Grant awarded for new environmental center
The Advanced Technology and Education Park was awarded a $440,000 economic workforce development grant from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s office.
This grant is to be used to develop a new Environmental Design in Tustin that will provide regional training to companies.
“This is an idea born out of our connections with local businesses who are asking how to incorporate more environmentally friendly materials and processes. The Center will also help companies understand and comply with existing and new environmental compliance regulations. Currently there is little or no practical training available from these regulatory agencies,” said Bruce Sobczak, Director of the Center for Applied Competitive Technologies at ATEP.
The grant provides an opportunity to create a new workforce development program that we hope will create jobs and expand environmental awareness and compliance, said Tere Fluegeman,” Director of Public Information and Marketing.
The Environmental Center will focus on Design and Compliance.
“Training will also be available to help companies focus on product design to incorporate the use of more environmentally friendly materials; process design to help eliminate the use of hazardous materials such as solvents in manufacturing processes; and packaging to reduce the amount of materials used that create waste and impact the environment,” said Fluegeman.
Design training consists of architecture, landscaping and green product package design.
“The program will provide a focus on environmental design and retrofitting to make buildings more energy efficient” said Fluegeman.
Compliance training will focus on understanding new and existing regulations’ and assessment services.
The Center is expected to serve many types of businesses and industries including construction and technology that want to become more environmental friendly.
“Since it is new, I don’t have any info to provide on how it helped yet,” said Fluegeman.
The grant will create green jobs over the next two years.
Regarding types of green jobs, ATEP will provide training in the following energy efficiency job categories:
• Building Controls Systems Technicians
• Building Operators or Building Engineers
• Building Performance or Retrofitting Specialists
• Compliance Analyst or Energy Regulations Specialists
• Energy Auditors or Home Energy Raters
• HVAC Mechanics, Technicians or Installers
• Project Managers for Construction or Design Work
• Resource Conservation or Energy Efficiency Managers