A new initiative is underway in Franklin County aimed at fostering local careers in weatherization work while supporting Massachusetts\u2019 clean energy goals.<\/p>\n
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has awarded a total of $925,000 in grants to support a collaboration between Community Action Pioneer Valley and Greenfield Community College, designed to grow the local pool of trained weatherization technicians and crew leaders.<\/p>\n
Under the plan, GCC has been granted $175,000 to deliver the instruction through its workforce development division. Community Action, a nonprofit that assists low-income residents, will receive $750,000 to offer an eight-week training program for weatherization technicians and a two-week course for crew chiefs. The first training cohort is expected to begin in June.<\/p>\n
Participants must be 18 or older and meet income eligibility criteria set by Community Action. Through hands-on learning in outdoor settings such as storage trailers, tents and actual homes, students will learn to identify and seal air leaks, apply insulation using tools like insulation blowers and perform other weatherization tasks.<\/p>\n
Samantha Wood, Director of Strategic Innovation in GCC\u2019s Workforce Development program noted the practical classroom setup: \u201cIt\u2019s a lot messier than a classroom.\u201d Peter Wingate, Energy Director and Weatherization Specialist at Community Action Pioneer Valley, described the nature of the work as \u201creal dirt under the fingernails\u201d weatherization work\u2014a hands-on craft that involves physically improving building performance.<\/p>\n
Wingate noted that training local workers in weatherization and heat-pump installation could reduce service costs and expand access. \u201cWe see a link between clean energy and affordable energy \u2026 so our role is to make sure that as this is being done that people with lower incomes can afford the energy bill and have access to being part of this clean energy movement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Local contractors have reported a shortage of trained weatherization workers to meet demand. Lisa Lapierre of Community Action emphasized the dual purpose of the initiative, explaining \u201cCommunity Action is the region\u2019s anti-poverty agency, so one of the best ways to help end poverty is employment \u2026 it\u2019s a perfect meeting of two separate goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Program leaders said the training could serve as a launchpad into a career path that includes roles like HVAC technician or crew supervision. Discussing the long-term possibilities of the program, Wingate speculated \u201cEnergy efficiency is not going to go away, sustainability is not going to go away \u2026 there is a possibility of a true career ladder that can start with this training program.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new initiative is underway in Franklin County aimed at fostering local careers in weatherization work while supporting Massachusetts\u2019 clean energy goals. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center has awarded a total of $925,000 in grants to support a collaboration between Community Action Pioneer Valley and Greenfield Community College, designed to grow the local pool of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4307,"featured_media":4558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11],"class_list":["post-4557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-train"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4307"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4559,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions\/4559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gcc.mass.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}