'n Jacksonville, Environmental Training
Offers a World of New Opportunities
With help from an EPA grant, Florida State College at Jacksonville compiles a wealth
of local resources to create a program that changes lives and neighborhoods
w.
Jacksonville, Florida
ithin the heart of the City of Jacksonville, Florida lies a
federally-designated Empowerment Zone, where neighborhoods
are littered with abandoned and underused property and nearly 40
percent of residents live below the poverty level. With more than
12,000 acres of identified brownfields—more than any other city
in Florida—Jacksonville has been working to return its idle sites
to productive use; the city received EPA Brownfields Assessment
grants in 1997 and 2003, and a Brownfields Revolving Loan Fund
grant for site cleanup in 1999. Those grants enabled more than
120 environmental assessments and leveraged over $2 million
in cleanup and redevelopment funding, generating momentum
for continued assessment, cleanup and site reuse. These efforts
have created a higher-than-average demand for workers trained in
environmental cleanup in Jacksonville.
Recognizing that need, Florida State College at Jacksonville
(FSCJ) applied for a Brownfields Job Training grant from EPA and
received a $500,000 award in September 2009 under the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The College partnered with
local, nonprofit organizations to carry out student recruitment and
retention strategies, and with other area entities, including private-
sector environmental firms, to implement the course curricula.
FSCJ's Job Training program features 17 different courses,
covering 270 hours over a seven-week schedule. Students are
trained in areas that include OSHA Hazardous Waste Operations
and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER), environmental
sampling and analysis, deconstruction and debris removal, lead
and asbestos abatement, and confined space entry. To complement
existing trends, the program offers a focus on "green" remediation
techniques as well as traditional cleanup methods, ensuring that
cleanup is sustainable and will be safe for both the community and
environment in the long term. To round out this environmental
focus, the curriculum includes training in general brownfields
issues and community redevelopment, CPR and first aid, math and
computer skills, and job interview and work-life skills.
February 2010 graduates of FSCJ's Environmental Job
Training program assemble outside of their training facility.
JUST THE FACTS:
• FSCJ partnered with local nonprofit
organizations to actively recruit
candidates for job training in a
number of ways.
• The program's curriculum includes
expert training volunteered from
environmental consulting firms, as
well as the local Small Business
Association and the Jacksonville
Housing Authority.
• Training offers an emphasis on
"green" remediation methods
including phytoremediation,
bioremediation, green
deconstruction, and xeriscaping.
FSCJ's
first job training
course graduated 22 of the
24 students selected,
a retention rate of more
than 90 percent.
continued
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To recruit committed candidates in an area rife with unemployment and poverty, FSCJ enlisted the
help of local partners such as Jacksonville Youth Works, a nonprofit that helps at-risk youth receive
job training in fields like construction and skilled labor; FreshMinistries, Inc., a multi-faith, nonprofit
humanitarian organization; and WorkSource, an agency that provides workforce-related services in
six Florida counties. These entities worked diligently to inform the public about the Job Training
program's availability—handing out informational flyers and program applications, setting up booths
at area grocery stores, holding informational sessions at community centers, and even going door-to-
door in some neighborhoods. The result was nearly 200 applications for a class limited to 24 students
per training round.
Per the requirements of EPA's grant, FSCJ's program (which includes multiple training rounds over
a three-year period) must keep at least 134 of its expected 170 graduates employed for at least a
year, which meant that their application process had to select candidates that were fully committed.
"We go through a rigorous screening process," explained Pamela Scherer, Manager of the FSCJ
Job Training Program. "We look for neatness and attention to detail in the application itself and
conduct multiple interviews with every candidate. We also perform adult education testing, criminal
background checks, and drug screenings. By the time we're finished we're confident that an
applicant is committed to the program."
^^^^ One of the 24 students selected for FSCJ's first round of EPA-funded training was
Michael Smith, a 47-year old father of a baby girl. Smith had been looking for
Four students work for more than a year. "I had sent out 227 resumes and gotten nowhere,"
were hired immediately Smith relates. "There were so many people out there wanting jobs... I was
after graduation, and FSCJ competing with everyone who had access to the Internet."
is working with local
partners to find jobs for Smith's luck changed when he spoke with a member of his church choir
all of the program's who was also a representative from a local workforce development
trainees. organization, and learned about the FSCJ Brownfields Job Training
Program. He promptly filled out an application and made it his mission to
demonstrate his commitment to the program. "I was constantly going in [to
the FSCJ program office] and checking on my status, and talking with people
from the program," said Smith. "I think it gave me an edge. They could tell that I was interested in a
long-term career, not just a job, and that I've always been interested in the environment. I wanted to
make this world a better place for my daughter."
Training at FSCJ's downtown facility began in January 2010 and featured instruction and input
from a spectrum of local partners. Geosyntec, an international environmental consulting firm with
offices in Jacksonville, donated 16 hours of training from senior-level engineers and geologists.
The Jacksonville Small Business Association provided business and worker skills training. And the
Jacksonville Housing Authority offered the students bus tickets and transportation reimbursements to
ensure that students could attend.
Geosyntec's emphasis on green remediation included training in methods such as phytoremediation,
the use of plants to extract contamination from soil; and bioremediation, which uses natural bacteria
to literally eat contaminants away. Students also learned about green deconstruction—the recycling
continued ^
Brownfields Success Story Solid Waste EPA-560-F-10-257
In Jacksonville, Environmental Training and Emergency April 2010
Offers a World of New Opportunities Response (5105T) www.epa.gov/brownfields/
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and reuse of construction materials—as well as "xeriscaping" techniques, where landscaping uses only
natural plants and other elements that require no more water than occurs in natural weather patterns.
Graduation for FSCJ's first environmental job training class was held on February 26, 2010.
Twenty-two of the twenty-four students graduated—including Michael Smith, who was in the top
five percent of his class. After a year of fruitless job searches, Smith was one of four FSCJ trainees
hired immediately after graduation. "I'll be working as an environmental technician for a local
company, in a contract with the city," he explains. "We'll be doing ground remediation, cleaning
up contaminated sites in the area. [The FSCJ program] wanted the people who
lived in affected areas to get these jobs, so we could clean up our own
neighborhoods."
FSCJ is working with the WorkSource agency and more than 15 local
environmental firms to find work for the program's graduates, matching
newly-certified environmental technicians with the needs of the firms'
clients. "I'm so impressed with this city, and how much people care,"
says Scherer. "Sometimes I wondered how we were going to get past
certain obstacles, but they always were taken care of because of the
momentum we have and the dedication of the people involved."
CONTACTS:
For more information on the
Florida State College at Jacksonville
Brownfields Job Training grant contact
EPA Region 4 at (404) 562-9900
Visit the EPA Brownfields Web site at:
www.epa.gov/brownfields/
Smith has his own praise for the program. "Environmental remediation is a
large field and a large area," he elaborates. "Once you get these certifications
you can go in a lot of different directions. You could work in a lab, in an office, in
other states, and even overseas. It gives you a wide range of opportunities."
Brownfields Success Story
In Jacksonville, Environmental Training
Offers a World of New Opportunities
Solid Waste
and Emergency
Response (5105T)
EPA-560-F-10-257
April 2010
www. epa.gov/brownfields/
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