Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas has been announced as one of 16 agencies across the country to be awarded a Brownfield Job Training Grant. The Workforce Alliance will use the $500,000 in grant funding across two years to help recruit, train and place workers for community remediation and restoration projects.
– The job training will be in key environmental areas, including:
– Lead and asbestos abatement
– Hazardous waste operations and emergency response
– Mold remediation
– Environmental sampling and analysis and
– Other environmental health and safety training
Individuals typically graduate from the program with a variety of certifications that improve their marketability and help ensure that employment opportunities are not just temporary contractual work, but long-term environmental careers.
According to Jim Lawing, president and CEO of Workforce Alliance, the organization has a goal of training 90 people under the program, but he anticipates reading even more through the use of additional funding the organization has access to. Particular training programs to be offered will coincide with industry demand.
Individuals who complete the program will graduate with certifications that qualify them for skilled trades.
“These are pretty quick training programs. These could be two to six to eight weeks, and that person could be out and ready to earn money,” said Lawing, who projects program graduates could easily be hired for $19 to $20 per hour.
Lawing says the program will likely begin taking applications in March and that the program is open to anyone; with the funding used in an individualized way to help people “where they are.” Some of the money will be used to help remove barriers like childcare and transportation issues,
“Anyone is eligible. They just may be coming at us from a different angle,” said Lawing. “We may have to do a little more work with them upfront in order to get them where they need to be at the end, but definitely [the program is] open to anybody.”
The training program will be conducted locally by ISI, a national leader in environmental remediation that also offers environmental industry training and certification programs. Under the grant, participants will receive the training free of charge.
ISI may hire some of the employers, but there are other participating businesses who’ve agreed to interview individuals who complete the program but there are no guarantees for employment.
“We want to provide access, so it’s really going to be up to that individual to complete the training, to be ready to work, and then we will give them the opportunity,” said Lawing. “But I think with that kind of skill set they’ll be coming to the program with, employers will be hiring these folks pretty, pretty quickly.”
The Environmental Protection Agency supports the training program because it helps develop local workforces needed to tackle and mitigate critical environmental issues in local communities.
Since 1998, EPA has awarded 430 Brownfield Job Training grants totaling more than $113 million. With these grants, 23,400+ individuals have completed training, and 17400 individuals have been placed in careers related to land remediation and environmental health and safety.
Over the last five years, the average starting wage for these individuals is approximately $23 per hour.
With funding from the Biden Administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, funding for the training program has more than doubled during the past few years.
