San Diego gains $4m to train workers for biofuels industry

July 1, 2010

The San Diego area has been given a $4 million grant to help train new workers for careers in the emerging biofuels industry.

The award from the California Department of Labor will fund a collaboration between a number of area organizations to provide education and placement services to unemployed and dislocated workers in San Diego and the Imperial Valley.

The Educating and Developing Workers for the Green Economy scheme (EDGE), run by the San Diego Biofuels Initiative, should help to set up several training programs for different levels of workers.

This could include Biofuels Production Certificate programs, a Biofuels Lab Tech Certificate program, Biofuels Crop Management Certificate and Advance training in Biofuels Crop Research.

“This award shows San Diego at its best,” said Lisa Bicker, CEO of CleanTECH San Diego, one of the organizations behind the EDGE scheme.

“It exemplifies a successful collaboration between industry, academia and government that will result in putting San Diegans to work while solving the critical challenge of energy independence and security.”

Funding for the initiative comes through California’s Contingency Fund and the Federal Workforce Investment Act.

Jobs

An analysis issued by the San Diego County of Governments’ economic bureau this month suggests that the biofuels industry currently provides 410 jobs in the County, with $56 million in direct economic activity and $108 million in total economic activity.

“The San Diego biofuels industry faces critical workforce shortages,” said Steve Mayfield, Director of SD-CAB and a professor of biology at UC San Diego, one of the institutions that will train future biofuels workers. “The demand for these jobs will accelerate over the next three years and in order to meet this demand, it is imperative to develop the infrastructure to train the biologists, engineers, and production technicians the industry will require.”

The EDGE Initiative will aim to work closely with the biofuels industry itself, with the intention to set up an industry advisory board to guide the program as it develops.

Industry partners for the initiative currently include General Atomics, Synthetic Genomics, Sempra Energy, Sapphire Energy, and Verenium, who are helping provide internships, on-the-job training and employment.