Oakland plugs into clean tech as job generator

San Francisco Business Times – June 22, 2007
by Ron Leuty

When Van Jones gazes out at Oakland, he sees green — a green economy fed by growing clean-tech companies and Oakland residents trained to build wind farms, install solar panels or weatherize windows.

At the same time, said Jones, who helped draft a plan to develop a Green Jobs Corps for the city, Oakland can become a worldwide leader in tying together the environment, the economy and social justice.

On June 19, the Oakland City Council earmarked $250,000 for the program assembled by the Oakland Apollo Alliance and supported by labor unions like the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The money could seed private contributions and federal job-training money, Jones said, to launch the program early next year.

The city’s money would come from a state settlement against energy companies following the brownouts of 2000 and 2001.

“It signals that Oakland is ready,” said Jones, president of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. “This could be a signature program, not just another handout.”

Oakland is in a unique position, he said: It is in the heart of the clean-tech movement, which venture capital firms have flooded with millions of dollars, and it has a potential workforce of currently unemployed young people.

Oakland’s unemployment rate was 6.8 percent in April, according to the California Employment Development Department. That compares with 4.4 percent for the Oakland-Fremont-Hayward metropolitan area and 3.8 percent in San Francisco.

“If you teach a kid to put up solar panels, he’s on course to be an (electrician),” Jones said. “That’s a green pathway out of poverty. It’s good for the environment and it’s good for a kid’s long-term career.”

The program could dovetail, he said, with Mayor Ron Dellums’ push for sustainable jobs.

“Oakland can lead the way in showing how to build a green economy that is strong enough to pull people out of poverty,” Jones said.

The cost of training young adults for the jobs, Jones estimated, would range from $2,000 to $9,000 — lower for those who are job-ready; higher for those who need help with transportation, child care or classroom basics.

“That’s going to take some real discussion and real work,” Jones said. “We need to make sure the curriculum is appropriate for that employer.”

Jones suggested the program should start small and build on the success of a half-dozen Green Jobs Corps participants.

“We don’t want to flood the market with training but no employment,” Jones said.

Besides ponying up cash to seed the program, Jones said the city could help attract potential employers to Oakland by creating green enterprise zones that could promise a tax credit for each new hire from the Green Jobs Corps.

One of the questions city officials must answer is whether the green-clean boom is a long-term boon, said Dan Lindheim, the city’s director of budget and policy. There may be a shortage of solar power system installers now, for example, but there could be a glut in five years.

“Clearly, the green industry is a growth industry, but that’s from a low base,” Lindheim said. “And what is the potential for large quantities of jobs?”

That said, the city is interested in “exploring and exploiting” ways of capitalizing on the green wave, he said, including the use of enterprise zones.

Green technology is one of the cluster groups coming out of the economic summit hosted last month by Mayor Dellums and the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

The green cluster group will meet within two weeks, Lindheim said. Other groups are focusing on trade and logistics.

“It’s only a six-month process, but we hope to have immediate impacts,” Lindheim said.