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Workforce Training for the Green Economy
Green Industry Forum, June 2008
SFCC President Sheila Ortego established an inaugural forum to launch the college's Sustainable Technologies Center (STC) to help meet the immediate and mid-range workforce training needs in the green business and industry sectors in New Mexico and the Southwest.
Workforce Training for the Green Economy brought together industry leaders from renewable energy, smart grid, green building and environmental technologies to directly inform SFCC's expansion and green energy curricula to meet industry’s fast-emerging workforce needs.
Initiatives
A select group of industry leaders participated in the forum, which began with a keynote address by Ed Mazria, founder and leader of Architecture 2030. Ed presented an overview of 2030's most recent research and planning initiative. The 2030 Blueprint revealed that an investment of $21.6 billion nationally toward building energy efficiency would replace 22.3 conventional coal-fired plants, reduce CO2 emissions by 86.7 MMT, save 204 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 10.7 million barrels of oil, save consumers $8.46 billion in energy bills and create 216,000 new jobs.
The forum's program consisted of a series of succinct presentations by content specialists in energy generation, smart-grid, green building, manufacturing and biofuels production. Facilitated breakout sessions identified workforce training, technology and development requirements.
Workforce Training for the Green Economy helped the Sustainable Technologies Center establish its next generation of training in step with industry's actual needs. The forum began a peer relationship between business and industry and SFCC to ensure the college remains responsive to continually evolving workforce needs.
Results and Findings
The results of the information gathering from the Industry Forum in June 2008 are found below in Word documents.
For more information, please contact Randy Grissom, Director, Sustainable Technologies Center , (505) 428-1641, randy.grissom@sfcc.edu.