Aurora to provide building for clean-energy job training
Students in a clean-energy jobs training program will have a better place to learn and practice skills, as the City of Aurora is going to let them use a former water and sewer division building.
On Tuesday, the city council gave preliminary approval to rent the unused building at 649 S. River St. to the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act Workforce Development Hub run by the College of DuPage.
“This 100% is the right kind of space,” Callie Matheny, the hub’s director, told the council.
CEJA was designed to help Illinois transition to using 100% “clean” energy by 2050.
COD’s program is 180 hours of entry-level bridge training. Students earn basic first aid and CPR, OSHA-10 job-site safety, and National Center for Construction Education and Research Core Construction certificates.
Then they can advance to job-specific training in solar energy, energy auditing, heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration, and weatherization. Those courses take place at the college’s campus.
The hub has been offering the bridge training at Waubonsee Community College’s downtown Aurora campus, but it needs more room, and a space appropriate for working with power tools.
The hub started training students about a year ago, Matheny said.
The 548 Foundation will also use the building. It provides programs to certify students as solar voltaic system installers. Its students will earn credentials from the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners, an OSHA 30-hour construction certification, and basic construction skill certification.
The city will charge the 548 Foundation and COD $5,000 a month.
The Aurora hub is one of 13 throughout the state. A 14th will soon start in Kankakee, Matheny said.
The hubs are located in equity investment-eligible communities. Those are areas where people have “historically been excluded from economic opportunities, including opportunities in the energy sector” and “environmental justice communities,” where residents have been subject to disproportionate burdens of pollution, including pollution from the energy sector, according to the CEJA law.
There are two hubs in Chicago. Others are in Waukegan, Rockford, Joliet, Peoria, Champaign, Danville, Decatur, Carbondale, East St. Louis and Alton.