When employers, community organizations, and educators talked with the Virginia Tech Southwest Center about workforce needs, they kept returning to the same idea: People want clear, local pathways into good-paying jobs that let them stay rooted in Southwest Virginia.

A new Brownfields Job Training grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is helping move that community-shaped plan into action.

“What’s exciting is that this program was built together,” said Allison Mays, director of the Southwest Center in Abingdon, part of Outreach and International Affairs. “The ideas came from the region, and the solutions will serve the region.”

With $403,000 in federal support, the center — one of Virginia Tech’s four Commonwealth Campus Centers — is partnering with clean-energy companies, environmental agencies, community colleges, adult education programs, and workforce organizations to prepare residents for careers in land reclamation, environmental restoration, and solar development.

A program shaped by local insight

The curriculum, which includes more than 130 hours of training, was developed through conversations with employers and partner organizations across the region. Participants will earn state and federal certifications, including 40-hour HAZWOPER, OSHA 10-hour construction safety, heavy equipment operations, environmental sampling, and hazardous waste identification.

Faculty from the College of Science, College of Natural Resources and Environment, School of Plant and Environmental Sciences, and Virginia Cooperative Extension will help deliver and guide portions of the curriculum, ensuring the training reflects current research and industry needs.

“This program is about taking what we know from research and putting it directly into the hands of people who will use it in the field,” said Karen Weber, brownfields coordinator for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and adjunct faculty member in the Department of Geosciences. “Participants aren’t just learning concepts — they’re gaining practical skills that employers need right now. This program will give them the tools to be part of what comes next, from land reclamation to clean-energy development.”

Mays said that one year from the program’s start, she hopes to have the first cohort graduated and working in full-time jobs.

The initiative is designed with accessibility in mind. Many of the organizations that helped build it — including Goodwill Industries, People Inc., regional adult education organizations, and workforce boards — will provide wraparound support for participants who may face barriers to employment or career advancement.

“Our focus is on reducing barriers,” Mays said. “By connecting participants with support organizations, we’re helping them move into good-paying jobs with a stronger foundation for long-term success.”

Preparing for new kinds of opportunity

As former mining and industrial sites are evaluated for new uses — from solar farms to ecological restoration — localities and employers increasingly need workers trained to assess, clean up, and prepare these properties for redevelopment. It’s a shift that could generate new kinds of opportunity on land once defined by extraction.

“Southwest Virginia has an abundance of brownfields,” Mays said. “This program helps create a skilled workforce in the very places where environmental work and clean-energy development are happening.”

That opportunity is already visible on properties managed by The Nature Conservancy, which has been active in the region for more than 20 years through its Clinch Valley Program and large landscape projects like the Cumberland Forest.

“Because of its long coal mining history, Southwest Virginia has many previously mined sites that hold the potential to be repurposed for new economic uses,” said Brad Kreps, director of the Clinch Valley Program. “Solar development is one ripe example that can create new jobs and tax revenues for localities. To take advantage of these opportunities, we need local workers who are trained to help construct these projects.”

Repurposing previously disturbed land also provides environmental benefits.

“By generating renewable energy on former mining sites, we can meet growing energy demand while protecting forests, water quality, and other environmental resources,” Kreps said.

A deeper bench of skills

Solar and land-reclamation projects require a mix of construction, technical, and environmental skills. Early-stage project work — including engineering, surveying, and environmental assessments — is already drawing on local expertise, Kreps said, and future construction phases will create even more opportunities.

Southwest Virginia business leader and former Board of Visitors Rector Mike Quillen ’70, ’71 said that alignment is crucial.

“To grow existing businesses or bring in new ones, we need a trained workforce,” Quillen said. “The coal workforce has always been exceptional in the trades — electrical, mechanical, construction. With modest upskilling, those strengths translate directly to renewables and advanced manufacturing.”

Betsy Arlen, vice president of real estate for TerraForm Power, said the program comes at the right moment.

“This training helps ensure that the jobs created stay in the communities where the work happens,” she said.

A partnership built over years

For Kreps, the initiative reflects relationships that long predate the new grant.

“Virginia Tech has been a very important partner to us for many years,” he said. “We’ve collaborated on mined-land reclamation research, environmental monitoring in the Clinch River, and community development in places like Dante. Our current effort to bring renewable energy opportunities to local communities is an exciting next chapter.”

Mays said that collaboration is what gives the project its momentum.

“When communities, employers, and educators pull in the same direction, people feel that momentum,” she said. “That’s what we’re building toward — not just a training program, but a stronger foundation for the future of Southwest Virginia.”

Contact:

Tags

Share this story