Merrimack Valley

Green coming to a job posting near you

By J.J. Huggins
jhuggins@eagletribune.com
Published: April 20, 2009

Anybody searching for a job may want to think green.

As people around the Merrimack Valley celebrate Earth Day on Wednesday, the word "green" has become more than a catch phrase. Green now refers to a sector of the American economy, one that politicians and business leaders say will grow rather than shrink like other industries.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes $500 million in funding for the Green Jobs Act, according to Congressman John Tierney, D-Salem, who co-authored the act.

Businessmen at local renewable energy companies are still waiting for that money to start flowing, but they expect business to take off when that happens because there will be monetary incentives from the government for people to install solar panels on their homes and businesses.

"We think that once that stimulus money is ready to be deployed, this industry is going to explode," said Scott Bowden, business development manager for Solectria Renewables, a company in Lawrence that builds photo voltaic inverters that take electricity from solar panels and feed it to buildings.

"You're going to need a massive work force to be able to do all this," said Dan Leary, president of Nexamp, a North Andover-based clean energy company.

Local renewable energy companies are relatively small outfits — Nexamp and Solectria employ 25 people each. But Bowden said his company plans to hire 10 to 15 more staff members by the end of the year, and Leary said Nexamp will likely grow by five to 10 workers this year.

Those are small numbers when you consider that 13.2 million people were unemployed nationwide last month, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In Massachusetts, 265,900 people were unemployed, according to the Merrimack Valley Workforce Investment Board.

But Nexamp and Solectria reflect what politicians say will be a national hiring trend in the green sector.

Through the American Recovery and Relief Act, the federal government hopes to create 3 million jobs by helping companies retrain workers to produce clean energy and energy-efficient products, says a statement on the U.S. Department of Labor Web site.

Bowden pointed out that Solectria creates work for "at least a couple hundred people" in other businesses because they outsource certain jobs to local companies — like machine shops — to build parts for their products.

Renewable energy companies create a variety of jobs, from scientists to laborers. Everything from the "PhDs to the PhDos," Van Jones, a White House adviser for green jobs, said during a recent cable television appearance with Tierney.

Locally, companies will be looking to fill a variety of positions, from entry level to experienced.

Bowden and Leary mentioned a variety of anticipated openings, such as electricians, solar panel installers and designers, production workers, and sales and marketing representatives.

One area in particular that Leary said will have openings will be for people who can look at a building and determine what clean energy options would work, sift through rebates and tax incentives, and compose a plan for the client to show how financially viable clean energy would be for them. It's essentially a sales job, Leary said.

"Building clean energy systems is simple," Leary said. "Building clean energy clients is really an art."

Bowden said he hopes the federal money will be deployed within three to four months.

Children may want to think green too, according to Dr. John Warner, president of the Wilmington-based Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, which designs chemical products that don't pollute.

The missing link in Warner's field is a work force that can do the job, he said.

"This is a great opportunity for kids," he said after a gathering at his facility last week where he, Tierney and several business leaders met to talk about the green industry. Warner is doing more than preaching. His company runs a program called Beyond Benign, which aims to create a work force that's educated in green chemistry. They train teachers, helping plant seeds to sow future green chemists.

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