The Times-Tribune, February 11, 2010, Thursday

Copyright 2010
The Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania)

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

February 11, 2010, Thursday

HEADLINE: Unemployed get training for weatherization jobs

BYLINE: James Haggerty, The Times-Tribune, Scranton, Pa.

BODY:
Feb. 11--After 10 months out of the work force, Joe Lupinski aims to build a new career from weatherization train-ing.

"There's nothing good out there, with the economy," Mr. Lupinski said Tuesday as he took a break in panel shop at Simplex Industries in Scranton, where he and 11 other men are learning how to do home-energy improvements.

Mr. Lupinski, 42, of Scranton, knows the frustration of a fruitless job search. He was laid off from his industrial mechanic's job in April.

"I hit the whole Midvalley Industrial Park, and there was nothing," he said as other trainees installed insulation and cut access panel molding.

A friend told him about Johnson College's six-day weatherization certification course, which includes classroom instruction and training in caulking and sealing, glass replacement, drywall and patching, insulation and roof vent in-stallation.

"It motivated me to put an application in and try to get employed," Mr. Lupinski said. "All I can do is hope."

The training is provided through more than $1 million the state received for weatherization instruction from the $787 billion federal stimulus. It fulfills two primary goals of the recovery plan: creating work opportunities and in-creasing energy efficiency.

"The government is stepping in to try to support demand for this kind of work, create jobs and create benefits for the future," said John Bishop, a labor economist and professor of human resources at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "We do have this need for the retrofitting of the current housing stock."

Johnson College received $132,000 in stimulus funds to set up the program, hire people to coordinate and do the training and purchase tools and construction materials used in home mock-ups. The initial instruction is taking place at Simplex, a modular residential and commercial building manufacturer that donated space for the training.

"If it weren't for Simplex, we wouldn't have been able to do it," said Marie Allison, Johnson's coordinator of con-tinuing education. Johnson eventually will create its own space for training, which will continue for two more years, she said.

Human service agencies and contractors in Northeast Pennsylvania will weatherize thousands of homes through 2012 from more than $20 million in stimulus funding that broadens qualifications to include households with low and moderate incomes.

Even though training just started, Johnson already had an inquiry from a contractor to hire a certified weatheriza-tion technician, Mrs. Allison said.

Most of the first group of trainees qualified for the instruction through skills assessments at CareerLink. Twenty people came for the first orientation and 24 will attend one next week, said Bob Davis, Scranton CareerLink adminis-trator.

"It's not just being able to wear a hammer loop," he said. "You have to be job-ready and job-able."

Clarks Summit handyman Leon Vieira enrolled in the training because his the economic crisis battered his remode-ling and repair business.

"I have a couple side jobs but it's not enough to stay ahead of the utilities, bills and the mortgage," said Mr. Vieira, 57, of Clarks Summit. "Because the economy went bad, everybody is afraid to spend money."

He also has a variable-rate mortgage on a house he bought two years ago and his lender won't negotiate a fixed-rate note unless he has full-time work.

"I just want to get a steady job for a while until I get caught up with the mortgage," Mr. Vieira said. "There's sup-posedly jobs waiting for us when we finish."

Contact the writer: jhaggerty@timesshamrock.com

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LOAD-DATE: February 11, 2010