRID Alternatives Greater Los Angeles and its Workforce Development takes center stage for these young people, all of whom were recruited for their strong interest in learning about solar electricity and green career opportunities. Wells Fargo provides funding to support this local initiative, which helps us get good jobs for good people, and the bank provides an additional layer of training to CCLB youth populations through financial education and money management skills workshops connected to the program.
Our staff will have the honor of training multiple solar cohorts over the course of the year, and the first of them has already been on half a dozen roofs with Solar Installation Supervisors (SISes). On a cool spring day no more than ten minutes from Hollywood Park, Senior Solar Installation Supervisor Jose Cardenas has set up a folding table in front of the quiet, single-story Inglewood home owned by Cynthia Willard. This is a familiar location, since four other homeowners on this block and the next block have signed contracts for GRID Alternatives solar in recent months. But to young men in low-income situations that they aspire to get out of – like David, who lives in Cypress with his wife, an au pair – this place is both new and full of promise.
"I'm not going to be ready [after this training] quite yet," offers David, explaining that he's training with others here for his longer term future. He elaborates, saying that his wife's finances are in the process of stabilizing and that he's not going to start a new career in solar until the appropriate time comes along at home. Unlike his CCLB peers hailing from Long Beach as well as Lynwood, Paramount, and elsewhere, David won't necessarily apply for an installer job this summer, but he knows that he can retain the knowledge from six months of shadowing men like Jose and got a new job to feed his family, quickly, when the moment is right to start advancing quickly.
What he learns from Jose and other staff members is multifaceted and potentially even useful outside of solar. Under Jose's watch, the trainees from CCLB are going over the most important safety instructions they'll ever hear: fall protection, power tool usage instructions, and even regular guidelines for intake of water. When David has an opportunity to go onto the Willard family's roof less than half an hour from now, it will be important for him to move around with safety as a priority. But there's no better place to safely learn than in a place like this, a "classroom on the roof" … that also puts more clean energy in an environmentally-disadvantaged part of western Inglewood. Each of these young trainees is going to be able to sit for a gold standard exam, the North American Board of Certified Energy Practioners (NABCEP), and their completion of the program through the dozen-week mark will earn them Installation Basic Training (IBT) certification and an Occupational Safety and Health Administration 10-Hour Card (colloquially, OSHA 10 certification). The combination makes them attractive to hiring managers in the fast-growing solar energy industry, which has 16,000 jobs in Los Angeles County alone.
"CCLB will meet the basic educational needs of trainees including basic skills instruction, remedial education, bilingual education for persons with limited English proficiency, secondary education, and courses designed to lead to the attainment of a high school diploma or a General Equivalency Diploma," explained Adewale OgunBadejo, Workforce Development Manager, at the outset of the first cohort. From there, he added, it would be our job as installation organizers to help them see that giving back could benefit them in multiple ways. What better outcome for society, really, if young people from at-risk backgrounds got a leg up pursuing a green career but ended up loving the experience of training with volunteers? The mental, physical, and professional strengths built up from a partnership like the Long Beach Solar Jobs Training Program can never be overestimated, and Adewale makes it clear: "As these youth build up their confidence, professionalism, and resumes, partner organziations will continue working to connect them at the employment, community college, and vocational levels."