BEST students voice needs to Bloomberg......on radio!

Former Mayor of Toronto, David Miller, came to New York City this spring (2011) to ask Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his efforts to green city streets. But he and CBC journalist John Northcott ended up spending a lot of time with Sustainable South Bronx, speaking at length with BEST trainees.

Northcott gave the students a rare opportunity to speak to the mayor, indirectly. Listen to a few clips from this hour-long Canadian Broadcasting Corporation piece, and hear what they had to say to Bloomberg.

Truck driver Gordon Nicholson heard them while driving across Canada, and soon after he wrote a really heartening letter...

Hi--I'm a truck driver from Winnipeg Manitoba Canada and I was listening to a program..... The former Mayor of Toronto (David Miller) was interviewing Mayor Blumberg and others.

Miller spoke with a group of men who were learning the upside of greening; men who came from rough backgrounds.   I have to say that I teared up a little when the men began speaking, using ecologically knowledgeable terms and showing a new respect for the environment in general and specifically their own back yard, the Bronx river area.  You are showing great wisdom by involving the local people who have lived through the decay of the past and are now literally getting their hands in the soil to effect the change.  These women and men will never forget the true meaning of their new vocabulary and will know in their heart that they were involved in real and positive change for the entire community.

I pray that what is being learned will be just the beginning of new directions for all involved.  You are in inspiration believe me.   

- Gordon Nicolson

Delio Martinez, before an interview with the 'New York Daily News'

New York Daily News photo credit: Howard Simmons

After graduating from the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training Academy for Buildings (BEST4B – 2009), Delio was recruited by an environmental remediation staffing company which came to SSBx to recruit potential employees for the BP oil spill in the Gulf. 

As of April 2011, Delio lives in the Bronx, Norwood Heights, and works in construction, renovating a Saint John's Hospital in Queens. 

An article about his work down South was published in the New York Daily News in late spring. We interviewed him a few days before...

“When you arrive, given the images you see in the media, you expect to see a lot of oil everywhere, wildlife covered in a sticky mess, so I was expecting to get real dirty.

Actually it was not what I expected or what I imagined.

When you first arrived, it looked relatively normal. It was when we were asked to go out into the Barrier Islands that we saw the damage. The islands form a barrier, as the name implies, so this is where the real oil mess was accumulated.

We were engaged mostly in product recovery – stuff was washing up on shore, we were basically shoveling it, putting it in bags, shoveling it some more, and putting it on a barge which would transport it to a place where whatever could be salvaged, was salvaged, and then whatever oil could be re-processed was processed again.

They wouldn't let us mess with any wildlife – whenever we came across wildlife, we would mark it, whether it was alive or dead, for those who had the expertise to deal with. Then we would mark the sand, with a branch in the sand, mark that there was wildlife there, and our supervisor would then contact wildlife rescue.

We came across pieces of the rigging itself – we would inform the supervisor, and they would deal with that as well.

And we recovered loads of petrol, Mississippi crude... There's a constant wind blowing and moving the toxins around – and when it comes to petrol, there are a few things that can harm you, especially methyl benzene, the fumes – you can't smell them, but if you're exposed for a long time, it can lead to disastrous results, harm reproduction.... And the weather, the weather wasn't helping – very hot and humid – if you exert yourself, you have to hydrate, be on the lookout for your co-workers.

We weren't allowed to speak to the public because they feared some members of the public would confuse you with BP, feel that you were directly involved in the BP mess. But we got a good reception – people were very welcoming.

I left the Bronx, I was venturing way out, and I met a lot of people from the Gulf, we developed a rapport with people from all places. I learned about the impact from a local standpoint - that something like that could cause economic problems – I learned especially about the impact on the jobs – their livelihoods depended on the sea. There were jobs that were affected, and lives, I believe 12 lives were lost. This disaster also created jobs, and the people I worked with got jobs and were also involved in giving back, trying to restore their community – just like what we do in the Bronx.

A lot of people were being sent back that weren't from there – and I was one of the people selected to stay to train people locally. I guess I stood out because I wanted to apply what I had learned at BEST. I was very interested in the environment, and it was an opportunity also for me to also give back.

They felt that: why hire people from out of state when you have people from in state? It's an impoverished area – so they were hard hit anyway – they should have gotten as much work as much as possible locally. Hey I totally respected that perspective - it's obvious that the locals were clearly very available and obviously capable of doing the cleanup.

At the same time, while I was there, I never met anyone else involved in anything like the training program I'd been involved in in the Bronx - aside from people from New York – there were a lot of us from New York. Probably all of us with this training were from New York.

Actually what occurred was that it became somewhat of a frenzy – we started going through these HAZWOP trainings, the company was opening up a training area and they were training people by the loads. They weren't prepared – people didn't have the background, but once the opportunity arrived, they stepped up to the plate and got the certifications they needed to get the job done. People wanted to learn, gain the necessary skills.

Pollution is everywhere – there should be programs like BEST everywhere locally so that they can be prepared to draw from the local population during disasters like this, invest back into the community. That's part of what BEST tries to do in the Bronx and everyone should have that opportunity to gain the skills to get jobs involved in restoring their own communities.

A video by Hofstra students about BEST

This short film features BEST graduate Rashard Dyess-Lane, BEST Academy Director Annette Williams, among others. Check out Rashard's interview in an earlier post.

Rashard Dyess-Lane, right after graduating from BEST....

I was born and raised in East Harlem, but was most recently a home improvement contractor in DC. I was surprised that even around the nation's capital, you can see so many homeless people on top of grates that have steam coming out of them to keep them warm.

After 13 years in the DC-area, I'm a lot older now, and can better appreciate what the city I grew up in has to offer. I feel good about the fact that NY is investing in developing programs to help businesses and people be more sustainable.

When I came back to New York, I wanted to get certifications to make inroads into the green jobs market in New York. Since joining BEST, I've come along in the process. I got a letter of support from SSBx and applied for a NYSERDA grant (the Next Generation Emerging Technologies for Energy Efficiency grant – Pawn 1772), and I just incorporated the business right before graduation.

My business is called Advanced Paradigms.com. One of our trainers, Sharai Erima (with Onyx associates), our lifeskills teacher, he spoke to us a lot about what your paradigm is, point of view, how you look at life.... and knowing when you need to change your paradigm, when and how to have a paradigm shift. So when he asked the question, “Who knows what a paradigm is?”, I knew the answer, because my business had its name already, and I had the domain name for my website before entering the BEST program.

I always looked at paradigms from a business standpoint, but I never looked at it from a personal standpoint, in terms of how you view your life. Dwaine, the BEST trainer, talked to us about personal stability – how as you talk about the sustainability of your business, you also look at how you're going to make your way of life sustainable too.

My proposal was to develop an energy management system that had various modules in building management procurement and IT. It's a web-enabled app that business owners can use to monitor, control, and automate, their energy consumption by device, and measure their associated costs and carbon footprint. Most energy management systems focus on one aspect of energy-efficiency or waste, or another, but this one integrates building management systems, with an understanding of supply-chains, procurement processes, and likewise, IT. Typically, the technology does not exist to monitor IT equipment; usually all energy management systems do is look at energy consumption from a financial standpoint, and to quantitatively monitor energy usage overall using this or that limited device. But I'm working to promote a continuous improvement model. I want to incorporate best-practice management - reinvent the wheel, but integrating, for instance, zero-waste assessment and other such best practice frameworks.

Ever been in a training program like this?

Never. Got some basic certifications, that's it.

The way I look at this is as an introduction to the green and energy-related disciplines. A way to understand where your energies are and where your competencies are.

What did you expect, vs. what you got, out of the program?

To be honest, I didn't have high expectations. My sense was that typically when things like this are offered for free, there's not a lot behind them, it's just about going through the motions to assure continued funding for a training organization. I was surprised at how comprehensive and robust this program was.

Regardless of what happens, I'll never at things the same way again – because I look at things from a scientific mind. Like temperature, moisture, and heat, energy and how things flow, how even water flows underneath the surface of the city, the water tables, how energy works in the city..... it's a whole new universe. I had a very business-oriented background. I had some hands-on experience as a contractor, but it was very basic, it was focused on getting whatever I was hired to do, done. I didn't go into building science, thermodynamics, and ecological systems.

So now my new business is about implementing sustainable structure and operational systems and management - incorporating more sustainable methodologies as we manage existing infrastructure and operations. At the end of the day, you're able to save money because of it, there's a better quality of life for the people involved, and finally, the planet.... there's a proverbial triple bottomline effect going on.

What's the difference between a green job and other construction jobs?

A green job should be focused on improvement of the environmental health and safety of people affected by the job, as well as the economics of doing business in a sustainable way.

What does the program do for people who need jobs right now, who can't wait around for the most pristine green job out there?

I think everyone feels they have a competitive edge.

Also, at the start of the class, two people -- just me and one other person -- had ideas about being an entrepreneur; but by the end, many people were talking about making a difference in their community, talking about environmental justice, and making better decisions for themselves as far as their environmental footprint, and their lives.

What was the most memorable moment in the program?

Believe it or not – I'm trying to think of something more academic, but -- believe it or not, it was being in dance class in the morning, which was where I got my nickname Yahimbe, the African tree. Just being up early in the morning, dancing, running, pushing ourselves, we did it three times a week, for the first 4 weeks. Yeah, we did salsa, merengue, jazz, we did ballet. So I think that was it – watching people who you would never expect in am million years to dance, forcing themselves to both work out and dance. It was really good for building comradery.

What was the memorable thing the program taught you about yourself?

I think it taught me, actually, that I'm smarter than I gave myself credit for. Having been six or seven years in school, I remember when I was in grad school working my first job, I had all these plans of having all these certifications by the time I was thirty, taking over the world.....and I never got any of them. And in this program, I've had to take lots of different exams, and not only was I finally able to take 9 or ten certifications, but on top of it, I excelled at test-taking, and it's given me some confidence now that I can go after some other certifications that I'm gonna need for myself and in life.

And then I think I also learned, not to try to be a perfectionist, to go after what you want, to take action regardless. To get started.

What was the most memorable thing you learned about the environment?

I think I was kind of surprised to learn that environmental injustice exists and that there's a direct correlation between how communities are constructed and the access, the rights that they have, to things like clean water and clean air -- and how that affects their ability to be productive.

And I also think because everything in the world produces or consumes energy, you can find a way to connect with mother nature....and in some ways, metaphyscially, in a divine way; and connect that with people too. Because energy's everywhere, from the plant that's giving off condensation and keeping the air cool and giving off clean air, to the sun that not only helps you see and keeps you warm, but can be used to power the lights in your house.

What did the program teach you about the Bronx and where you're from (East Harlem), that you didn't know?

I was shocked, especially as a supply-chain guy, that the Bronx had one of the highest concentrations of trucks in the world. I would never have thought there was that much concentration of pollution in the Bronx and that all the trash from New York went to the Bronx at one point, that the Bronx was bearing the burden of out trash.... that even from Harlem, we passed it along to the Bronx.

Ever seen this video with Jose Pichardo?

Sustainable South Bronx sat down to get Jose Pichardo's story down on tape. Jose, you're good on camera - everyone else, check it out!