“At the end of the instruction, they get a tool belt, and then they go out for boot camp for two weeks, and they work with contractors for 80 hours on a live build site and find out what it’s really like to do the work,” Crawford said, noting that this helps students determine which type of work interests them most.
At the completion of camp, the contractors are invited to interview students and potentially offer them jobs.
The newest career technical education program set for Ukiah High School, called Roots of Success, will train high school students specifically for green energy fields. However, Spackman said that basic training in construction gives students skills that transfer to a variety of work, especially given the state’s regulations for the trades to go green.
“No matter where they go, contractors ultimately work for their customers — what’s in demand?” she said. “The skills that they’re learning, that’s going to translate.”
Leaders from both the high school and college workforce development programs agree that while there’s plenty of work for their students and a growing demand for clean energy workers, trades training is hindered by a severe shortage of teachers.
Crawford said anyone with three years of experience in a specific field can get a designated subject teaching credential and become qualified by the state of California. Woodhouse said that Mendocino College’s minimum qualifications include an associate degree and experience in the field.
Other challenges, Woodhouse said, are those stacked against the students in a county with high rates of substance abuse and poverty. To address those, he highlighted support systems at the college that include a food pantry, mental health services, and transportation, among others.
A student perspective
Kevin Vasquez says participating in the Mendocino College program changed the course of his life.
When he was 11 years old, Vasquez received a message at school that his father wouldn’t be able to pick him up. He had been deported.
“I felt violated that they took my dad from me,” he said. “I started drinking alcohol, trying to escape.”
The quiet habit morphed into an addiction that left him aimless and jobless in his 20s. Yet he remembered his father, an immigrant from Mexico who had worked tirelessly in stone masonry to give him a better life. He knew he needed to make something of that life, but he needed help first.
He went through rehabilitation, where a counselor suggested he check out Mendocino College’s construction program. For Vasquez, that program sparked light in the darkness.
“It got me back out there, doing what I love, which is building with my hands,” said Vasquez, who now offers help to other students as a lab tech.
For Vasquez, the prospect of GeoZone tapping into more renewable energy within the county brings an exciting opportunity to put his skills to use at a potential union job.
Mendocino County’s hiring contractors are small, and while they offer great one-on-one experiences, Woodhouse said, they’re not unionized.
Syphers shared that Mendocino County workers won’t need to be union members to work on the GeoZone project.
“You don’t have to be a union signatory to get hired through a union and then work on these projects,” he said. “That gives you an option to decide later if you want to become a signatory and be part of the union.”
The construction phase for GeoZone is projected to be six or seven years out, but Syphers said those years will be spent cultivating relationships with local schools, unions, and smaller contractors.
Ultimately, he hopes the state will streamline permitting and make long-term commitments to invest in geothermal work.
“That’s how we actually get unions to open apprenticeship centers in Mendocino County,” Syphers said.
While the Biden administration helped streamline the geothermal process nationally, most of California’s geothermal opportunities are not on federal land, he pointed out. Sonoma Clean Power has worked with California Assemblymembers Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, and Chris Rogers, D-Santa Rosa, to introduce assembly bills 526, 527, and 531, which all aim to advance geothermal energy development.
“Everyone universally agrees California is the best place in the United States to do this if the permitting changes,” he said, noting that the state requires a full environmental review that can take anywhere from two to eight years. “This region has enough geothermal potential to support areas beyond Sonoma and Mendocino. That’s really, really valuable for the state.”
