Had a very productive meeting with the local Veterans Affairs rep this week; we discussed topics as diverse as my enrollment in a LEED or LEED-like certification-prep course, the recent completion of my application for VA Health benefits, and my job as a Paraeducator. If you live in Weld County, CO and are a veteran – or if Kristi Cronin is indicative of VA reps everywhere – you need to schedule an appointment.
I had prepared for our meeting by reviewing the types of certification available. The LEED certification looked interesting, but mostly because of the LEED AP (Tier II) specialization in neighborhood development. A brief introduction to each type of certification follows:
Green Industry Expertise Certificates Certification Where Used Notes More Info LEED Associate Primarily new construction Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design USGBC LEED Overview LEED AP Specialized experience LEED Accredited Professional GBCI LEED AP Credentials BPI Certified Professional Existing buildings Building Performance Institute BPI Overview RESNET HERS Rater Home efficiency Residential Energy Services Network Intro to RESNETDuring our meeting Kristi pointed out that it would be exceedingly difficult to find a job with only a LEED certification and no experience, and that finding an entry-level position with either BPI or RESNET would be much easier. For this reason, she said, I likely wouldn’t get any funding for LEED training. I could, however, get funding for a course that would net both of the other certificates at the same time — pretty fancy!
The $2200 tuition would be largely covered by federal grant money and I would be required to pay for a text book, a clipboard, and a hard hat. That last one caught me a little off guard. After we parted I jumped online and searched for a recycled or re-used hard hat (seems appropiate given the work I’d do inside of it, no?) but I didn’t have much luck. My mom - bless her heart – told me that the DirecTV installation guy left his hard hat behind and that she would ship it to me. I’m grateful for the offer, but I don’t know anything about its history so it might not be safe, regulation-wise. The leading contender for my inspection hat is the industrially-named MK2 from UK company ethicalworkwear.com. Their products are all made from at least 25% recycled material; I’d prefer to find a domestic producer but hats available in the U.S. are made of 0% post-consumer (aka “100% virgin”) material. It could be that there is a significant difference between the UK’s EN397 Safety standard and the U.S.’s Z89.1 standard, but otherwise it seems like recycling & reforming HDPE is an idea ready to catch on. That million-dollar idea is on the house, btw.
So, what to do with any of these certifications? To answer that I went to a link Kristi gave me: http://online.onetcenter.org/. It should be no surprise that the Energy Auditor occupation caught my eye; this starts the path that most likely prepares me for a career in government working on energy policy. I have that end-goal in front of me quite a lot, and I think that is why the hard hat caught me unprepared: I wasn’t expecting one to lead to the other. Dues’re can be funny that way.
Miscellanea: Two interesting finds while researching this article include making a flower pot from recyclethis.co.uk and green hard hat-wearing activists from treehugger.com.
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