Brown fields
Success Story
Strong Roots in Professional Growth
Chicago, Illinois
Opportunity Advancement Innovation, Inc. (OAI, Inc.), provides environmental
health and safety education, workforce training and employment opportunities to
disadvantaged communities in Chicago. Their mission is to provide training that
leads to Safe, meaningful employment while helping companies and communities to
thrive. Each year, the nonprofit serves approximately 4,000 residents, more than 85
percent of whom are placed in a job upon graduation.
Two OAI programs, Chicago Greencorps and LYTE Solar Pipeline Training, are funded
in part by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under its Environmental
Workforce Development and Job Training grant program. As a grant recipient since
2002, OAI has demonstrated how the program can help transform lives and advance
economic opportunity in places where it is needed most.
Serving Communities in Need
Although OAI programs are open to all Chicagoans, the organization recruits
primarily from underserved populations, including the formerly incarcerated,
minorities and veterans living in the west and south sides of the city. Candidates
there face chronic unemployment and may have limited work history, training and
skills. The unemployment rate has been as high as 28 percent, and the poverty rate,
nearly 35 percent.
Residents are also disproportionately affected by exposure to hazardous wastes, a
residual effect of past industrial pollution and the recent increase in landfill waste. In
fact, Chicago's South Side has the largest concentration of garbage landfills in the
U.S. Midwest. An estimated 120 brownfield sites are in and around the program's
target communities.
"Part of our programming helps individuals become more literate in environmental
issues so they can become advocates within their own community and families,"
says Mollie Dowling, executive director at OAI. "We want to train them to preserve
and strengthen the communities where they live."
Supporting Green Jobs
For more than 16 years, OAI has partnered with the City of Chicago on Greencorps,
a green industry job training program for individuals with barriers to employment.
Greencorps enrolls more than 30 Chicago residents each year who earn a wage
for their work on ecological improvement projects throughout the city and Cook
County. Graduates have gone on to work for contractors involved in environmental
&EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
EPA Grant Recipient:
OAI, Inc.
EPA Grant Type:
Environmental Workforce
Development and Job Training
Job Placement Rate:
85%
Average Starting Hourly Wage:
$11.00
Core Training:
•	Basic Carpentry
•	Chicago Wilderness
Burn Certifications
•	Defensive Driving
•	First Aid and
Cardiopulmonary
Resuscitation
•	Forklift Operations
•	Flazardous Waste
Handling
•	Illinois Pesticide
Certification
•	Midwest Renewable
Energy Association
Solar Site Assessor
•	Occupational Safety
and Health 40-Hour
Hazardous Waste
Operations and
Emergency
Response (OSHA
40-Hour
l-IAZWOPER)
•	OSHA 10-Hour
Construction Safety
•	Solar Installer
Greencorps participants learn to operate
chainsaws, chippers and brush cutters as
part of their ecological restoration and
natural resources training.

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remediation, mixed industrial and commercial corridor revitalization, new residential
projects and green space and wetland restoration.
Victor Short graduated from the program a few years ago. Raised in the projects
of Chicago's South Side, Victor had been struggling to make ends meet as a single
dad of seven children. He knew he wanted to make a change but didn't know where
to start. Three of his brothers had completed the Greencorps program, and so he
applied. "I just needed a job," he says. "I didn't realize until later all the skills and
certifications I would gain through the program and all the doors it would open
for me."
Today, Short is earning well over the minimum hourly wage as a field supervisor of
ecological restoration work at public parks around the city, "I learned that if I applied
myself, I could succeed," he says.
Training a Solar Workforce
QAI's LYTE Solar Pipeline Training is a 12-week course that prepares students for
entry-level employment as a designer, installer and maintenance technician for
solar-photovoltaic power systems. Students also learn hazardous waste-handling
skills and safety, life skills and basic computer literacy and receive professional
development training.
Dowling notes the training, which draws roughly 20 individuals per cohort 2-3 times
per year, is well-rounded. She says, "After going through the training, if an individual
decides not to focus their career in the solar industry, they will stili have a path to
employment in other green jobs."
Teaching Power Skills
Both programs teach participants what OAI calls "power skills" to help them
successfully keep employment. Training is held during typical working hours—from
roughly 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.—and includes lessons on conflict resolution, decision-
making and interpersonal communications.
The programs use a blended learning model with classroom instruction, e-learning,
gamification and peer-to-peer training. Short says that trainers made it easy for
him to learn new skills. "My trainers had a background that's similar to mine and
explained things in a way I could understand," he says. "They taught me how to be
professional and network with people."
Collaborating with Employers
QAI works with local employers to create training that suits the labor market.
Employers speak at OAI classes about what's expected on the job, and participants
can meet with employers at forums hosted by the organization.
"Greencorps has provided numerous qualified candidates to assist with full-time and
seasonal work," says James Melledy, senior consultant and principal at Cardno, a
global environmental company. "Having trained personnel ready to work on day one
of the season is invaluable and helps our business save training time and money."
And the solar pipeline training was developed in response to IIIinois's 2016 Future
Energy Jobs Act (FEJA), which promotes a "clean energy economy" by creating jobs
and providing training for the future workforce.
"FEJA has injected millions of dollars into the solar industry in Illinois," Dowling says.
"There are huge solar projects all over the state—and they're hiring."
As a recruiter, it
has been great to
help students in the
Chicago Greencorps
program get their
foot in the door with
green jobs. Together,
we have helped start
many careers in
the environmental
industry.
Brian Howard,
Recruiter,
Aerotek
For more information:
Visit the EPA Brownfields website
at www.epa.gov/brownfields or contact
Linda Morgan at312-886-4747 or
Morgan.Linda@epa.gov.
EPA 560-F-19-1SS
August 2011

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