Contact

Kenneth J. Schlather
Executive Director
(607) 272-2292 ext 125
ks47@cornell.edu

Cornell Cooperative Extension
Tompkins County
615 Willow Avenue
Ithaca, NY 14850-3555
(607) 272-2292
tompkins@cornell.edu

Home » Energy » Workforce Development

Workforce Development

Market Demand

"A new customer who participated in your program called yesterday and now wants to go-ahead with an audit! They were motivated and asked informed questions - we didn’t have to convince them the value of the whole-house approach. Thank you for educating our customer base!"
– BPI contractor

Look below for a list of things you can do to help develop a skilled workforce of energy contractors! You will also find strategies to overcome common barriers listed below. Educational materials and resources to help you are located in the column on the right.

What Can You Do?

  • Identify home contractors in your community with an interest in becoming certified by the Building-Performance Institute (BPI) and tell them about the new certification program at Tompkins Cortland Community College.
  • Distribute information about workforce development opportunities to residents interested in energy efficiency, including information about employment training, career counseling, and job referral services.
  • Support small business development and workers cooperatives to enter the energy efficiency field.
  • Pilot a workforce training program that discounts BPI certification costs for contractors.
  • Come up with your own idea, and share it with us at tecc.energy@gmail.com. 

Obstacles?

Potential Barriers:

Successful Strategies:
  • Shortage of skilled workers and entrepreneurs to expand weatherization and efficiency programs on a community scale
  • Lack of widely accessible and locally-offered training
  • Lack of placement, training, and advancement opportunities for apprentice labor, journeypersons, crew leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs
  • Lack of integrated curricula among existing community colleges, vocational-technical schools, universities, and continuing education
  • Subsidized occupational skills training with classroom, online, hands-on, and on-the-job instruction
  • Partnerships with community colleges, vocational-technical institutions, and continuing education programs
  • Added-skill re-training programs targeted to construction trades
  • Construction trade apprenticeship programs
  • Training-to-work programs
  • Train-the-trainer workshops
  • Collaborations to integrate components of green jobs workforce development pipeline

Last Updated: August 20, 2010