Brownsville Youth Dive Into OffshoreWind Construction Training Program

By Mary Alice Miller
On a cool afternoon in early June a group of Juniors and Seniors from Transit Tech High School huddle around schematics. Their instructor, Mr. Muhammad, explained to them the difference between architectural and engineering scales and demonstrated how to use scale rulers.

The youth are participating in the Brooklyn Youth Offshore Wind Training Program, a paid training program that offers Brownsville youth certification and hands-on experience in project management, construction, and wind turbine technician training, preparing them for green energy jobs.

The first of its kind program is administered in a collaboration between the Central Brooklyn Economic Development Corp., National Wind Service Corp., and funded by Citizens Bank and Local Initiatives Support Corp., New York.

The youth participants talked about what brought them to the program.
Honestly, I have a lot of career choices. I wanted to get a job and put some spare change in my pockets. I want to get different experiences.

I don’t want to go to college. I am not too fancy in school, so I might as well do a trade. .All I want to do is graduate from high school and do a trade. As long as I get paid decent money, I am happy.

They had a lot to choose from. They had construction, welding, HVAC… I don’t know what I like right now,” said Christopher, age 17. “Everything doesn’t happen overnight. But if I put in the work and stick around think I will get there over time. I don’t know none of this stuff, and now I am learning about it. I had no idea about it. Very like, true knowledge.”

Kinsey, age 16, said I” am fond of being an electric engineer. I joined this program to broaden my knowledge. I like the electric part of it and getting my hands dirty. I think this program will help me. I think I made the right choice.

I like this program because no only are they teaching me about electrical engineering, but also construction, welding, HVAC. So, if electrical engineering doesn’t work out maybe I can become a welder or a general contractor.”

“I have always been interested in trades, and the trade I particularly want to be in is welding. Welding and carpentry. Ever since I was young, I always found metalwork and woodwork incredibly exciting. I used to play with Legos a lot and down in my grandfather’s basement, he has a lot of pieces of wood and I would glue them together.

My grandfather would show me how to make things with wood,” said Cameron, age 16. “I really enjoy this program. It will help me get closer to my goal. I am getting closer to people I wouldn’t normally get close to. I am building my network.”

Eighteen-year-old Juan said “I signed up for this program to learn more about electrical and plumbing. There are programs at Transit Tech that let us learn about electrical so I wanted to further my education. This programs has met my expectations because even though most of it is learning through reading books a lot of it is also hands on learning.”

“Originally, when they first offered it, I didn’t know what I wanted to choose when they gave out other programs. But when I heard that we can get a lot of certifications like NCCER (National Center for Construction Education and Research) it interested me a lot. That is something good to have in my back pocket,” said James, age 17. “Construction isn’t my first choice for what I want to do.

I want to be a pilot. Construction is something I could lean on if things never work out, like a Plan B. This program is interesting. I am enjoying my time here.”

Michael, age 17, said, “I wanted to participate in something that is hands-on, something more fun I can do. It’s a lot of fun learning about construction. I want to be an electrician. This class is the core instruction for the trades in general. Learning about the other stuff in this class will really help me out in my career and future.”

“I originally wanted to do computer engineering in college. But I wasn’t fully sure what I wanted to do, so I wanted to try different options. This offers construction, more of the hands-on side instead of the IT side. So, I thought this would be a good learning experience to figure out what would be best for me, or a second option. [Computer engineering and the physical space for computer equipment] relate to each other,” said Jason, age 17. “This class met my expectations. I was looking for a hands-on activity and the books at the same time. The environment here is really nice. And we get paid.”

David Muhammad, Executive Director, Genesus Construction Training Center, led the construction training.
“I think that we all need access to these programs for our young people in our community. Construction training programs are not easily accessible in the Northeast unless they are blue states. Construction training and apprenticeship programs are usually offered by the trade unions.

And the trade unions don’t have an open-door policy when it comes to Black folk, particularly in inner cities. It’s the good old boys club,” said Muhammad. “And so we wanted to provide opportunities like this to our community. So we started our own apprenticeship training program. We are happy to provide it.”

Genesus Construction Training Center was established 2010. They have trained hundreds of people through the apprentice training program. Though their non-apprentice program they have trained 6,000.

“Genesus One Enterprise Construction Company has done building construction since 1999. We were at capacity in 2010 when we got a lot of work and a lot of employees. We had a lot of opportunity for employees but we didn’t have that many skilled tradespeople in our community.

So, we need more skilled tradesmen. Our target is to employ and train our people,” said Muhammad. “We couldn’t find more skilled trade people, so we said we would train them. So we started Genesus Construction Training Center.”