Students join green economy

Adam Duke’s house burned down from an electrical fire in 2006. No one was hurt, but his family’s home was destroyed.

At the time, Duke was taking his first environmental science class as a freshman at MSU. As his parents started talking about rebuilding, Duke applied what he’d been learning in class, encouraging his parents to consider building a more environmentally friendly home.

“I did as much research as I possibly could about green building and energy efficiency,” Duke said. “I suggested some things to my parents about how we could be more green.”

Duke, now a general management senior, said his parents ended up building a home with geothermal heating, cooling solar attic fans and Energy Star-rated appliances. During the past summer, Duke started his own business, Go Green Energy Consulting, to help families, such as his, make energy efficient changes and save money with government rebates and tax credits for green improvements.

With state support and federal funding, Michigan residents such as Duke have the opportunity to regrow the state’s economy with new, green businesses.

Michigan currently has about 109,000 green jobs, according to a 2009 Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth report.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s Green Jobs Initiative combined with the work of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the Michigan Economic Growth Authority are expected to have created 20,000 green jobs in 2009, according to a statement from Granholm’s office.

“The Green Jobs Initiative (was) established to train and develop green education and training programs to further and expand the growth of Michigan’s economy,” said Beth Sommers, a green jobs specialist with the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth. “We are looking to invest and prepare workers for green jobs.”

Green training

Like many Michigan natives, Duke wants to stay in Michigan, and he’s hopeful businesses such as his can create a new green economy in the state.

“I love Michigan,” he said. “I want to stay here. It bums me out that my friends want to leave and don’t have jobs, and I believe in energy independence and efficiency so I thought what better way to put all these things together.”

At Go Green Energy Consulting, Duke and his partner, University of Michigan senior Jacob Smith, visit homes and audit them, telling clients how they can take advantage of green tax rebates, save on energy bills and be more energy efficient.

The Green Jobs Initiative is using about $6 million in federal stimulus dollars to train Michigan workers for green jobs. Half of the money in the initiative is providing training through Granholm’s No Worker Left Behind program, or NWLB, Sommers said.

As an arm of NWLB, the Green Jobs Initiative trains unemployed workers with necessary skills to work in green fields, Sommers said. Last week, Michigan received a $5.8 million federal grant to train about 1,000 displaced workers and place them in green jobs.

Although Duke’s business is getting off the ground, his company’s first energy audit, had the assistance of a worker who recently received NWLB training in Flint. He said hiring in NWLB trained energy auditors could save his business as much as $2,000.

The Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center offers small business training for entrepreneurs, and Tom Donaldson, the Lansing director of the center, said people increasingly are pursuing their own green businesses in Michigan.

“People are realizing that green is smart,” he said.

A smaller future

Donaldson said the state is moving away from a corporate economy to become one where 50 percent of jobs are in small businesses, he said.

Finance sophomore Michael Garavaglia recently started a battery recycling business with a student from Kettering University in Flint. He said small businesses and entrepreneurship will save Michigan’s economy.

Garavaglia said he always has wanted to start a business, and tax benefits for both environmentally friendly businesses and small businesses made the initiation easy.

“If the economy really is to recover here in Michigan, that recovery is going to be on the backs of the entrepreneurial-minded individual,” he said.

“The state needs to encourage that entrepreneurial mindset. Access to capital and credits are an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurial people to bring prosperity back to Michigan.”

Garavaglia said if his business is successful in Michigan, he will stay in the state when he graduates.

“I’d love to be able to graduate from college and already be in charge of my own green business,” he said.