Labor Department includes Women in green jobs training initiatives report

Labor Department releases report on green jobs training initiatives

DOL EARTH DAY 2010 REPORT

http://www.dol.gov/dol/green/earthday_reportA.pdf

This Earth Day, the U.S. Department of Labor is turning green jobs into golden opportunities safely by working with its community, labor and industry partners to prepare the workforce for high growth fields while building a greener planet. The Labor Department today released a report to demonstrate the programs being supported to promote green job growth. Additionally, the department is launching a campaign called "Turning Green to Gold, Safely" to collect stories from the public about how contributions have been made to green job creation. Entries will be submitted online at http://www.dol.gov over the next year and they will be featured in a best practices guide on Earth Day 2011.

"A changing job market and the evolving clean energy economy are creating new and exciting prospects for workers. At the U.S. Department of Labor, we will continue our efforts to ensure men and women across the nation have the tools they need to access these opportunities," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "Turning green to gold — with a constant focus on safety — just makes sense. It means jobs that have livable wages, safe working conditions and worker protections."

Over the past year, the Department of Labor has launched a series of initiatives to support and promote green job creation. Highlights from today's report appear below. To view the full report, visit
http://www.dol.gov/dol/green/earthday_reportA.pdf.

Greening DOL Headquarters and Beyond — The Labor Department has signaled a challenge to "green" its buildings, including its nearly 2 million square foot headquarters, the Frances Perkins Building in Washington, D.C. The department's Job Corps programs and students are also greening the buildings on 123 Job Corps campuses nationwide.

Greening Recovery Act Funds — The Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration has awarded $490 million in American Reinvestment and Recovery Act-funded green jobs training and $227 million in health care and high growth grants, which included several grants related to clean energy.

Not Just Green, but Safe — The Labor Department's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, alongside its Employment and Training Administration, is leading a department-wide team to assist all of the agencies in coordinating their efforts to secure access to safe and sustainable green jobs for all workers.

Women and Green Jobs — In 2009, the department's Women's Bureau convened more than 30 roundtables across the country to discuss the role of women in green jobs and, as a result, developed nine green jobs training projects for women. The bureau has partnered with key groups to develop a "Women's Guide to Green Jobs" to be released this summer.

Vets and Green Jobs — In 2009, the department's Veterans Employment and Training Services issued the first training grants through its Veterans Workforce Investment Program designed to train and place veterans in green jobs and industries. The second competition of this type is now open.

Green Job Opportunities for People with Disabilities — The department's Office of Disability Employment Policy hosted a roundtable in December 2009 titled "Strategies for Including People with Disabilities in the Green Jobs Talent Pipeline." The roundtable united leaders to develop recommendations to ensure that people with disabilities have local green job opportunities.

Job Corps, Youth and Green — Building on Recovery Act funds for construction, rehabilitation, acquisition and operations, Job Corps has implemented "green" student training programs and commenced construction projects at more than 65 centers, helping to create and retain jobs. Job Corps is also conducting an Earth Day Every Day campaign from April 19 through 23 to raise environmental awareness among students nationwide.

http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/24199/Labor-Department-green-jobs

Carpenters get college credit for apprentice work

NAILING A DEGREE

Carpenters get credit for apprentice work

BY JONATHAN BALTHASER
SPECIAL TO THE DAILY NEWS

Monday, April 12th 2010, 4:43 PM

Alex Johnson doesn't crumble working under often brutal conditions, erecting walls, joining girders and welding steel as a carpenter.

But his first day of college terrified him.

"I was scared as hell," said the 33-year-old Bronx resident. "I didn't think I could do it."

Johnson enrolled last September in a special two-year-old program organized through the New York City District Council of Carpenters that helps members earn associate's and bachelor's degrees.

Students take classes in Tribeca at the State University of New York 's Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies, a program that focuses on educating trade workers.

Carpenters always have been able to attend the school. But now apprenticeship classes taken at the Council of Carpenters Labor Technical College count for as much as 32 college credits, so most students matriculate with half of their degree already completed.

"The incentive of the 32 credits was huge," said Johnson, a carpenter for the past 11 years. "In my eyes, it would be stupid for me not to do it. If I'm giving it to you on a silver platter and you don't take it, that's dumb."

Mike Merrill, the dean of the Van Arsdale Center, said it was high time that technical colleges received college accreditation.

"Wage earners are disadvantaged in that their apprenticeship programs don't usually count for college credit," said Merrill. "Dancers and painters, for instance, their work is recognized. I don't see the difference, except in ideology."

The carpenters union is getting each of its apprenticeship programs evaluated for college credit by the National Program on Noncollegiate Sponsored Instruction, a state-run group that accredits educational programs conducted by noncollegiate organizations.

The millwrighting, cabinetmaking, and building and construction carpentry programs have been approved. College credit will soon be considered for dockbuilders, piledrivers, and timbermen.

The carpenters union is making a concentrated push to educate more of its members.

"The union movement needs college-educated leaders at all levels, including the rank-and-file. It cannot effectively represent or be advocates for the interest of working people and their families without confident, articulate, well-educated leaders who know who they are, what they believe in, and what they have to do to secure their fair share," union promotional material states.

So far, 30 students have enrolled in the program, and the first is set to graduate with a bachelor's degree in June.
At the Van Arsdale campus, carpenters take a range of general education courses, including several that focus specifically on the history of the labor movement.

"You go to college not to leave the union, but to lead it," Merrill said.
Like all other college students, one of the greatest burdens for carpenters is financial.

Classes at SUNY cost $207 per credit, so tuition will set back students at least $6,600. The carpenters union currently does not offer scholarships.
Johnson made it through his first day of school, and now says the associate's degree he's pursuing is just the first step of his college education. After he graduates, he is interested in construction management or becoming a union organizer.

"When I'm done, I'm going to continue to go to school," he said. "I'm going to go all the way. Maybe Ph.D. Go for it. Why the hell not?

"My biggest mistake was putting a limit on myself."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/bronx/2010/04/12/2010-04-12_nailing_a_degree.html

Labor Unions partner to start Green Training Program- Massachusetts

'Green' trades jobs await training
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
By JIM KINNEY
Business writer

The Labor/Management Workplace Education Program, Carpenters Local 108, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 7 and other organized labor groups received $180,000 in federal stimulus money recently to start the program. It's part of $1 million in federal stimulus money the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development gave to six construction-trade training programs around the state.

SPRINGFIELD - Classes in a "green" building trades program run by UMass, area labor unions and contractors, won't begin for months, but organizers already have jobs or slots in more advanced apprenticeship programs lined up for 19 graduates.

"Our joint apprenticeship partners are optimistic," said Joseph F. Connolly, director of the Labor/Management Workplace Education Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

If the Springfield training goes well, Connolly said the Workplace Education Program would like to expand it to Holyoke, Amherst, Greenfield, Pittsfield and Northampton.

The Labor/Management Workplace Education Program, Carpenters Local 108, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 7 and other organized labor groups received $180,000 in federal stimulus money recently to start the program. It's part of $1 million in federal stimulus money the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development gave to six construction-trade training programs around the state. Three of the other five projects are in the Boston area, one is in Fitchburg and another is in Lowell.

Also the state Department of Energy Resources has announced $13 million in federal stimulus funding for 111 cities and towns across the state.

In the Pioneer Valley, Belchertown received a $149,812 grant to make its fire station, Lawrence Memorial Hall and its water-reclamation facility more efficient to heat and cool, according to a news release from the state. Erving will get $81,000 for a similar project at Town Hall. Middlefield received $121,278, Otis received $150,000, Ware $53,137, and Sunderland received $97,000 for similar efficiency projects.

Charlemont, Conway, Deerfield, Gill, Greenfield, Leverett, Montague, Northampton, Palmer and Shelburne all received $150,000 to pay down the cost of performance contracts. Those contracts are those where vendors do energy audits, install money-saving equipment then generally get paid out of the savings, said Lisa Capone, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Energy Resources. With these payments, the towns will be able to keep more of their energy savings in the future, Capone said.

Shutesbury will receive $56,673 for a solar power project at Town Hall. Palmer received $18,722 to install a solar hot-water heater for the offices at the town wastewater treatment plant.

All those projects would be perfect one day for graduates of the UMass program, Connolly said.

"People can go right from this program to a job, or into an apprenticeship program," he said.

Connolly said the program hopes to recruit 24 students, focusing on people with low incomes, minorities and women, in Springfield. He expects that only 19 will graduate, though.

Training will be at various Springfield locations and will be 170 hours over 10 weeks covering everything from basic math to the latest in energy technology.

"For instance we want to bring people up to UMass, there are some great things going on at UMass when it comes to green construction research," he said.

Eduardo Suarez, director of ECHO for Sustainable Development, a nonprofit that is working on the project, said construction workers in these green businesses can expect to earn $13.50 to $25 an hour.

People interested in the training should contact Suarez at (413) 335-6224 or via e-mail director@echosd.org

Jim Kinney can be reached at jkinney@repub.com

http://www.masslive.com/hampfrank/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-25/1266999308286590.xml&coll=1

Road to GREEN JOBS: DEAD END, BLOCKED, AND NO OUTLET

Green Jobs Promise Broken?

Low-Income Workers Find Road to Green Jobs Tough Going

Equal Voice, News Analysis, Claudia Rowe, Posted: Feb 10, 2010

"A year ago I was one of those saying 'Wow, this is a huge opportunity. But it can be really disappointing to find out that even the best programs can't place half their graduates," Kim said. "I don’t want to be setting people up, training them for jobs that don’t exist."

By now, the drumbeat is impossible to ignore: Job, jobs, jobs. With one in 10 adults unemployed, President Obama had little choice but to highlight jobs during his Jan. 27 State of the Union address. He mentioned the term nearly 30 times during the hour-long speech.

But among people in low-income and minority communities – millions who had felt a surge of excitement at the president’s vow to use his $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for lifting families out of poverty – the president’s words are beginning to ring hollow. For them, the mantra has shifted and it sounds like this: Track, track, track.

Despite $500 million set aside to create “green jobs” for disadvantaged workers – including a program titled “Pathways Out of Poverty” – there is no method in place to monitor exactly where Recovery Act dollars have landed on the ground, and few requirements to ensure that low-income communities benefit. Furthermore, there never were.

“This is hardly the first time that poverty has been used as a rationalization to pass a government program which – when you read the fine print – doesn’t address poverty,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of the nonprofit watchdog group Good Jobs First. “It certainly goes to this issue of how can you tell the recovery is really benefitting those who need it most? Obviously you can’t.”

Central to the president’s stated vision for the Recovery Act was the notion that the new “green economy” – from wind turbine construction to home weatherization – would generate opportunities previously closed to the poor, and advocates like LeRoy jumped in fast, insisting that the government require states to provide data on the race, gender and residential ZIP codes of those receiving training or jobs. They also asked that employers be mandated to note employees’ work hours, pay per hour and whether health insurance benefits, if any, were included.

Not a single request was granted.

“Poverty is just the bait,” LeRoy said. “It may sound a little cynical, but that’s the truth.”

Requiring such information would be new terrain for the federal government, he acknowledged, though the complete lack of it suggests to him that all the talk about creating new pathways to prosperity was, well, just talk.

In Washington, D.C., officials appear flummoxed by the very notion of collecting such data.

“I don’t even know how you’d do that,” said Cheryl Arvidson, a spokeswoman for the administration’s Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.

Race and Jobs: Mum’s the Word
Social-policy experts, however, have been urging exactly this kind of tracking for months – and offering ways to put it in place.

“For us, the response has been just silence, kind of a wall of silence,” said Jason Reece, a senior researcher at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. “The administration is very shy about talking about race issues in particular, and a good way of not talking about race and marginalized groups is just don’t collect the data. It’s extremely frustrating.”

Last fall, the Kirwan Institute began to do some tracking of its own, and the results were dismal. Of $25 billion in federal stimulus funds distributed directly to private firms in transportation and defense, only $1.6 billion – just over 6 percent – went to black-, Latino-, or women-owned businesses. By January 2010, there share of the pie had dropped to 5 percent.

In Florida, where Kirwan researchers joined with activists at the Miami Workers Center to take a detailed look at the real-life effects of stimulus funding, results were similarly perplexing. Minority-owned firms received contracts worth only 12.6 percent of total value awarded in-state. And, of the 40 companies that won business funded by the Recovery Act, only four responded to Kirwan’s requests for data.

"There's this sense of desperation from local communities because they're not seeing the effects of the stimulus," said Matt Martin, a researcher with Kirwan, describing reaction to the institute's report.

And, the document noted: “Construction work tends to rely on exclusive networks. African Americans in particular have a hard time breaking into the business. This appears to be the case with the current stimulus-funded projects as well.”

Jobs are vital, of course, to reviving the economy as a whole and the estimated number of those created or saved by the Recovery Act ranges from 640,000 to 2 million, depending on who’s counting. But the notion of green jobs had been greeted as a potential godsend for families struggling against decades of entrenched poverty. A green economy could employ low-skilled workers in solid, family-wage jobs while simultaneously aiding the environment. It seemed like a win for everyone.

In Seattle, Michael Woo of the grassroots group Got Green spent last summer leading throngs of young people through blighted streets, showing them the possibilities inherent in every dilapidated home and broken rooftop.

“Everywhere they saw problems, the solution was a job – a green job,” Woo said.

He is not nearly so sure of that now.

Despite a Washington law directing that minority and low-income workers be included in Recovery Act spending, Woo – who was part of an Equal Voice coalition lobbying the state for equity – has seen little actual hiring and zero effort to track exactly who is being funneled into the jobs pipeline. Of the 10 would-be workers he selected for weatherization training, only one, Yirm Seck, found employment, and that lasted for a total of three weeks.

All Trained Up, But Nowhere to Go
The $20-an-hour job was nice while it lasted, said Seck, hired by a nonunion firm to weatherize homes in a leafy, upper-class area of Seattle. But it wasn’t quite what he’d hoped for.

“My expectations were that I’d complete the course, get certified and there would be avenues linking me to an actual job,” said Seck. “Instead, it’s ‘Hey, great, you’re certified, and, yes, there’s money here. But we can’t give you an actual date to start work.’”

Despite completing two years of college, Seck, 28, spends most of his time parenting a 3-year-old daughter while her mother supports the family by working at a Seattle supermarket. He is African American and has been without steady employment for more than two years.

“I thought the jobs program was a lot more organized,” Seck said. “But most of the people who went through those training classes still aren’t employed. I was one of the lucky few.”

The president championed a green economy to help the poor, but data from the Applied Research Center suggest that the field is “highly exclusionary.” A November 2009 report noted that blacks and Latinos – with poverty rates more than twice those of whites – are poorly represented among green workers. The disparities are even starker for women of color: Only 1.5 percent of black women were employed in green jobs. For Latinas, it was 1 percent.

“If you don’t recover the communities that have been hardest hit, there is not going to be a recovery,” said Hashim Benford, an organizer with Miami Workers Center. “We’d heard that there was going to be all this green jobs money. We had this concept of a jobs pipeline that would train people and link them up to employment. But from what I’ve seen nothing’s moving.”

There are bright spots: New Jersey, for example, requires that half of all weatherization projects be performed by workers from low-income communities. Portland, Ore., has similar mandates. And in Los Angeles, an ordinance passed last spring is expected to create at least 60 jobs for residents of low-income communities then retrofitting city building.

But such examples are few.

Green For All, a national nonprofit monitoring progress in this sector, examined energy-efficiency bills in 30 states and found fewer than a third targeted low-income communities or workers of color.

“Frankly speaking, sometimes people don’t care about the demographics – they just want to get the jobs out there,” said Vien Truong, a policy analyst with the group. “In Oakland, we have an unemployment rate of 18 percent, so it’s ‘Create green jobs – check.’”

In the Deep South, few state policymakers are even talking about racial realities behind the Recovery Act.

“Jobs for our community?” said Leroy Johnson, executive director of the Mississippi civil rights group Southern Echo. “It’s not working at all. It was all good thoughts and good policy. The problem is, it’s been left in the hands of governors. Where you have good governors, maybe you have a shot.”

Johnson says his suggestion to get black workers certified for road building through apprenticeship programs was simply waved away.

Elsewhere, trainers continue to reach out and encourage the hopeful-and-unemployed. But the longer this goes on without a job at the finish line, the more worried community organizers become.

Ian Kim, director of the Green Collar Jobs Campaign at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, suspects there is already a glut of workers trained and ready to install solar paneling, for example, while projects to employ them linger far behind.

“A year ago I was one of those saying ‘Wow, this is a huge opportunity. But it can be really disappointing to find out that even the best programs can’t place half their graduates," Kim said. "I don’t want to be setting people up, training them for jobs that don’t exist.”

http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=16018537780e410a2e51eccb036c08f0

United Brotherhood of Carpenters accept 14 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships

Partnership to provide green-jobs training for R.I. workers

01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, February 9, 2010

By Philip Marcelo

Journal Staff Writer

United Brotherhood of Carpenters: accept 14 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships; offer green training to 150 apprentices and 100 journeymen.

PROVIDENCE — A $3.72-million federal stimulus grant awarded to the Providence Plan, a local nonprofit organization focused on social and economic advancement, will help pay for green jobs training for about 1,600 Rhode Islanders.

The “Energy Training Partnership” was developed by Providence Plan, local building trade unions, private construction companies and state and city government. It is focused on improving entry-level work-force skills in the state’s poorest urban communities.

The plan targets energy-efficient construction and retrofits and renewable electric power, two industries expected to get a boost in the coming years.

According to the grant application approved by the federal Department of Labor and Training, about $1.4 million of the grant will go to the Providence Plan to finance Building Futures, its program to help low-income urban residents gain the skills needed to enter the building and construction trades. That includes about $103,000 to convert a warehouse space in Olneyville into a training facility for Building Futures.

Another $1.8 million will go to at least six trade unions in the state. The remaining money will go to the state Association of General Contractors, $128,000, and another $261,124 will be set aside for other unions that want to develop green jobs training and job-placement programs in the future.

State leaders, including Governor Carcieri, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin, were on hand Monday at the headquarters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Cranston to announce the start of the green-jobs training programs next month.

According to the grant application, these unions have agreed to provide these targets over the life of the two-year federal allocation:

•Laborers International Union of North America: accept 20 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships; offer green training to 60 apprentices and 250 journeymen.

•International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers: accept 15 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships; offer green training to 180 apprentices and 200 journeymen.

•United Brotherhood of Carpenters: accept 14 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships; offer green training to 150 apprentices and 100 journeymen.

•Ironworkers Union: accept 18 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships; offer green training to 100 apprentices and 100 journeymen.

•United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters: accept 10 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships; offer green training to 100 apprentices and 90 journeymen.

•International Union of Painters and Allied Trades: accept 8 Building Futures graduates into union apprenticeships; offer green training to 50 apprentices and 100 journeymen.

pmarcelo@projo.com

http://www.projo.com/news/content/BUILDING_FUTURES_GRANT_02-09-10_9SHD261_v11.38abebb.html

Woman-Owned Contractor helps train apprentices in energy efficient building -Muskegon

Training program in Muskegon guarantees paid jobs in energy efficient building techniques

By Teresa Taylor Williams | Muskegon Chroni...

January 26, 2010, 5:05AM

Photos by Darren Breen | The Muskegon Chronicle Tom O'Brien, director of the Business and Industrial Center at Muskegon Community College left, and Phyllis Watson-Loudermill, co-owner of HER COmpany right, are part of a cooperative venture to train students in energy efficient building techniques. The first building the carpentry apprentices will work on is an old Huntington Bank building at 43 W. Laketon Avenue.

MUSKEGON HEIGHTS - Talonda Sullivan, 34, of Muskegon Heights is a recently unemployed machinist who would like to be a skilled electrician to help support her three children.

Marquis Brewer, 20, recently transferred from Kalamazoo Valley Community College to Muskegon Community College and believes if he learns a construction trade, he can get a “good job” and help his mother.

Muskegon’s Jeff Ross, 48, was laid off from Resource Industries in October 2008 and hasn’t found work since.

Recently, the three students embarked on a new career training apprenticeship program they hope will open more doors of job opportunities. Unlike most other local training programs, it assures a paid spot in a two-year construction apprenticeship with HER COmpany, a unionized construction company, after completing the required nine weeks of training.

This is key, according to HER COmpany owner Phyllis Watson-Loudermill.

“The tool we want to give is the ability to sustain themselves. What we’re doing is providing the training ground,” she said. “We want to build a workforce.”

The ongoing program runs for a total of two years, and begins with a nine-week class at Muskegon Heights Workforce Development Center, 160 E. Barney. Pupils get a crash course in everything from math and computer skills to basic carpentry, under instructors from Muskegon Community College.

The emphasis is in the areas of ECAR, or Energy Conservation Apprenticeship Readiness, and RCAR, Road Construction Apprenticeship Readiness. Afterward, students are placed in on-the-job training with Watson-Loudermill’s company.

“Typically, there’s a low success rate after the completion of these programs because there are not employers willing to take a risk with the students,” said Watson-Loudermill.

To qualify for the program, screened applicants must:

• Be unemployed with a high school diploma or equivalent;
• Have a valid driver’s license;
• Agree to completing a medical physical in addition to random drug tests.

Students are predominantly the disenfranchised, minorities and women — groups which tend to be underrepresented in the construction trades in the Muskegon area, according to partner Gloria White Gardner, longtime community civil rights activist and owner of G.W. Gardner and Associates Consulting.
Contractor Ed Meldler clears up insulation at the old Huntington bank building at 43 W. Laketon Ave. in preparation for the arrival of carpentry apprentices who will renovate it into an energy-efficient office.
The program has great potential and is long overdue, she said.

For More Information

To inquire about the program, e-mail greeneco@yahoo.com.

“Urban core neighborhoods have become the areas of concentrated poverty and often residents turn to crime and drugs,” she said. “Although many young men have had classes during high school, none of this training has been enough to provide them with the skills needed to access on-the-job training to enter the work market with a certification; or enabled them to become journeymen with the unions.

“A cycle of hopelessness and feelings of disenfranchisement continues with another generation of young men and women who truly seek employment, yet find themselves without the education that would qualify them to work in our current construction trades arena.”

The apprenticeship is made possible through federal and state grants from the Michigan Department of Labor, Energy and Economic Growth and Michigan Works with partnerships with schools and other public and private entities.

ECAR is designated by the state to serve applicants from Muskegon Heights, which it deemed a “City of Promise.” RCAR is for eligible participants from both Muskegon and Muskegon Heights, said Judy Kell, interim manager at the county’s Department of Employment and Training.

Collaboration and partnership, according to Watson-Loudermill, were crucial to getting this off the ground.

The effort is a community effort and a natural fit for Muskegon Community College, said Tom O’Brien, director of MCC’s Lakeshore Business and Industrial Service Center.

“This involves city government, the educational system, and other parts of the community on so many levels, so this is a big deal,” said O’Brien. “We can do all the training we want, but if there’s no place to go for employment, the training won’t pay off, but that is what Phyllis is providing through her company.

“The construction trades are a little flat right now, but my projection is by the end of 2010, there will be a pretty good need for this area in the job market,” he said.

Other partners include Muskegon County, Muskegon/Oceana Consortium-Michigan Works, Muskegon Construction Company, WayPoint Academy, Muskegon Public Schools, the city of Muskegon, G.W. Gardner & Associates Consulting, Constructive Community Builders in Benton Harbor, local unions, and a male mentoring program called Iamgodsson (I am God’s son).

Kell said there is no other program in this field nor this area that offers a paid apprenticeship of this kind.

“It is important because it targets residents of both cities, minorities and women, to get in nontraditional fields and develop expertise in these areas,” Kell said.

Watson-Loudermill has envisioned this program for the past several years.

In 2003-04, she was involved in a similar effort. White Gardner and Trinity Village Nonprofit Housing Corporation sponsored a pre-apprenticeship program initiative for construction trades in which Watson’s company was a partner and collaborator for on-the-job training at several sites. The program was sponsored by Gary Post and Muskegon Construction Company, the Community Foundation for Muskegon County and the University of Miami.

Co-owner and partner Renee Rasberry, who also is co-owner of Rasberry Bail Bonding Agency in Grand Rapids and Muskegon, said she, Watson-Loudermill and White Gardner are willing to help all they can — from an encouraging word to a ride to resume help — to ensure success for the students.

“The whole idea is to share your gifts with someone else. That is the foundation of what we’re doing,” said Rasberry.

Ross, who is single with no children, is glad to leave machinist work and temporary jobs behind, though his company has called back some workers.

Some workers are being called back, but Ross had rather learn a new skill.

“I’m not interested in going back. I don’t want to make $8.50 an hour at this point in my life,” he said. Ross said he is ready to try something new.

“We just have to see where it goes from here,” he said. “I’m ready for the last career of my life, I hope.”

E-mail: ttwilliams@muskegonchronicle.com

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2010/01/apprenticeship_program_in_musk.html