News & Updates

Interested in the GPRO courses but want to learn more about the content?  We’ve just published the first chapter of our Electrical Systems manual for public preview.  See the preview below, or check out the first chapters of our Fundamentals of Building Green, Construction Management, or Operations & Maintenance Essentials manuals.

[[Cross-posted from the Urban Green Council blog.]]

by Anjuli Munjal

As the Training Manager for a pre-apprenticeship training program at Nontraditional Employment for Women, I am always looking for pathways to green jobs. But, multiple years after we first heard the term, “green job” continues to be an enigma. Does a green job have to be new? Does it have to be funded by stimulus money? Are all jobs that work with landscaping green? While the phrase has created a great deal of enthusiasm, it can definitely use a healthy dose of clarity and approachability.

At last week’s Good Jobs Green Jobs conference in Philadelphia, Ellen Honigstock of Urban Green Council helped provide this clarity by facilitating a panel discussion with leaders and instructors from three New York City building trade unions.

Ellen introduced the panelists as “the GPRO Dream Team.” Their organizations, along with other knowledgeable trade professionals, helped develop the curriculum and classroom materials for GPRO, Urban Green Council’s national green building program. By contributing to GPRO, unions are demonstrating leadership in the green building industry– and making buildings more sustainable by training their members.

The panelists, each representing a different trade, spoke about their union’s integration of sustainability training and how it applies to their members’ jobs. Bob Muldoon, Director of the Green Building Initiative for the Local 32BJ Thomas Shortman Training Fund, explained the 1000 Green Supers program, in which over 1,500 NYC building supervisors participated in training about efficient building operations. John Sullivan, of U.A. Plumbers Local 1, brought up the valuable point that the plumbers’ curriculum has always taken efficiency and sanitation into consideration, which are some of the key areas of focus for efficient water systems in green buildings. He explained that Local 1’s apprenticeship program offers training for jobs in solar thermal systems and stormwater management and prepares their plumbers to keep up with market demand. Michael Yee, Director of the Educational and Cultural Trust Fund at Local 3 Electricians, mentioned that Local 3 provides classes for their electricians in renewable energy, such as solar panel installation and Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE). He also outlined plans for a LEED- certified training center that will break ground within the year. Howard Styles, Training Director of the IUOE NYC Local 94 Union of Operating Engineers, was unable to attend the panel but Ellen presented some of the green courses they are currently offering.

These plumbers, electricians, and building supers are some of the building trades that have incorporated GPRO into their curriculum. Each panelist reported a similar goal for their training program, which is to ensure that green work practices and concepts are covered before their members move on to more complex coursework. GPRO’s prerequisite course, Fundamentals of Building Green, teaches basic knowledge about sustainability and green building systems, while the higher level trade-specific GPRO courses focus on green practices critical to each trade. The GPRO curriculum stresses the “whole building approach,” making the material relevant to anyone working in the building trades. GPRO also prepares experienced tradespeople to take advanced green training courses in a variety of specialties including Solar PV and Solar Thermal Installation, Building Operator Certification (BOC), or BPI Energy Efficient Building Operator Certification.

John Sullivan pointed out that plumbers trained in solar thermal panel installation have more background and experience to do a quality job because of their foundation, safety perspective and troubleshooting experience than someone trained only in the installation itself. So, if you are looking for green jobs that will become a career, you may not need to look any further than the established union apprenticeship training programs in New York.

Using the GPRO curriculum as a baseline for working within green buildings is helping to provide more definition to the term “green job.” A green job is not what the work is, but how you do it. Plumbing and electrical work and facilities maintenance are all green jobs, when the approach is responsible in terms of resource use and efficient operations.

[[Cross-posted from the Urban Green Council blog.]]

Urban Green Council is a proud supporter of the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Eastern Conference being held in Philadelphia on April 3^rd and 4^th.

I will have the honor of moderating a panel discussion entitled Building Trade Unions Take a Leadership Role in Green Training. The speakers are part of the GPRO dream team – the union leaders who helped us develop and implement GPRO, our green professional building skills training program. Included on the panel will be:

• Howard Styles, Training Director, I.U.O.E Local 94 Operating Engineers NYC
• Bob Muldoon, the Director of the Green Building Initiative for the Local 32BJ Training Fund, 1000 Supers program
• John Sullivan, U.A. Plumbers Local Union No.1 Trade Education Fund
• Michael Yee, Director of the Educational and Cultural Trust Fund of the Electrical Industry, Local 3 Electricians

The theory behind GPRO is that green buildings will only perform as designed if the people who build, renovate, operate and maintain those buildings have a thorough working knowledge of green practices.

We are gratified to work with the labor unions who are taking a leadership role in accelerating the construction industry’s transition to green building by providing trained workers and collaborating with environmental groups to create comprehensive green worker training.

This panel will address labor unions’ critical role in transforming the green building workforce and how labor unions and Urban Green Council successfully collaborated to create GPRO, a national green building certificate program for contractors, trades, operators and building service workers.

Please let us know if you will be attending the conference. This will be a chance for all of us to meet with community leaders, union members, environmentalists, business leaders and elected officials together to discuss how our region is, city by city and block by block, building the foundation for a green economy.

[[Cross-posted from the Urban Green Council blog.]]

Photo Credit: US Army Corps of Engineers

A question for all you design professionals out there: When was the last time a project you designed was built exactly as shown on your drawings?

The answer, I imagine is “never.”

There’s a myth outside of the construction industry that the architectural team hands over a giant set of blueprints and specifications to the contractor and then a team of construction workers execute those plans with nary a glitch. The misconception is that the construction team “just follows plans” when in fact there is a very entrenched but varying culture on construction sites that determines how workers behave and how projects gets built.

To improve the performance of our buildings, much higher levels of coordination is required between the construction, design and operations teams as well as among the trades working on the project. To build green, it’s critical to get all of these individuals on the same page and change the culture of the job site to include sustainable work practices.

To help the construction industry teach the workforce about sustainability and green work practices, Urban Green Council developed GPRO, a national training program to teach the people who build, renovate and maintain buildings the principles of sustainability combined with trade-specific green construction knowledge.

We’d like to share an excerpt from Trades Going Green in the January 2012 issue of GreenSource magazine. Bruce Buckley features GPRO prominently as he writes about the importance of training and collaboration when building sustainable buildings.

“Changing the culture is an important first step in training trade contractors to think green, says Steve Lehtonen, senior director of environmental education with the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO). “The most important thing to me is the psychology of what we’re doing,” says Lehtonen, who runs IAPMO’s Green Plumbers training program. “We want them to buy into green practices.”

Green Roofs for Healthy Cities (GRHC) launched its Green Roof Professional (GRP) designation program to improve the delivery of green roofs. Jordan Richie, manager of education and accreditation at GRHC, says the program sees a mix of designers and contractors in roofing and landscaping. “We want to stress a collaborative design and installation approach to any green roof,”

Knowledge of green systems and techniques should be a skill set that all contractors have, not one reserved for accredited professionals, says Mike Callanan, executive director of the National Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (NJATC) of the National Electrical Contractors Association and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.“

The takeaway is that properly trained construction teams who understand green work practices and concepts will build better, higher-performing buildings. As we bring GPRO nationwide, it is our goal to make all buildings be greener as workers become trained in green practices and behavioral norms change.

[[Cross-posted from the Urban Green Council blog.]]

We are proud to announce that Urban Green Council has issued its 1,000^th GPRO Certificate!

In the 11 months since we launched our first public class, we have trained or are in the process of training over 1,700 candidates in five different construction modules. We wanted you to hear from our Certificate Holders directly, so we invited a student from each GPRO module to tell us how GPRO has impacted the way they work.

Loretta Tapia, GPRO: FUND

NYC Cool Roofs Site Supervisor, Community Environmental Center, New York, NY

I look at buildings differently. I better understand the relationships between building systems and their effect on the environment. My job involves painting cool roofs and concentrates on the urban heat island effect, reducing carbon emissions and air pollution while increasing energy efficiency within the building. We are still learning the effects of cooling roofs and how they prolong the life of vents and machinery on the roof. I often have in depth conversations with building supers, while inspecting their roofs, which include benchmarking, lighting efficiency, weatherizing, and updating boilers and air conditioners. GPRO has given me a good foundation to build upon in understanding how important it is to do this work and continue to learn and educate others about sustainability.

Ty Stranger-Thorson, GPRO: CM

Area Manager, The Garland Company, Magnolia, TX

The actual way I work has not changed much, but the hard hat stickers and my GPRO credential listed on my LinkedIn page have both raised some questions from colleagues and clients alike regarding my GPRO certificate. This has started dialogue regarding green construction and practice, from the designers to the installers.

The more we are able to spread the word about these types of programs the easier it will be to have our buildings constructed by workers that understand and implement green building practices.

Isaiah Matos, GPRO: O&M

Assistant Resident Manager, Douglas Elliman, New York, NY

The GPRO courses changed various aspects of my life, both professionally and personally. GPRO illuminated a new way of thinking when performing at work on a daily basis. Simple things from the types of products that I purchase for the buildings to the way I manage construction and renovations have all changed. GPRO introduced me to integrated design and thinking, so making simple decisions like changing lamps may have inverse cost effects on the HVAC system, which is something I never considered before. Water conservation can reduce energy use by simply not having to heat and transport as much water as before the reduction. The integrated systems approach has changed the way I make every decision.

GPRO also introduced me to the USGBC and the LEED rating system. The influence of some of the lecturers inspired me to move further into the green building industry and pursue LEED accreditation. As of now I am a LEED Green Associate and I am studying for my LEED AP in Building Operations & Maintenance, which I hope to have before new year 2012.

Bob Hattier, GPRO: EL

NABCEP Certified PV Installer, IBEW Local 134 Chicago, Chicago, IL

GPRO addresses the disconnect that has long plagued green building. Now with trade level certification there can be a true integrated design and construction process. In my work I have a new understanding of the other trades’ approaches and strategies used in efficient building, and it fosters communication between us. I look forward to the day when many more are trained and green building is the norm.

Carl Gambino, GPRO: PL

Journeyman Plumber & Instructor, U.A. Local 1 NYC Plumbers Union

The day after the Fundamentals class, when I went back to my job at Tower 1 at the World Trade Center (the project is working towards LEED Gold certification), I looked around and was able to understand so much more about what was being built and why I was being asked to change the way we worked. I also noticed how other trades were contributing to the green building design.

Interested in taking a GPRO course? Our delivery partners in Upstate NY and LaGuardia Community College are both holding public sessions this winter.