wind energy training colorado

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Mi Casa Resource Center, a Denver-based 501 founded in 1976, has spent the last 30 years trying to lift Latino and low-income families up the ladder of economic success. Its latest program, called Construction & Energy Pre-Apprenticeship Program, is aimed at teaching the disadvantaged how to install solar panels.

This intensive eight-week course includes four weeks in pre-apprenticeship construction training, and two weeks on the theory and practical installation of solar, thermal and wind energy technologies. Another two weeks are spent on job readiness training, life skills, computer, financial literacy and job-search training. Graduates of the eight-week course are then offered the opportunity for further training in the field of their choice – solar, thermal or wind energy, or historic restoration, weatherization, highway repair, and general construction.

One student is Lesa Theaman, who once faced a felony drug conviction but now faces a sunny future as a solar panel installer. Theaman recently met with Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who visited Mi Casa to see how the organization’s trainees and future business entrepreneurs were reshaping their lives thanks to the $80 million that Colorado will get through the economic recovery act stimulus payments – a windfall that may provide up to 6,000 “green jobs” in the state alone.

As Bennett noted, these jobs aren’t exportable, and will help reduce America’s reliance on foreign oil. Bennett is particularly proud of the role Mi Casa is playing in that workforce revolution.

“We can give them a different kind of future,” he noted, referring to the disadvantaged minority who form the core of Mi Casa’s work.

For Theaman, it was a case of turning her life around. “I wanted something better for myself.”

Theaman, who is applying for an electrician’s apprenticeship program, showed Sen. Bennet the two solar panels used in a Mi Casa class and noted that Colorado, with its 360 days of sunlight per year, could do something phenomenal with solar energy – a position supported by Sun Power, whose Executive Director Jack Dorwart says his company will hire Mi Casa trainees while doubling the number of families his company serves, from 525 to more than 1,300 a year. Sun Power, not to be confused with solar manufacturer SunPower, provides energy efficiency updates to needy families.

In all, Mi Casa’s renewable energy training program is a prime example of the ways in which President Obama’s stimulus and energy packages will deliver America from foreign oil and provide the sort of home-based renewable energy that also rescues the nation’s air, water and manufacturing capability from polluting fossil fuels, making Mi Casa everyone’s “casa” in terms of clean, green solar energy.

About the Author:

Cooler Planet is a leading solar resource for connecting consumers and commercial entities with local solar Installers. Cooler Planet’s solar energy resource page contains articles and tools about solar panels to help with your solar project.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Sempra Explodes As California’s Largest Solar Energy Generator