10/03/08 Green Jobs

Green Jobs. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. The job market is changing. More and more we are seeing the need for a whole different job classification. The green job. What is a green job? Pat Smutz with the Laborers' Northwest Cooperative Fund explains. SMUTZ: It's just keeping up with the times it's the future. I mean everything is centering around energy in the world and we're smart enough to realize everything is moving in that direction and we've got to train for the future. We're always looking forward, we're always looking at new opportunities for our contractors who employ our members and so we look to green building as one of our absolute main points that we train for now. With new and expanding technologies there is a great need for people with the skills to go green. Ed Hensley is a member of the Harvesting Clean Energy steering committee who is directly involved in the training process. HENSLEY: Initially we looked at it as a native construction careers initiative is what we call it, the NCCI and it's funded through a special arrangement with the Department of Interior and the Council for Tribal Employment Rights. It's kind of an inter-agency program at this point. They gave us enough funding for 3 demonstration projects in Indian country and those 3 projects could pretty much be customized to what was needed at that reservation. Hensley says that through these projects they were able to train workers not only in construction techniques but green methods as well. HENSLEY: We ran a total of about 20 folks through there. At various points through the program folks were getting jobs. As of yesterday I think 10 of those students now are employed so as you can see within about a week's time most of folks that were trained went to work in some capacity and the other because they learned a lot of skills in general. Not just remodel skills but portable skills for other jobs. Not only is the green job about construction but according to Smutz, the opposite is now becoming a green job. SMUTZ: One of the things we are focusing on is what we used to call demolition but what a lot of your lead certified contractors are now doing is they're calling it deconstruction. We had one contractor in Montana take down an old bank building so they could replace it and he actually recycled 90% of the materials. The training program continues to expand into not only the Native American tribes but all across the nation. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.