The Aurora City Council has approved leases with two organizations for the city’s new CEJA Workforce Development Hub, which will offer job training in green energy-related fields.
The College of DuPage and the 548 Foundation are funded by the state of Illinois to run clean energy-related job training programs, but those programs didn’t have a permanent location in the city. Now, the organizations are partnering with Aurora to bring these programs to a currently-empty, city-owned building at 649 S. River St.
The Illinois Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which also gives the Aurora center its name, provides funding for the two organizations’ workforce development programs. The act was signed into law in 2021 and specifically notes Aurora as one of the 13 statewide locations to have such a job-training hub.
Aurora hosted a “launch” event for its new CEJA Workforce Development Hub last week. But, Mayor John Laesch was quick to point out in his speech that leases for the College of DuPage and the 548 Foundation to rent out the building, formerly used by the city’s water and sewer division, had yet to pass the Aurora City Council.
Now that the leases have been approved, they will go into effect on Feb. 1.
The building is planned to one day contain both classroom and work space. The classroom is set to be a “living laboratory,” with its own HVAC system for students to work on and empty spaces in the walls for students to install insulation in, city officials said at the launch event.
College of DuPage’s director of the Aurora CEJA Aurora Workforce Hub, Callie Matheny, said during the event that it was a “game changer” to have a place where students, staff and all of the program’s stuff can be in a single place.
From the new physical hub in Aurora, the College of DuPage is set to run its seven-week entry-level CEJA Bridge Program, which earns students various certificates related to construction and first aid, Matheny told the Aurora City Council’s Committee of the Whole last week. After completing that training, students can choose to take more advanced, job-specific training in solar installation, energy auditing and HVAC work.
More information on the college’s program can be found at: www.cod.edu/academics/continuing-education/career-professional-training/climate-equitable-jobs.html
The Aurora center is also planned to hold a training program from the 548 Foundation, which sets graduates up to become first-year apprentices in the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council with training in construction and solar power. Founder AJ Patton said at the launch event that his organization’s program offers $500 weekly stipends to its students to “earn while you learn,” helping to carry them through the training.
More information about the program can be found at: 548foundation.org
The College of DuPage is on the “workforce development” side of things, which means it is more specific to meeting the needs of local employers, while the 548 Foundation is more on the “climate works” side, which is more in-tune with what the unions would like to see, according to Matheny’s presentation last week. Both programs rely on Goodwill to educate the community about the programs and guide interested people towards them.
Aurora is also actively looking for additional partners to expand its CEJA Workforce Development Hub.
City officials are also looking at ways to encourage the creation of jobs that could be filled by graduates of the new center. One way is through a Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy financing program, commonly called C-PACE, which was approved by the Aurora City Council alongside the two leases on Tuesday. Through the lending program, the owners of commercial properties can borrow at a fixed, low interest rate for renovation or new construction projects related to energy efficiency and similar types of things.
Laesch campaigned last year partially on the promise of bringing these types of jobs to Aurora. And, during his inauguration speech, he spoke about partnering with the local CEJA Workforce Hub to help train students for that coming “green collar economy.”
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
