State, businesses work to foster green-sector growth

 
You know all those “green jobs” that are supposed to come to Michigan? Any day now? Well, they’re coming, according to state officials. Really, they are. But, they say, there’s a kind of “chicken and egg” problem going on. The few companies that are creating these green jobs say there are not enough workers around here trained in how to run these new, green industries.

There are a great many unemployed engineers in Michigan, but few who know how to build hybrid and electric engines. And what about wind turbines? Anybody know how to build them?

So, Michigan is spending about $6 million aimed at not only retraining workers for all those green jobs, but it will attempt to quickly play matchmaker between companies that need certain skills and the retrained workers who have them.

But if you ask Marcia S. Black-Watson, a deputy director at the Michigan Bureau of Workforce Transformation, the value is much more than $6 million.

“Schools are dedicating their facilities, employers are offering their facilities, equipment,” she said in a recent interview. “Everybody has a stake in the game. The $6 million is purely what the state has set aside to help with this effort. But that by no means equates with the value.”

The program, known as the Green Sector Skills Alliances, involves accelerating worker training and agreements between educational institutions, the Big Three, Tier One suppliers and other companies. Accelerated education programs are set up to train them and place them in companies as soon as possible.

Andrew Levin, who is deputy director of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic Growth, is in charge of the state’s No Worker Left Behind job retraining program.

“This is a chicken-and-egg problem,” Levin said. “You can’t go and train people in a generic way for green jobs. You know, quote-unquote green jobs. That’s not real. On the other hand, you can’t just sit back and wait and say, ‘OK, well, when some company with 10,000 employees is manufacturing thousands of huge wind turbines each year, then we’ll help train them.’ Because you’ll be a drag on the development. You have to get in there and be a catalyst. And that’s what we’re trying to do, is be a catalyst for growth of these different green sectors.”

What got the program rolling, Levin said, was a request by Ricardo Engineering, a British company that recently set up a battery center in Michigan. They told the governor’s office that it needs trained hybrid engineers. Turned out, so did a number of other auto industry suppliers. “It ended up being an industry-wide need.”

The result is what is being called the “Michigan Academy for Green Mobility,” which is expected to train about 200 engineers over the next year in an accelerated program. The jobs are waiting for them on the other side, says Black-Watson.

“So, we’re doing it sector by sector, wherever there is demonstrated employer leadership,” Levin says. “It’s all business driven, really.”

The next industry to take advantage of the program is tool and dye. Hard hit by the automotive downturn, what is left of the the tool and dye industry is still largely centered in Michigan. Recognizing the need to diversify, the state was initially approached by Laurie Schmald Moncrieff, president of Schmald Tool & Die Inc. in Burton.

“She came to us and said, ‘We need help,’ ” Levin said. By “we,” he means tool and dye companies employing anywhere from five to 40 people — all small companies.

Black-Watson said the Michigan Emerging Market Skills Alliance was created to get tool and dye workers “upskilled” into industries such as solar and wind. She is helping to create an organization that puts together a menu of opportunities for tool and dye workers. Anytime, they can send a few employees to get quick training from, for example, auto parts to solar panels.

“Where people want to play, we want to bring them together to try to jump-start the workforce,” she said.

“We can’t just depend on one car company or car companies in general,” Levin said. “We have to get into homeland security, into defense, into wind turbine manufacturing. We think that wind turbine manufacturing is not done up to latest manufacturing technology and so we think we can help.”