President Sheila Ortego established this inaugural Forum to help SFCC’s
Sustainable Technologies Center (STC) identify and continue planning to meet the
immediate and mid-range workforce training needs in response to the
fast-emerging green business and industry sectors in New Mexico and the
Southwest.
Workforce Training for the Green Economy brought industry leaders from
renewable energy, smart grid, green building and environmental technologies
together to directly inform SFCC’s expansion and enhancement of curriculum to
yield customized training that the STC will tailor to meet industry’s
fast-emerging workforce needs.
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 launched on Earth Day of this year. It
reveals that an investment of just $21.6 billion nationally towards 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, followed by in-depth and fast-paced,
facilitated “break-out” sessions where participants identified their
workforce training, technology and development requirements.
Workforce Training for the Green Economy will not only help SFCC’s Sustainable
Technologies Center establish its next generation of training in-step with
industry’s actual needs, but the Forum begins an ongoing peer relationship
between business and industry in these sectors with SFCC to ensure the
institution remains responsive to continually evolving workforce needs.
Santa Fe Community College and the Sustainable Technologies Center
have
established Workforce Training for the Green Economy as a
Carbon Neutral
Event by registering it with Green Energy New Mexico and purchasing
Green Tags offsetting the CO2 emissions produced by
the Forum.
Join us in offsetting your travel and participation in the Forum by
calculating your carbon footprint and purchasing Green Tags at:
https://www.greentagsusa.org/greentags/newmexico.cfm
For more information,
contact
or Lou Schreiber (505-428-1617
or lschreiber@sfccnm.edu)