In this webinar, Brent Kossick, the Director of Climate Workforce at Service Year Alliance, discusses the nuances of service year opportunities, apprenticeships, and the promising American Climate Corps program. Here's what you need to know if you're considering a career pivot or entry into the green sector.
A "service year" is a paid opportunity for young people to gain marketable skills while addressing community needs. Programs like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps are paving the way, but independent initiatives, often state-funded or run by faith-based organizations, are equally influential. The overarching goal is to leverage these experiences to combat climate change and ease many young adults' transition into green sector jobs.
At Service Year Alliance, two main themes dominate their work: "empower" and "innovate." With 65,000 positions currently maintained, they aim to sustain and grow service opportunities by bringing together stakeholders to tackle common challenges in climate work. Their efforts don't stop post-service; they actively support alumni by connecting them with job opportunities and resources to amplify their impact in the clean energy sector.
Many roles involve energy efficiency measures like weatherizing homes and improving building insulation. The focus is on energy production that doesn't emit greenhouse gases or release pollutants. Unlike traditional education paths, apprenticeships provide hands-on job training under the guidance of a journeyman supervisor, combined with supplemental education, which can be virtual, classroom-based, or through community colleges. These programs, often developed in partnership with industry stakeholders, align closely with the hiring needs of the clean energy sector.
For those intrigued by the prospect of a career in clean energy, the paths are as diverse as they are rewarding. Whether through service years, apprenticeships, or direct entry into burgeoning sectors, the opportunities for impactful work in sustainable industries are vast and growing.
Watch the Webinar:
Transcript:
Jason Assir
Well, welcome, everyone to August's webinar, our energy gigs webinar. So excited to have Brent Kaussik as our guest for this webinar, this month's webinar. Before we get right into the topic, and this is going to be great because we're going to have a lot of content to cover, a lot of opportunities to ask questions and learn about the topics at hand. Real quick, what is energy gigs? What do we do? So energy gigs is an energy focused freelance platform. So we connect energy companies to just in time energy talent, over hourly fix fee and just in time projects. And we also are on a mission to help make it easier for people, job seekers, people moving in the energy industry, or trying to move from other parts of the energy industry to come and transition into those new areas of work. So that's part of our mission. And with that, no further ado, I really want to introduce you guys to Brent Kossick, our special guest for today's webinar. Brent is the director of climate workforce at Service Year alliance. And just some housekeeping question points to talk through real quick. Please do ask questions in the chat. Over the course of the webinar, we'll be monitoring the chat, and then Brent in his presentation, he'll have a couple of moments where we can actually get into those questions we'll be wanting in the chat and we'll ask those questions when the time comes. But really, Brent, thank you so much for joining the webinar. We're excited to have you on and if you don't mind, tell everyone a little bit about yourself and what service your alliance does.
Brent Kossick
Yeah. So first of all, yeah, thank you for allowing me to be here. Really excited to be partnering up with energy gigs and really excited about all the work that you're advancing. So let me go ahead and share my screen real quick and then we'll get right into it. So assuming you can see my screen now, Jason. All right, well, yeah, that's me. I'm Brent Kosak, like Jason said, director of climate and workforce at service year alliance. So I kind of spend my days of increasing the value proposition for young people to engage in service year opportunities after high school, after college, later on in life. But that's the first thing I want to do is kind of define what a service year is. And so we define it as really three main categories to it. It's a paid opportunity for young people to gain marketable skills while also addressing community needs. And so a lot of where I spend my so some familiar programs that you might be have, like, kind of falls under that definition are federally supported programs like AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, Youth Build. But there's also like independent programs that may be with like faith based organizations or funded by state entities that also fall under that definition. So I wanted to put that out there just before we kind of start rolling into the work of the company and all the topics that we'll be addressing today. But yeah, anyways, yeah, a lot of where my time is spent is really connecting. How do we leverage those service year experiences to not only help address climate change, but also equip young people who serve in these programs to transition into green sector jobs? And so that's exactly what I'm going to go over to today. I know this webinar is kind of geared towards like, young adults who want to use service or apprenticeships as pathways into clean energy jobs. But if you're an employer on the call, you know, hit me up after this. I'm happy to talk about how you can connect to different service year programs in your area as really like that talent development pipeline as well. So with that, just a little bit more about our organization. So again, really, we are here and exists to support all these thousands of service year programs that function in communities across the country. Our work is really centered in like two main categories. The first one is what we call our empower work, and that's really making sure that the federal, state, local philanthropic resources are unlocked to make sure that we can sustain these service opportunities each year and then also grow them. So we're currently at about 65,000 total positions throughout the country, and we would like to see that increase every year. The other body of work that we advance is what we call our innovate work. And I kind of think about this as bringing stakeholders together, both from like the service year field, but also beyond to look at common opportunities or common challenges that exist and what could be scaled on like a national approach. So again, most applicable, today's conversation is going to be our climate work. Also worth mentioning is our organization is very honed in on supporting alumni of these programs as well. So making sure that they're aware of job opportunities and employers in front of them, making sure they have the tools and resources to excel and continue to make impact post service. So before we get into the main content, I do want to mention one specific project that we are involved in because it will be very applicable to a lot of today's conversation. And that is we are a partner in the apprenticeship and Clean Energy network. And so this is a product that's funded by the US Department of Labor. And the whole goal here is this great network of partners helps employers and sponsors across the country stand up new clean energy apprenticeships. So our goal is to enable 400 individuals a year to enter into clean energy apprenticeships. And this is a five year project. I can't go into each individual partner organization, but as you can see from the slide, we have everything from like industry associations to workforce development entities to higher education. The Interstate Renewable Energy Council is actually the host for this project. So just something to be aware of. I do also want to specifically give credit where credit's due to the solar energy industry association. So they are just like it sounds, an industry association for both solar and solar storage. They do a lot of great work in workforce development and ensuring that diversity, equity, inclusion is kind of at the top of this transition into renewable energy. And they were really helpful in developing this slide deck, too. So as we move through today's presentation, if there's a question I can answer, because really, my expertise is in the service area, you see these great network of partners that I can tap on after this, too. If you have a specific question about solar or energy efficiency or whatnot, we kind of have those great connections in our wheelhouse. I also, it is a department of labor funded project, but whenever we do presentations like this, I have to share this disclaimer. All this says is that Department of Labor is not going to basically endorse anything I say today. So this is all just coming from Brent Kaussick. So just something to be aware of.
Jason Assir
Okay.
Brent Kossick
Yeah, good to know. Yeah. So really aligned with what Jason already mentioned, our objectives for the day is I'm going to first paint a picture of career opportunities within clean energy and then highlight american climate core and then apprenticeships as pathways into some of these careers. Finally, we'll end things with me just sharing like, a bunch of follow up resources where, you know, just give everybody the opportunity to, like, dig into these things further, really hone on in specific occupations that you might be interested in, stuff like that. Like Jason mentioned between each section, I'll also pause to see if there's any questions, and then we should have plenty of time for question and answer at the end as well. All right, so let's first talk about clean energy careers. And I think first, importantly for this presentation, I wanted to kind of define what I mean by clean energy because it could be interpreted a few different ways. So at least for today's presentation, we are going to define clean energy as energy that does not emit greenhouse gases or release pollutants. So things you would commonly think of, solar, wind, geothermal, etcetera. I'm also going to be using it as a broad term to also incorporate energy efficiency as well. So we're talking about things like weather, dizing a home by putting increased insulation to drop down utility bills, or same thing with say corporate or public buildings. So that's also going to fall into this broad clean energy definition. I also want to mention that, like, we think of energy storage as part of this too, because in order for us to be successful, the transition, there's the energy storage piece as well. So we will be kind of like at least somewhat acknowledging that as part of the presentation makes sense. I just like to use this slide. The next few slides is really just painting the picture of job growth in the industry. And really what we're getting at is like if you are a young person that is thinking about clean energy jobs or a career path, like it should be a really bright future for you. I kind of like that bright goes into solar, but anyway. But yeah, so this, we are expecting about a 9 million jobs to occur because of some of these pieces of mega legislation that has been launched in the last few years. Like the Inflation Reduction act. Yeah. And just to get an example of how that breaks down to a specific industry where like the solar industry thinks they're going to really double their overall employment within the next ten years and then like specifically in solar related manufacturing, it's going to more than triple. So again, as we talked today, that any of these kind of jobs or careers are interest to you, it's a great time to get your foot in the door. So I also like this slide here just to kind of talk about what is the future going to look like. And so really what were talking about is this chart over here on the right. And what it shows is that the energy projects that are in queue right now will more than double the energy production in the US over the next ten years or so. And as you can see from the chart, a lot of those are going to be within this kind of clean energy, renewable energy space. So a lot of growth, again, kind of already in queue to come into production sometime in the near future. You know, sometimes when you, you hear like the amount of growth that's needed, it can be like overwhelming. But I kind of like to also show this picture where it's probably hard to see, but our country has gone into similar transitions. So we think it's very realistic for us to meet some of these goals over the next ten years. And so this first picture here, this is in New York City on Fifth Avenue, and this is in 1903. And what you see here is these are all like horses and wagons with one automobile in the street. And just 13 years later, I guess that's 1900, and this is 19, 1313 years later, you see the exact opposite. It's almost all automobiles with just one horse and buggy there. And so it's kind of ironic that, like, this transition kind of led to, like, some of the transition we're already in. But I want to paint the picture about, like, again, it's realistic for us to think that these are achievable goals. So let's spend a little bit of time on kind of the broad job categories that we are generally seeing within these kind of clean energy sector. And then I will again start breaking down some of these and then also give you the resources you need to further kind of like, lean into these after the presentation. So, first up, as you can imagine, skilled trades and construction is going to be a huge need. Everything from construction craft laborers to electricians to pipe fitters. As you can imagine, like with utility or community scale projects or rooftop energy projects, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to be needed to have these hands on technical skills. So, again, one of the parts of the industry that we see some of the largest growth occurring, along with that, of course, there's going to be construction and project management skills, the people management, the project management that goes along with it. And the thing that I really focus on from hearing with our partners is, if you think about it, the clean energy sector is fairly new industry compared to a lot of industries that have been around for hundreds of years. So oftentimes within clean energy, there's a lot more opportunity to quickly grow in your career path to, like, a supervisor or management position. So that's something else to really think about. Of course, there's going to be need for engineers for design and making the systems work. Again, manufacturing is huge. All these projects and individual kind of home needs are all going to need to be produced. And when I've had the opportunity to go to some of these clean energy like conferences, I have been blown away by the number of manufacturing presence and all the different components that go into this. Everything from what you would consider, you know, like the solar stuff, but all the technology that makes that work, all the interconnectedness, just about everything you could imagine needs to be produced, kind of in line with that. There's also a supply chain and distribution piece to that. So working with the different clean energy employers and companies to make sure that they have the, not only the materials they need, but also the expertise. So a lot of times the supply and distribution are also training. Focus on new technologies and new uses. If you're a person that's kind of interested in like the stem type of careers, a lot of opportunity for research and development. So thinking about how science, technology, math can be used to make all these systems and projects more efficient, there's a great deal of policy and government affair work that's needed to, as these projects come online in communities or states across the country or regions, you need to do a lot of that work to make sure that you have all your ducks in a row, all the approvals you needed, potentially. Some cases you might even need to change laws or regulations. So all of that stuff is part of the industry business functions. So just like any other kind of sector, you can imagine that every kind of aspect of business is also needed in this. So everything from human relations to office management to finance. So you're a person that leans into those type of career paths. A big part of what I wanted to like, portray by this slide is that, you know, I think a lot of people think of clean energy as being out in the field. If you're an office space person that would prefer these type of jobs, there's a place for you. Sales, a lot of sales you can imagine like kind of rent residential, solar, but also working with the manufacturers and things like that. Project development. So I've also been really entertained by learning everything that goes into project development, everything from erosion control to GIS mapping, figuring out what sites will be able to interconnect to the grid most easily, all kinds of different elements to that system design and asset management. So how are all these things functioning together? How are we ensuring that we are going to produce the need for our customers? How is the growth going to occur? That kind of stuff. Again, weatherization falls under our clean energy and it could be public, private, or for individual homes. And then I also want to mention h vac as part of this too. That kind of fits under that weatherization where a lot of like energy efficient h vac units will be installed over the next 1020 years. So before I move on, I am going to stop there and see if there's any questions for setting the stage on what is a clean energy career. What are some of these kind of broad areas that we'll be diving in further as the presentation persists.
Jason Assir
So we have one question Brent, around the like in terms of the manufacturing, are you seeing most of the manufacturing jobs in specific sub sectors of the energy industry? Like for example, are you seeing it mostly in solar or what does that kind of look like?
Brent Kossick
And so I'm probably not the expertise on this. From my situational awareness, I am seeing a lot specifically in solar, like what you would see like rooftop solar and residential solar. But like again, as I've attended like these fairs and stuff like that, it really blows me away about all like specifically like the technology that's needed with like community scale and utility scale projects as well. So again, im still learning about it, but it seems like theres not necessarily just one subset of the industry that has a higher need than others. But as you can imagine, solar is kind of all over the place.
Jason Assir
Gotcha. That makes sense. And theres another question, but I dont know if this is maybe getting ahead of ourselves, but sort of for people that are already in their careers and theyre looking to get out of maybe, let's say they're trying to get out of oil and gas and they want to go into something else. I mean we try to talk to almost every candidate we can that comes on our platform. We now have about 300 4350 people on our platform. And it's interesting, a lot of the people on the gas space who have great oil and gas experience for whatever reason, sometimes they say my kids, I look at my kids and I want to be able to give my kids a good future or a good. It's never really political, it's really just like, I just want to, I want to give back or I want to do something slightly different and I want to get into other fields, like other pathways for midlife sort of already in your career. So professionals to also transition.
Brent Kossick
Yeah, I think that actually lead us in perfectly to the rest of the presentation. So like, you know, in addition to energy gigs, I'm going to be outlining a lot of like potentially some of the partners that we work. But also there's a lot of great sites. Like one that comes to mind is work on climate that is specifically focused on helping folks consider those paths. Some of the things that I'll be focused in today, a lot of folks are using apprenticeships or american climate corps to transition into clean energy jobs or climate jobs. And so obviously each person's unique too. So it depends on what kind of climate or clean energy job you're looking for and what path is right for you.
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Brent Kossick
But it's like when we start talking about the american climate corps, like, we see a lot. Like, I'm based in South Carolina and so we actually, the average service year corps member age in South Carolina is 39 years old. Yeah. A lot of times what we see is folks that are maybe in a specific industry and wanted to use american climate corps or service year programming to get their foot into the door in something else that they feel passionate about. Maybe that's education, maybe that's climate whatever it might be. So, yeah, hopefully this, the presentation will help peak on some of those type of opportunities.
Jason Assir
Perfect.
Brent Kossick
Yeah. Awesome. All right, well, then I'll just go ahead and move into that american climate core section. So, yeah, so we're really excited about this. This is something that's kind of the new big deal in our industry. But back in September of 2023, the Biden administration launched the American Climate Corpse. The whole goal here is to provide 20,000 people or more. Really, the goal is to grow this to more, around 50,000 young people a year. An opportunity to gain skills, experience, training, certifications that they'll need to transition to green sector careers. The Biden administration very much acknowledged that workforce development is a huge need within the kind of green sector careers. And this is an opportunity to help address that need. Obviously, there's a lean into clean energy specifically, but there's a lot of green sector jobs that you could imagine is falling under this. Everything from local government, federal government, adaptation, mitigation, all kinds of stuff. The other great thing about this is it's really viewed as a paid opportunity, like training opportunity. So you do receive a stipend while serving, while you're learning these skills. But also, again, you're helping to address community needs along the way. So you're actually, you're also doing good for our country and your community while you're hopefully using this as a transition into a career path you want. So, yeah, the first class of the American climate Corps launched, yeah, I guess about two months ago now. And so there was 9000 like young adults that were sworn into it. And we kind of think that that will continue to grow to that 20,000 number over the next few months or so. So the main thing I want to portray by this slide, the pictures and the bullet points I have here is like what an american climate core term of service looks like. It's very broad. And again, that can speak to a whole lot of different interests. So as you can see from the pictures, you could be doing everything from construction to solar, to building trails, doing wildlife wildfire mitigation, or doing more of those office type of things like working with municipalities to advance their climate action plans, things like that. There's also a lot of different opportunities out there, everything from full time and part time again in office, field based travel, or you can just be sitting in one location, crew based or single member placement options. But bottom line, there's thousands of different host sites across the country that you could serve with as part of this program. And I'm going to give you the link where you can check those out here in a second. But basically, if you're 17 years of age or older, you'd be eligible for many of these opportunities. And I don't know the exact percentage breakdown, but many of the opportunities you do not need a college degree to enter into as well. So, yeah, so I guess I also want to mention, so a lot of like, what my work entails is, you know, speaking with those industry associations, employer partners, workforce development partners, to start talking about like what the common service year experience or american climate core experience, kind of what are the experience training skills that these young people get out of it, and how does that align with a lot of the hiring needs within these industries? So here on this slide is kind of a summary of a lot of what my work has found as far as like, those common skills that align with a lot of hiring needs in these industries. So first of all, we see that, you know, a lot of employers really like that folks are able to demonstrate through service, like compassionate community engagement and customer service. So these core members may have experience going out to community partners, advancing energy efficiency work. And that's very much translates into like, as these specially utility scale projects come online, we want to make sure that they're doing it in a way that you're engaging the community, the stakeholders, where you're benefiting a community and not taking away from a community. And unfortunately, like some utility companies may not have that experience on staff about how do you involve the community, and they're thinking about service as a great way to engage those type of skill sets.
Jason Assir
I Brent, I almost laughed because we had a storm a couple of weeks back here in Houston or a month back, and there's a lot of criticism being leveled at our transmission provider centerpoint and how the mid level and senior management was sort of tone deaf with regard to community, not the line workers. They were great. But it's interesting that you mentioned that.
Brent Kossick
And that's why I put it at the top, too. I really think that that's a huge plus about recruiting from the service year industry. And also, if you think about, like, you know, again, Peace Corps falls on this model, too. That's exactly, you know, they are trained fully and have two years of experience doing that kind of stuff. So obviously, big piece of alignment there. Depending on what kind of program folks choose to serve in, a lot of them will actually, you know, if you want to, you can serve as a campus and really travel throughout the, the entire region or the entire United States as part of your term of service. So a lot of these companies need folks that have experience with being able to travel to different project sites. So that's a big appeal. Obviously, like some hard schools, like tool use and safety, working inclement weather and environments can be huge, depending on the industry, an opportunity to demonstrate work etiquette and ethic. You know, a lot of times young people are using american climate corps as that first, like, professional experience to say, yes, I know how to work with my teammates, I know how to communicate with customers, things like that. So again, communication, teamwork, creative problem solving. We have a lot of studies that show that you come out of service with improved abilities there, but also thinking about things like data entry and reporting, a lot of service terms might be responding to disaster events. Like you mentioned, Jason. So you have hundreds of corps members that might come in after a hurricane that's doing a lot of the data management pieces, things like that. Very applicable. And then also, especially if you wanted to learn, lean into a specific industry. There's programs that you can join that help you gain specific certifications that are going to make you more competitive. So things like OSHA, ten or 30 building science principles can be a great fly in the door as far as, like, energy efficiency and weatherization, stuff like that. So that's kind of like a lot of like those kind of commonalities that we found between, like, the two worlds. And I wanted to leave, folks. This is the link to where you can find out all these different opportunities. So then you can kind of search it where you can say, you know, I would like to stay in California or wherever you're based, or I would like to travel to South Carolina. I would like to do something along the lines of environmental conservation or wildlife conservation. It'll help narrow down your search to these positions, and then you can look at all the specific pay, specific benefits, all that kind of stuff. That's great. But, yeah, I'll pause for questions if there's anything with the american climate course.
Jason Assir
So one question, how do you work with high schools, because I know particularly there's often a discussion around. Colleges have changed and maybe people don't need to go to college. Not everyone needs to go to college. Obviously college education is still valuable, but for a lot of people, an apprenticeship path is another, another way. So do you guys reach out into the individual at the high school level, or do you work with partners to help cascade this information down to that level, or.
Brent Kossick
Yeah, so there's, I guess I have, like, multiple wrong answers to that. So, like, a big part of service year alliance work, we actually advanced an entire project on, like, post service pathways. And so all that is about is getting more folks right after high school into service to leverage it as that transition into their next step, either career or college. So that's a big part of, like, our efforts. But, yeah, service also shows up in, like, high schools in a few different ways. So what you might see is, like, you know, if I had a guess, probably 40, 50,000 young people are embedded in public schools across the country doing like, tutoring and mentoring, where they can also use that opportunity to advance, like, environmental education or career paths to young people as well. Or you might actually see some cases wherever there's like, say, an AmeriCorps program that is embedded in a high school where the, say, seniors or juniors in that high school can actually serve as AmeriCorps members doing all kinds of things. So, for example, like in South Carolina, we had one program with seniors were doing a disaster response work in the community and they were getting like, class credits for that. There was other examples where, like, you know, they're mentoring younger students on all kinds of stuff. So anyways, hopefully that helps address the question.
Jason Assir
Yeah, no, that's great. I think the other, this is kind of maybe a funny question. Like, you know, a lot of times in magazines and popular press, you hear about, like, generational differences in, like, Gen Z versus Gen X and like, and like, these younger generations. I mean, it may just be the fact that I'm getting older and I don't work as well anymore. And so I think the younger generation doesn't work, work as well anymore. But, like, are you finding recruiting to be hard in terms of getting youth, you know, people into some of these roles, or are there challenges that you're facing?
Brent Kossick
Definitely. And that's like, part of the work that I kind of geek out about, too. So I'm really, I actually have a recruiting background. And so something else that's this interesting that we're doing right now is like, we do a lot of market research where we'll do national polls with marketing firms and to learn about what young people are interested in, what those challenges are. We literally just, we are in the process of kind of closing one out in the climate space. So, Jason, I'll share that data with you. Yeah, but all that was about learning about how are young people between 18 and 26 thinking about green sector careers, where their interest lies, where are their challenges and where do they see as the most appropriate next steps to get them into those careers? Things like apprenticeship, things like college, things like the American climate Corps. And so we're learning all kinds of really cool trends. And what that allows us to do is do a better job of telling the story of service to these young people. So we might be able to say, okay, well, you're worried about college expenses. You get an education award after your term of service. You were wanting to use this to advance your career and not just take a year off. Look at these programs with certifications that come out of it. So, yeah, all that kind of stuff. We're learning each generation is different. I think the biggest thing we've learned about Gen Z is like, I think maybe millennials were more willing to take a year as a gap year for experiences where Gen Z is very clearly communicating. I can't just take a year to do something that I think is important. It needs to advance me personally and professionally. That's what we're trying to equip service to do.
Jason Assir
No, that's great. Fantastic. Yeah, I think. Yeah.
Brent Kossick
Okay, so, yeah, so we're going to switch into our next topic, which is apprenticeships. And so I'm going to define apprenticeships for you here in a second. But what this chart here is just kind of demonstrating growth. So for the past ten years or so, we've seen a pretty good, like, general uptick in the number of new apprenticeship opportunities. And again, we think this is actually going to boom over the next ten years because a lot of these pieces of legislation I mentioned previously also have requirements to access certain tax breaks, to leverage the apprenticeship system to train the workforce. And so anyways, we think there's a lot of opportunities specifically within apprenticeships that will lead you into clean energy careers. So let me go ahead and kind of define what apprenticeship is for folks. Again, this is mostly directed as, like, potential job seekers, but if we have any employers on the line, again, being part of the apprenticeship and clean energy network, our whole job is to help launch new apprenticeships. And we actually have some federal funds that can help with that too. So folks can contact me on that too. But anyways, so the one thing I really like about. So first of all, we're talking about registered apprenticeships. So you might find some programs that call themselves apprenticeships, but unless it's like accredited by a state labor entity or the US Department of Labor, it's not necessarily going to hit all these things that we're about to talk about. So just one piece of clarification there, not saying that non registered apprenticeships are bad or anything, it's like sometimes you don't want to go through the paperwork, but just something to be aware of if folks are looking at this. But yeah, I really like apprenticeships because they are industry led. So for example, I have a history degree from college, right? That didn't necessarily prepare me to get a job in history at the end of my college term, where apprenticeships are really, they're stood up by employers or their partners to help meet the expected or current hiring needs. So there's a pretty good chance that if you go through apprenticeship, your job is going to be there at the end. Obviously things can shift, but there's a much better likelihood for that job to easily be transitioned into than some specifically. Sometimes, like with like a four year institution, it's also a paid job. So it's not like an unpaid internship. You're actually going to get paid while you engage in both work, but also the education component. Obviously the pay can vary by employer and occupation, but there's also incentive for these apprenticeships, especially in like these clean energy jobs that are popping up to pay prevailing wages. So a lot of them pay very well and can lead you to those family sustaining careers that everybody is looking for. So again, it's going to have a component of structured on the job training and supplemental education in addition to actually that hands on work experience that you're going to be gaining. So you'll have a journeyman kind of supervisor that's going to guide you through whatever career path you're at. So they're not, you're not going to go through electrician apprentice and then all of a sudden them having you like wire everything on your own. You're going to learn that along the way and you're also going to engage in specific education on that that can look virtually or in a classroom through a community college or through an employer, whatever. It can look a lot of different ways. One other tie in that I wanted to draw on the american climate Corps is, as I previously mentioned, most of these service terms end with a end of service education award, which basically is like almost like a scholarship that you can use to either pay for future educational experience or pay back student loans. And so a lot of time apprenticeships like the employer will pay for most of the education expenses, but let's say that they partner with a community college to do some of these supplemental education pieces. And there's cost for books or there's costs for supplemental courses that you might be interested in. A lot of times you can use that american climate Corps education work to pay for those things. So just another tie in to know about a big part of our role, again in the apprenticeship at Clean Energy Network is making sure that as these apprenticeships stand up, that they are advancing diversity, equity and inclusion practices, not only for recruitment, but making sure that people feel a sense of belonging and inclusion once they're at the apprenticeships and are supporting along the way. So that's also something that you can feel pretty good about being baked into. Like the standards process for these apprenticeship or registered apprenticeships. Just like any other job, there's quality and safety standards that these employers must abide by. And then oftentimes apprenticeships will also be baked in credentials along the way that are like nationally recognized. So for example, OSHA ten is a really common one. You can take that certification and you know that it's valid across states and things like that. So very similar to like a degree you received from like a higher ed institution.
Jason Assir
That's great.
Brent Kossick
So this slide here is where you can take it home and dive in deeper. But these are a lot of the occupations that we see that are apprenticeship. So not all occupations are apprentishable, but I've understood that, like a lot are like, there's even like doctor and like lawyer apprenticeships and stuff. So there's a lot of careers that you can enter into this way, but these on these two next slides are a lot of the occupations that feed into the clean energy sector. And one thing I want to be clear about is like, it can be confusing. So as you use some of these tools that I'm going to share is like, a lot of times you might say, okay, I want to get into solar. So I'm going to look for a solar installer. There are very few specific solar installer apprenticeships throughout the country, and those are usually accredited at the state level. The reason for that is like what you're typically going to find is an electrician program that has specific components for solar, right? So that's why you'll see that these occupations aren't necessarily saying like, you know, solar installer or energy efficiency technician or whatever. So it could be a little confusing. But anyways, these are constructor or skilled trades kind of occupations, and these are a lot of the non construction apprenticeship occupations that are very applicable to the clean energy sector as well. So you can use the hyperlinks here and you can find out more about pay, who's hiring, all that kind of stuff. But I'm going to give you some additional tools here in a second. Okay, so let's, let's pause there before we get into these tools and resources. Any questions about kind of what apprenticeship is? What are the occupant occupations, what are the opportunities, that kind of stuff?
Jason Assir
So we do have a question from an attendees. Do you see any supply, so do you see supply of fresh out grads and early career people matching the needs or demand stream of industry? So is there, is there ever like a mismatch between the fresh out grads coming out and the needs demands of industry?
Brent Kossick
Yeah, and so, like, as you can see, like the clean energy space and then the apprenticeship space is very broad, so it can be very situational and even by state too. But yeah, you're seeing like mismatch. Like, for example, like we're advancing some work in Colorado that's doing a lot of great work within the clean energy space. And I do from the partner we've worked on the ground there, like they're clamoring to get more and more entry level people into, say, electrician apprenticeship career path. Now, other parts of the country, that might not be the case. There's not like, I do think that we're potentially a few years out in some areas of the country for these projects to really come online and the huge amount of hiring needed. So you might find some apprenticeship occupations that are limited to current employees of a company, but you can also still think about, like, okay, well, what are those entry level jobs? And then I can apply for this apprenticeship in a year or whatever the company requires, things like that. Does that answer the question?
Jason Assir
I think so. I guess another question. So on the point about, I think the solar installer. So the reason you wouldn't see digging into that a little bit more, the reason you wouldn't see that role as an apprenticeship is that you would have to already be an electrician or Beefe, a journeyman or something like that. Is that kind of why that wouldn't show up or.
Brent Kossick
So there's a few, there's a few different reasons why that might not show up. So and it's kind of, some of it's for good reasons. Right? So you might rather become an electrician rather than say something like a specific solar installer, because maybe for the next ten years as an electrician, you were spending most of your time on a solar energy projects across the state. But as the economy changes, maybe the next ten years of your career will then allow you to use your electrician credentials to serve telecommunication or whatever it might be, right. So it gives you more maneuverability. And so I think another factor that goes in there too, is just like there are some politics involved, too. So a lot of entities that have already put in training on electrician and solar components, they don't want to see a whole nother apprenticeship program stood up. And that's why the US Department of Labor, I think, defaults to a lot of these states to make that determined, depending on, you know, are the current apprenticeship programs meeting the need in the state for workforce development? And if so, let's not start a brand new apprenticeship program. If not, like, there's a specific solar installer program in, in Florida where my assumption is what might have went into that is like, they were able to prove that there's still a specific need for solar installers because we have this huge workforce demand in Florida. So this is a way that we can help resolve that.
Jason Assir
Gotcha. So it seems like there is a little bit of market forces kind of influencing where the apprenticeships opportunities are and where they might not be, right?
Brent Kossick
Yep. So, yeah, I think there's like multiple factors that go into the answer of that question. Basically, that's fair.
Jason Assir
That makes sense. I think another question that we had is, are apprenticeships mostly for smaller, like, companies or companies across the spectrum? If they wanted to get involved, can they plug in? Does it matter how big or small you are as a company?
Brent Kossick
No, I think there's like. And each state can be different. I do think there's certain thresholds sometimes between what kind of funding you can pull down, depending on how big, big your program is. But it's for everybody. Like, smaller companies, mid size, large companies can all engage in this. If you're a small company, one thing that you could look at is more of these. They're called apprenticeship group sponsors. So you might see like a local community college that has an electrician program already accredited where they bring in like a group of employers that want to sign in to leverage that. So, like, I, for example, I think, like the independent electrical contractors, they have like, training facilities across the country, kind of serve in that role. I see, like, other entities like that, you know, there's like even higher Ed can play that role as well. So that's something where if you don't want to mess with all the paperwork at the state or federal level, that could be an easier process. But it's all like, I definitely would say, like looking to your specific state because it depends on all the different, like kind of like tax breaks you can receive and other incentives that might exist at the state level and pull down from the federal level. So it's kind of, I think, also a little situational.
Jason Assir
Yeah, makes sense.
Brent Kossick
Makes sense. Great. Well, I'm going to. Or is there any more questions?
Jason Assir
No, that's it for now. Yeah.
Brent Kossick
Okay. Well, then I'm just going to go ahead and share some of these tools and resources and then we'll just kind of pause for if there's any general discussion or questions.
Jason Assir
Yeah, that sounds great, but, oh, I.
Brent Kossick
Should have pulled this stuff up before. One site that I want to specifically highlight is green workforce connect. And so this, it's still emerging. It's only been around now for, I think, about a year, but this is a kind of starting to begin the go to hub for both weatherization and clean energy apprenticeships, both from the employer, contractor and job seeker side.
Jason Assir
Okay, cool.
Brent Kossick
So this site already has some cool stuff and it's going to continue to increase its capabilities over the next few years. And so, for example, so like, some useful tools for folks to know about is like fine training and apprenticeship programs. This is where it can be helpful finding like say an electrician program that leans into solar because again, it kind of be hard to like find those things. So you can use this map to find some of those things in your area. There's, you know, if you're a job seeker, you can go into some of this stuff for job seekers that where you can learn more about like a day in the life of like all these different occupations, what the pay looks like, what the career advancement options look like. There's like testimonial kind of stories. I can't remember right where it is, but there's even like interactive tools like, what are all the different parts of like a building envelope that I'll be looking at as part of like an energy efficiency or weatherization contractor? How do I connect to employers? How do I connect to contractors in the space for jobs like that kind of stuff? So that's great. Cool site to check out. So, yeah, let's see here. The next thing I want to recommend is the Department of Labor is apprenticeship finder. And this is where you can use those occupations that I listed on slide 22 and 23 where you can feed that, like, let's say you're like, okay, I am interested in, you know, I could potentially be interested in weatherization tech. And so you could put that in here. You could put the area of the country, and then it will give you a generation of, like, the programs in that area. And, like, usually link outs to whether or not they're hiring or when they will next be hiring, that kind of stuff. So that's where you can not only learn about the occupation, but also learn about who hosts those specific registered apprenticeship programs for that occupation. American job centers are in communities across the country, and they can give you, like, that in person support, too. So you can go in there and say, I'm interested in apprenticeship specifically. I would love to get apprenticeship that would feed into clean energy, and they can help you navigate that, like, one on one type of thing. Unions are a great way to get into apprenticeship program and can provide really great jobs as well. So these are just a few links where you can find out more apprenticeship programs that are hosted through unions. And a lot of them have, like, that kind of group sponsorship deal where they work with lots of employers that are part of their networks. This is a cool tool. It's linked out here from our partners at the Solar Energy Industry association where this, you can, like, zoom in all this stuff to find out where there's solar manufacturers, installers, or other companies. So if you're in Kentucky or whatever, you can find those and then maybe even go specifically to their job sites to just see what entry level careers they're hiring for or if they have apprenticeship programs. So there's, our partners at the renewable energy or interstate Renewable Energy Council have put together that is the wrong tool. Put together this exploratory course for the solar industry. Oh, cool. Yeah, it's all free. And all you got to do is you register, but it will, like, give you a much better, like, breakdown of, like, the solar industry. Everything you need to know about, like, what those job types are, what the industry looks like. How do I get my foot in the door than what we can cover in like, 45 minutes today?
Jason Assir
Yeah.
Brent Kossick
So that's really cool. I think there might be some work on the horizon to do the same thing for, like, say, energy efficiency or weatherization. They also have these. I love these things. These are like green sector career maps. And what they do is like, all these different industries, everything from advanced manufacturing, bioengineering green buildings. You can click on these industry types underneath these general sector headings and it'll give you again, more information about entry level like careers. But then it can show you, okay, I can take this upward mobility in my career or I can go over to H Vac, or I can go over to solar and stuff like that as I progress in like training or certifications and experience stuff like that. So I think that's a great way of like plotting out what maybe the next five or ten years could look like in a career field for folks. These are just again, recommended job boards for solar and clean energy by some of our partners as far the ACE network. So a lot of like kind of good places to start. One thing to mention is like, oftentimes there's like state or regional associations by like clean energy or solar or wind. So it's also worth the Google search to say like, you know, Georgia Solar association or something like that where they might have specific job boards. I also want to mention that, you know, the US government is a employer in this space too, so just linked out to some resources specifically with Department of Energy while highlight some other agencies here in a second. And then, yeah, a lot of the presentations I do is like, folks are interested in clean energy, but they also are like, I'm just interested in like combating climate as part of my career. So I like to link out a few other job sites that are kind of beyond clean energy as well. Brown girl green, their green jobs board. I think they do a really good job of vetting employers who have a specific commitment on hiring diverse candidates. So I would recommend checking that out. The green jobs network also has like newsletters that highlight positions across climate, but they also have like sections for remote positions which I know a lot of folks are interested in. Again, there's a department of Energy, they have like this clean energy core. Like to me it's more of like a hiring initiative or campaign, but they list a lot of like kind of those more entry level positions or they have pathway positions which you can use like right out of college or right after. AmeriCorps term of services is eligible for leveraging these pathway jobs which basically help get you into careers after like serving in almost like an internship type of process. And then I also like Department of Energy for like some of these skills that go into like say grant management, legislative affairs, research, public policy, business administration, those kind of career sets oftentimes like highlighted as part of some of these federal agencies. I see the US Department of Agriculture first of all, they're like a mega department and have a lot of like agencies under it, but they have a lot of opportunity in the climate space. Like obviously you have things like the Forest Service, but other departments or agencies like rural development does a lot of work in climate. Natural Resource conservation Service does a lot of work in climate. So another federal agency to check out the climate base has a lot of different discipline disciplines within the climate sector. I like American Society of Adaptation professionals, especially if you're looking for those local or higher ed jobs that are kind of leaning to climate. And then I already mentioned work on climate. I really like this because a social network that are just like, I think they have like, I don't know, either 2000 or 20,000 members where like everybody's just helping people get exposure to industries, helping them get a job that relates to climate. And they do like great things really. They do like info sessions to like learn from current people that are having career, that have careers in the space, stuff like that. And there's a lot of recruiters on that site too. So that's also nice to know.
Jason Assir
I mean, I think that's how you and I connected maybe.
Brent Kossick
Yeah, yeah, you're right. That's how we connect.
Jason Assir
Work on climate. Well, you know what's interesting is like are you seeing or have you encountered any sort of apprenticeship options in the geothermal space and what's been sort of your interaction with that community of professionals and companies?
Brent Kossick
I would say I've had the least amount of exposure there, or maybe one of it. And it doesn't mean that there's not things happening there. It's just like. I just feel like a lot of the networks that I'm in is with solar, some wind, a lot of energy efficiency and weatherization. So I'm just not as exposed to it. Yeah, but you know, so I don't really have a great answer on that.
Jason Assir
We're happy to introduce you to a couple of organizations that in the US there's a company, there's an organization called Geothermal Rising, which is sort of an association globally. There's the International Geothermal Association, IGA, both led by great people and passionate about geothermal and using geothermal to get 24 hours base flow power. And what we hear a lot because we're in Houston, a lot of our members and our early members are coming from oil and gas, that have deep oil and gas experience, which a lot of it is really transferable to geothermal. Even the fracking technology is being used by some of the leading geothermal companies like Fervo to really, um, push the needle on in terms of power plants and stuff like that with, using geothermal. Um, but like they, there's not, there's that catch 22 of, I don't have, I don't have experience in geothermal. And so I'm, I'm kind of passed up on opportunities in geothermal. And so there's, there is like an opportunity, I think, like collectively, to figure out a way to get give on ramps to people that already have that, you know, drilling experience or whatever to get into that space, you know?
Brent Kossick
Yeah, bottom line, I would love to connect to any contacts you have in that area because again, that's like an area that I haven't had a lot of exposure in. But obviously, I think through a lot of these networks, there's a lot of opportunity there. So, yeah, we'd love to learn more.
Jason Assir
In fact, I think I just saw yesterday or the day before that meta or Facebook, whatever, signed some sort of big power purchase agreement or plan with another geothermal company called Sage I Geosystems, which is pretty big deal. And then a month or two back, Fervo had a deal with Google. So I don't know, maybe Microsoft's going to have a deal with energy gigs. I don't know.
Brent Kossick
I mean, a lot of these tech companies are having to basically fuel their AI operations, right? Yeah. I mean, again, I would just love to learn more and see whether or not there could be some, especially talent development pipelines into the industry.
Jason Assir
So one question I have, like Brent is, so would nuclear and small medium reactors, is that something that, like, I'm assuming that doesn't fall under the umbrella of sort of clean tech, but there is sort of movements afoot around that, right? Like.
Brent Kossick
I think it depends on who you ask, right?
Jason Assir
Yeah, yeah.
Brent Kossick
I mean, like, specifically with, like my work, I haven't had a lot of exposure into nuclear as well, but I think a lot of folks do count that as part, part of the renewable energy space. So I would say it does fall under it, but kind of like geothermal, it just doesn't seem like it's in as much of the networks, at least that I'm a part of.
Jason Assir
If you want a apprenticeship in nuclear, maybe join the navy and work on a submarine, I guess, right?
Brent Kossick
Yeah, but it's like, you know, I think about that more and more too, because in South Carolina, I think it's something about like, at least where I'm based, I think 55% of the energy comes from nuclear. So it's like a big. It's part of our sector here in South Carolina. So I've always thought about. I would love to learn more about the space. And there's always more to learn, basically.
Jason Assir
No, for sure. Well, we still have some time for some questions, so if anyone on the. On the call has. On the webinar has a question, please do put it in the chat. Like, is it fair to say then, by volume, most of the apprenticeships we're seeing right now are, like, solar leads the pack, followed by wind, followed by sort of efficiency or weatherization. Is that fair to say? Or what would you say? Like, the breakdown is?
Brent Kossick
I mean, again, it's kind of, I think more because, like, obviously, like, the solar industry association is a big partner in the Ace network. So I think that's where just, like, our connections lie. Right. So, like, obviously I'm seeing a lot into that, but it doesn't necessarily mean these other branches of clean energy isn't seeing or leaning into apprenticeship and stuff like that. So, you know, again, and, like, you know, I think, again, like, what you're seeing is, like, you know, a lot of these industries might be leveraging unions to meet, like, the building needs and you might have folks that are just, you know, under construction craft labor or electrician or pipe fitter carpentry. Um, so they might consider themselves part of the clean energy industry, but that's, like, not all they do. You know, they're doing green infrastructure or things that's completely not related to climate or clean energy as well. So it's like. And again, like, that's depending on who you ask, too. But it's nice that that's the way that, like, folks can enter into this, where you have that maneuverability as well. So. But I definitely think that, like, if I had a guess, I would think there would be a lot of growth within these union apprenticeships because a lot of these utility companies are contracting with or not even utility because, like, you know, like I said, like infrastructure projects because of the building or the bipartisan infrastructure law. So that's where I think there's going to be a huge amount of growth within apprenticeship.
Jason Assir
That's great. We have another question. So the question says our company works extensively in hydrogen and ammonia, which is an h two carrier. Do you see jobs around these areas increasing or are they hidden within traditional energy companies, like hydrogen type roles or hydrogen around ammonia?
Brent Kossick
I mean, it's just what I can see from where I sit. Right. I think a lot of it's kind of hidden within current industries and I also think that, like, the boom's not necessarily right here right now. So I think the federal government is starting to get a lot of the money out. I've seen a lot more increase even within, like, I feel like the last 610 months type of thing. So I think what you'll see is the jobs following that within the next year or so. So it's kind of like, for me, it's like I am still trying to paint the picture of like where the growth is going to occur and when. And again, it kind of depends on the state, like the state environment, too. And so there's certain states that it's kind of growing in. But, yeah, bottom line is, like, it's all part of the puzzle. You know, it's like part of this puzzle you're trying to put together. So not a clear answer on that.
Jason Assir
I mean, would you say, like, if so, in this case, in this example, like if your company is interested in, you know, maybe creating, spinning up an apprenticeship on or in and around hydrogen or sort of hydrogen related work.
Brent Kossick
Should.
Jason Assir
They approach like the Department of Labor or their contact, their representative in their state to get that conversation going or what's sort of the best? I mean, or just reach out to you and what's sort of that pathway?
Brent Kossick
Like, I would think the easiest thing for folks to do is you could either reach out to me and I can get you plugged in or you can just Google apprenticeship and clean energy network. And what you'll see there, is there a form where you'll honestly, it's like 20 questions. So it'll take you like ten minutes to fill out, but it will ask you about your company, your industry, what you're trying to achieve and then what are like that network team of folks do. Then we look at that, it goes into our salesforce system and then we'll determine things like, first of all, on our team, who is the expertise in that? Who has expertise in that area to work with you? And we'll also look things like, are you a, are you, is your company or were you waiting your apprenticeships? Is that in a state that already has like state apprenticeship agency? So, like that means we want to probably first work with your state to see what they can offer. If you're in a state that goes directly to the US Department of Labor, that's when it's kind of like game on for the apprenticeship and clean energy network because basically we would help you, you know, outline what you need. As far as the apprenticeship program, there's like templates and Stan of like standards and like, what would need to be built into that so you could build it out quickly and then we would help you submit it to Department of labor or in some cases your state agency. Okay, cool. And then for folks to know, you know, again, like at the state level, it can be very like, there's some states that I've heard of or like they basically will pay for like the first year of apprenticeships salary. Right. So that's great. But as far as the Ace network, what we can generally offer is, I think it's fifteen hundred dollars per apprentice that you bring on. So that's at least something that we can directly offer from our work. And then, you know, there are folks on our team that can help you like navigate. What are the other tax incentives or financial incentives that go through your state that you might be eligible on? So we had, one of the consultants on the team was like with Department of Labor for like 30 years in apprenticeship. So he like does all the state players and all that kind of stuff.
Jason Assir
No, that's awesome. Well, Brent, I really, really appreciate you being our guest for this month's webinar. This has been a great conversation, great material. Thank you for sharing your insights on this process. And, I mean, if people want to reach out to you, can we connect to you to any of our attendees? And can you also share your deck that we could pass out some people that have attended?
Brent Kossick
Yeah, yeah. Please share this stuff. And folks are, I think my email is on that like second slide or whatever so folks can email me. But yeah, happy to. Again, like, if anybody wants to figure out how they can connect into american climate corps, the talent pipeline would love to have that conversation and that anything we can help with apprenticeship, either as standing up new or a talent pipeline would be interested in those conversations as well.
Jason Assir
Awesome. Well, thank you again, Brent. Really appreciate it. Thank you to all of our guests. Next month we are doing a webinar on ultra deep geothermal. So we're having someone from, I think, a research institution in Canada talk about ultra geothermal and the potential for ultra deep geothermal to flip the switch on energy and get 24/7 clean base load power. Just have to drill deep enough. So anyway, Brent, thank you again. Thanks, everyone, and we'll see you next month at the next webinar.
