Palm Beach Community College's 'green' degree offers hope to jobless

It fell to Palm Beach Community College Associate Dean Sam Freas to explain the school's new Electrical Power Technology degree during a recent open house for prospective students.

But what the booming Philadelphia native really peddled was hope.

The promise that hard work, and even harder homework, will end in a job.

Because for many of the 81 people packed into a conference room on a windy Monday night at dinnertime, a job was something they didn't have.

The new degree offers at least some kind of chance for a future in a Florida economy with the highest unemployment rate (8.1 percent) in 16 years.

Laid off, downsized, displaced and disrespected, the power technology recruits were asked to introduce themselves and say why they were there - a sort of Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for the unemployed.

"Hello, my name is Matt, I'm from West Palm Beach. I was in construction but lost my job."

Then there was the Realtor "looking for something else"; the air-conditioning technician who, without new construction, has nothing to install; the banker whose job up North did not survive the economic downturn; and the home mortgage broker - enough said.

The new associate in science degree is a partnership with Florida Power & Light Co., which is committed to hiring up to 20 graduates a year. About 100 students are in the program, which focuses on alternative energies such as wind and solar.

Freas focuses on the positive. Forty-seven percent of FPL's workforce will retire in five years, he said. FPL is the second-largest energy company in the country.

A flier advertising the open house reads, "As a graduate of this program, you can make $60,000 a year with an associate's degree."

The second page of Freas' Power Point presentation is clear, however. These words glow on a pull-down screen: "There is no guarantee of employment."

Middle-aged Milton Bautista, an electrical apprentice before being laid off in October, knows there are no promises. He started taking classes in the new program in January and hopes to land an FPL internship this summer.

"With good grades ... I always aim for an A, I'll have a better chance," said Bautista, who fell behind on his Loxahatchee home's mortgage payments after losing his job. He now pulls 35 hours of work at a gas company on a good week and is catching up on bills.

Bautista already has an associate degree in criminal justice but says he needs this program, this "green collar" job training, to succeed in a changing world.

Freas is banking on President Obama's commitment to alternative energy to help fuel a job market for the people in his Electrical Power Technology program.

He tells them they may not get a job in Florida. Work might mean traveling to a wind farm out West, or a solar field in the Mojave Desert.

FPL is building a natural gas plant in western Palm Beach County and modernizing two older plants to use clean-burning natural gas. The company, which donated $30,000 to create the PBCC program, also has plans for new solar-power plants in Martin, DeSoto and Brevard counties.

Many in the inaugural class of the power technology degree say it's harder than they imagined. Those who went straight to work from high school now find themselves - sometimes 20 years later - relearning algebra and physics.

On Wednesdays, a course on power plant fundamentals begins at 5 p.m. and is immediately followed by a math class.

Dinner comes after 11 p.m. for 37-year-old Robert Lee, a student in the program who commutes 50 miles from Port St. Lucie.

Lee worked as a service manager for a tire company until it downsized in December 2007. He found temporary work as an insurance agent, but that job ended in January 2008.

He and his wife, a nurse, had to cash out a 401(k) plan to pay off a second mortgage on their house. They sold stocks to pay off credit cards. The couple also have two young children.

"It's really a blow to your confidence," said Lee, who now takes five classes - a hefty 17-credit load. "With any man, you want to feel that you're productive, and not having a job means I've kind of switched roles with my wife."

"Last year was tough for a lot of people," said student Rich Veit, 44, during a short break between the Wednesday power plant course and math class.

Veit was a construction superintendent - a job that seemed rock-solid during the building frenzy - until the last week in October, when he was laid off. He also commutes from Port St. Lucie to take lasses at PBCC's Palm Beach Gardens campus.

Then there's Vince Arena, 28, who has an associate's degree in education but fears instability in the once-dependable K-12 teaching career.

"I feel like I'm one of the privileged people in this class," Arena said. He still manages a 40-hour work week in a marine lighting business, although he lost his health insurance and saw his 20-person office downsized to 10 last year.

Nearly everyone in the Wednesday night class, all of whom are men, is there because of a faltering economy and their trust in a new administration's devotion to alternative energies.

They have one other thing in common: The recalibration of their future has begun.

"It's important to have more than one dream," said PBCC student Ian Fike, a Florida State University graduate with a business degree who is banking on a future with FPL.