A Green Brick Road to Renewable Jobs

There’s a man who sits in front of his computer developing reports about renewable resources, charting a green brick-road leading to jobs and a possibly new relationship to our futures in this cash-strapped state of California. He shuttles between offices at the City College of San Francisco and his home in the Laurel District of California, rarely deflected from his goal, a man who has dedicated his career to workforce development and dislocated worker training and counseling. Fortunately for me, sometimes this slender bearded man takes a break to lunch on garlic potato soup and toasted baguettes at a café near 16th Street in San Francisco where I met John Carrese, Center Director of Centers of Excellence. The Centers of Excellence, delivers regional workforce research for community college decision-making and resource development. Reports and their statistics help the community colleges to justify new course offerings. But they can help you too. The Centers are funded through Economic and Workforce Development, and like many other offices these days, has recently experienced budget cuts. Fortunately, Carrese continues at the helm. Here’s where to find the reports. If you’re wondering how to restructure your careers, you may find these a valuable information resource. To look at reports for specific green industries go to www.coeccc.net and enter a backslash with entries of green, solar, energy or wind after the initial url. For example: www.coeccc.net/energy Also take a look at www.baccc.net for a summary of upcoming conferences and professional development opportunities at community colleges throughout the state. EDD (Employment Development Department) has been busy also researching where the green venture capital is going and on what industries people are betting. Check out http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov and also http://www.cleanedge.com/. “The intersection of new jobs and technology applied to real problems makes this work compelling to me,” Carrese said. Go John. We need more programs and people like you. Lenore Weiss http://techtabletalk.posterous.com/

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