ITHACA, N.Y. — A program in Ithaca has been steadily training up workers for “green-collar jobs.”
They’re called the Energy Warriors.
The Energy Warriors program trains underserved members of the community, such as the formerly incarcerated and critically unemployed, and helps them find jobs in the green energy sector.
On Dec. 12., a cohort of five trainees graduated from the program. The event, held in the wood-paneled basement of Ithaca’s First Presbyterian Church, celebrated their professional achievements.
The graduation began with music performed by Aloja Airewele, who leads the Energy Warriors program through the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Tompkins County (CCE). Airewele played a West African percussion mixed with claps from the audience.
The core curriculum of the program teaches the basics of environmental literacy, such as the effects of pollution, energy efficiency, food and agricultural systems, transportation, and building infrastructure.
Trainees received their certification as environmental specialists. All participants graduate with an OSHA-10 safety training and a building performance science certificate, which requires them to study standards for safe and energy efficient building practices.
The Energy Warrior program also offers a weatherization certificate through the New York State Weatherization Directors Association, but trainees were snowed in on the day they were supposed to complete their training in Syracuse. This training will resume in January.
The program doesn’t guarantee its participants a job upon graduation, but graduates have found work at Halco, FingerLakes Reuse, CCE and USC Builds.
When the Ithaca Green New Deal (IGND) was passed back in 2019, it was clear that moving Ithaca away from fossil fuels would require the electrification of the city’s building stock. Ithaca’s landmark environmental policy attracted some national media attention for setting the lofty goal of making the city carbon neutral by 2030.
It looks increasingly unlikely the city will reach that target. BlocPower, the company the city partnered with to electrify its building stock, quietly ended its support for the project in January 2025. No new partner has stepped in to replace the company.
While the original scale and promise of the Ithaca Green New Deal appears like it won’t be met, the Energy Warrior program is a product of the city’s goals to reduce its carbon emissions.
The program got its official start in 2021. It consists of a 12-week program where trainees learn different soft and hard skills.
Trainees went on field trips to SouthWorks, the ReUse Center, the Tompkins County Waste and Recycling Facility and the garages of Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) to scope what kinds of green jobs exist locally.
Paul Burke, an Energy Warriors graduate with a passion for fighting waste, said the ReUse center was among his favorite destinations.
“You don’t have to be rich to have nice possessions. There’s so much to go around,” Burke said. “We just need to make good use and good placement of our resources. And we need to distribute things more among people instead of just straight to a landfill.”
Energy Warriors graduate Anna Doll said the training made her feel more prepared to seek out a job of any kind, not just a green job. She is looking forward to applying for a driver job at TCAT to be a part of the bus service’s electric transportation accessibility project.
She said she learned about the Energy Warriors program during an Earth Day event at The Commons.
“I was like, ‘Oh, that sounds like something I could do because I don’t have a steady job or anything, and I don’t know what to do,’” Doll said. “The only thing I really do know that I am interested in is doing things that are positive for the environment or at the very least not damaging.”
In previous years, the first cohort of the Energy Warrior program began in March, but funding for the initiative appeared to be uncertain after Trump stepped into the White House.
After receiving a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, the City of Ithaca earmarked $762,000 toward expanding the scope of the Energy Warriors program. The funding was also earmarked to fund engineering consulting company TetraTech’s energy audit of the Ithaca City School District buildings.
The funding was frozen by the Trump administration, according to Airewele. The future expansion of the Energy Warriors Program was uncertain until the funding was released in September. Now the program is expected to pilot a new 18-month class starting after March 2026.
The new course will be able to enroll more energy warriors, training them to become certified home energy auditors while paying them a $20 hourly wage and $10 an hour for the in-classroom training. This funding is also slated to go toward buying a vehicle to get program participants to and from trainings as well as other wrap-around services, including childcare.
Rebecca Evans, the City of Ithaca’s director of sustainability, said the program tackles the energy crisis by training young people to be advocates for decarbonization.
In order to meet the IGND’s decarbonization goals by 2030, Evans calculated that they would need to add 51 new “green-collar jobs” to the local workforce every quarter between now and then.
It’s a tall order, but the Energy Warrior program is meant to help chip away at that goal.
Evans said that training more workers to perform energy audits will help unlock incentives for heat pumps and insulation services provided by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).
“Under NYSERDA, the state energy agency that provides all of the incentives for heat pumps or insulation services, in order to unlock those financial incentives, the first thing that you have to do in your building is have an energy audit,” Evans said. “Many contractors do not have somebody that is certified to do that on staff. So we’re trying to increase the number of people that could perform that service.”
To get certified to do home energy audits, trainees will need 1,000 hours of on-the-job training. Evans hopes that by shadowing energy auditors at TetraTech, who are auditing the school district’s buildings, trainees will be able to meet the 1,000 hour requirement.
After Airewale’s drumming, the graduates came up to receive their certificates. One by one, they shared a little bit of their experience with the program
Seth Gottfried shared he felt the program gave him agency as he has consumed news about the effects of climate change, which he called “very apocalyptic stuff.”
“Here, [environmental science] is grounded and we get to see everyone who does amazing things to make the world better for people and the planet.”
In an interview with The Ithaca Voice, Gottfried said he thought that grassroots community efforts have been more fruitful than his attempts to fix institutions from the inside.
“Other people have fallen into that temptation of ‘Let’s fix the world by begging people who are making the world worse to fix it,’” he said.
Behind the graduates, a Mexican proverb taped onto the wood paneling read, “They tried to bury us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.”
Keegan Young is the chief instructor for the program and an Energy Warriors alum. Young said while the program doesn’t directly place its participants in jobs, it does try to connect people with work opportunities. After the trainees graduate, they will continue to work with him to practice for interviews and to develop their resume.
“We’re still reaching out to people who took the course earlier this year and last year,” Young said. “We come across new job opportunities with this or that place and we’re like ‘Hey, are you interested in this?’”
A position recently opened up at CCE, and they’ve reached out to energy warriors suggesting they apply. Several representatives for different local businesses such as ReUse, TST BOCES and USC Builds were also present during the graduation ceremony.
To close the graduation ceremony, Doll lulled her audience with two cover songs she’d been inspired to learn because of the program. Her second song, Seminole Wind by John Anderson, told the story of nature’s resilience in the face of greed in Florida Everglades.
“So blow, blow Seminole wind. Blow like you’re never gonna blow again. I’m calling to you like a long-lost friend, but I know who you are. And blow, blow from the Okeechobee. All the way up to Micanopy. Blow across the home of the Seminoles. The alligators and the gar,” Doll sang.
More stories like this