Green Jobs New Focus for Contractors

Weatherization a key area for stimulus funds

BY KATHERINE YUNG
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

On a recent weekday morning at the Focus: HOPE complex in Detroit, Mark Brisker was nailing shingles to a makeshift roof, undergoing training for one of the most popular new green jobs in the country.

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The 51-year-old Detroit resident hopes to become a weatherization specialist. That's a fancy-sounding name for someone who installs energy-saving products in homes, such as insulation and low-flow shower heads.

"I'm always looking for something cutting-edge," said Brisker, who recently returned to his native city after losing his job as a chemical plant operator in Georgia. "This is the shape of things to come."

Weatherization specialist is one of the major new jobs expected to be created from the federal stimulus package. Getting unemployed Michiganders back on their feet doing this work not only lowers the heating bills for the state's lower-income residents but also helps the environment.

So far, though, thousands of Michigan homes are still waiting for energy conservation improvements. But with nearly $250 million heading to the state for this purpose, building contractors are expected to need hundreds of weatherization specialists.

In Detroit alone, at least 300 of these kinds of jobs should be available in coming months, said Christopher Pratt, a workforce trainer at WARM Training Center, a nonprofit organization in the city.

He has been teaching weatherization-specialist training classes at Focus: HOPE. So far, 31 people have completed the program, which was started by Henry Ford Community College.

"There's money out there to be spent on making homes more energy efficient," Pratt said.
Training to heat up

Nine months after the economic stimulus package went into effect promising thousands of new green jobs, only a small number of Michiganders have been trained to go into homes and make them more energy efficient. But that's likely to change in coming months.


Efforts to teach residents the skills needed to become weatherization specialists are expected to intensify, just as the state starts to unleash the millions it has received for home energy-conservation improvements.

http://www.freep.com/article/20091122/BUSINESS06/911220469/1002/Business/Green-jobs-are-built-for-the-future