She Got Jobs

"We are perfectly situated to receive a wave of money."

by Bruce Schimmel

Liz Robinson has an interesting problem: She has a growing number of good-paying, light construction jobs with good benefits, and not enough takers. Qualified takers.

Robinson, 60, runs the Energy Coordinating Agency (ECA, ecasavesenergy.org), a nonprofit that's funded primarily through government contracts. ECA helps the urban poor — mostly the elderly — save money on energy. For 25 years, they've administered a patchwork of government programs to repair heaters, get fuel to cold houses and weatherize old homes.

But with stimulus money coming in, ECA is now concentrating on weatherization — on creating green jobs while refurbishing tired neighborhoods. Every day, from their just-opened green jobs training center near Front and Allegheny, ECA dispatches scores of white trucks with teams of weatherization workers to foam and fill drafty old homes.

ECA is located in what locals call The Badlands, where 10 percent unemployment would be a marked improvement. Still, Robinson says she can't train weatherization workers fast enough to meet the need. That scares Robinson, whose green eyes lock into you when she talks. "I believe we're in a tough situation," she says of climate change. "I see a train wreck coming. So we're committed to growing the [entire] market for weatherization. We're [even] interested in growing our competition," she adds, proudly naming former employees with whom ECA now competes.

ECA's recent growth has been sudden and spectacular, especially after the lean Bush years. In 2007, IRS filings indicate that ECA helped some 20,000 households on a budget of about $8.5 million. By fall 2009, ECA had grown to about $10 million. Today, six months later, they've swelled to an estimated $15 million, and provide jobs to about 130 employees.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," predicts ECA board member Chris Perks at the recent opening of the training center. From the podium, Mayor Nutter called ECA "a partner in creating jobs," as representatives from funders Knight Foundation and ExxonMobil looked on. "We are perfectly situated to receive a wave of money," says Perks. "Liz has built a platform on a neighborhood model, and there's no one else in town with that capacity."

It's a claim that no one disputes, except maybe Robinson herself, who's got that backlog of jobs that pay between $18 to $35 per hour, and which remain unfilled. That could change: ECA is one of nine agencies nationally to receive ExxonMobil funding for green jobs training. With the opening of the Green Jobs Center, says Robinson, "We're able to do the training to build capacity."

ECA hopes to train some 600 workers this year, and certify about 180. After training, workers may leave ECA, Robinson says, but she's not concerned. "People stay with us because they like service, where the customer is most important."

"That's no bullshit," one veteran employee later says, as he pumps yellow foam into the cracks of a cobwebby basement. "Twenty minutes with her, she makes you believe in yourself."

We work our way upstairs, to where a blind widower sits at her kitchen table. "At the end of the day," he says, "I know I've done something good, and I can sleep good at night."

(bruce@schimmel.com)