A new center offering job training in green energy-related fields that opened earlier this year in Aurora celebrated its first graduation on Friday.
Specifically, 16 students gradated from the program run by 548 Foundation, one of the two groups offering programs at Aurora’s CEJA Workforce Development Hub. Located in a formerly unused city facility at 649 S. River St., the workforce development hub’s programs get their funding through the state Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, which also gives the Aurora center its name.
“Tonight is a big deal. You guys are a big deal,” Aurora Mayor John Laesch, standing at a podium in front of a structure made during the course, told graduates during Friday’s ceremony.
According to officials, the 548 Foundation training program at the Aurora CEJA Workforce Development Hub sets graduates up to become first-year apprentices in the Mid-America Carpenters Regional Council with training in construction and solar power systems. Graduates also receive industry-recognized credentials, including an OSHA-30 Construction Certification, a National Center For Construction Education and Research Core Construction Certification and a CPR/First Aid Certification, said a city press release.
Each of the 15 graduates who attended the ceremony on Friday evening were called up by name to receive certificates and shake the hands of both elected officials and 548 Foundation leadership. Meanwhile, they were cheered on by friends, family and fellow classmates sitting in the audience.
AJ Patton, founder of 548 Foundation, said this graduating class is impressive.
“The marketplace will be better with you in, and I could not be more excited for you and your growth,” he told the graduates during his speech.
Laesch noted that there’s more work to be done at the CEJA Workforce Development Hub, such as creating air-conditioned spaces and bringing in other companies to help train students on their equipment. But, he said, it was “so cool” that this first class of students was able to “accept our dust and a little less than glamorous conditions” to make it through the course.
The building was previously used by the city’s water and sewer division, but after those operations shifted to the new Public Works building on Liberty Street, the city began leasing out the then-empty building to the College of DuPage and the 548 Foundation for their state-funded, clean energy-related job training programs.
The 548 Foundation’s first graduating class out of Aurora was “a really big deal” for Laesch personally, he told graduates as he choked up. In 2009, he was a carpenter, and he lost his job the same month a large energy bill came in, he said.
“I knew something about making a house more energy-efficient,” Laesch said. “I started to figure it out on my own.”
He started to lobby his union to create a program around energy efficiency, he said, and it did develop one. Laesch said that was “a turning point” for him, and it is what started him down a path that led him to where he is today.
“I worked over the next couple years to make my own house energy-efficient. I started at home. The next thing we are going to do is to make the city of Aurora a green new building city, and you guys are a big part of that,” he told the graduates.
Sustainability and living-wage job creation, particularly through green building, was a large part of Laesch’s campaign platform last year. And in his first year in office, sustainability efforts have been one of his main focuses.
Patton said that Laesch was a key reason that 548 Foundation came to Aurora when it did, and that he’s never seen a mayor more involved or engaged. At the tail end of the ceremony, the organization presented Laesch with a certificate for his efforts.
The Illinois Climate and Equitable Jobs 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. But it took around five years for the hub to get a physical location in the city, which was first unveiled during a launch party in January.
The CEJA Workforce Development Hub and its programming is designed to be a springboard for innovative green job training, equipping Aurora residents with the opportunity to work living-wage jobs and invest in a green future, according to a city news release.
U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, who also spoke at Friday’s ceremony, said he’d been to many of these type of events. At about half, he said, graduates are worried about how they are going to repay student loans and about if artificial intelligence is going to take their jobs — two things graduates of the 548 Foundation program do not need to worry about.
“There’s a lot of reasons to be proud and confident about the path you’ve chosen here,” Foster said.
Although some who went to college and studied for specific jobs may feel like they are getting the rug pulled out from under them, Foster said that is “not happening to people going into the building trades, and going into sustainable energy and energy-efficiency improvements.”
Even before graduation, those going through the 548 Foundation’s program weren’t being left to fend for themselves. Patton has said that his organization offers $500 weekly stipends to its students to “earn while you learn,” helping to carry them through the training.
And now, Laesch said he is working to help create jobs for the new graduates, specifically mentioning a solar project proposed to go on city-owned land.
“There will be jobs for these students,” Patton said. “There will be opportunities for these students in the coming weeks that we will announce.”
rsmith@chicagotribune.com
