An expert from Bellingham is helping put people back to work tearing down homes and buildings and then salvaging the materials for reuse.
Dave Bennink, of Bellingham's Re-Use Consulting, travels around the country training people in deconstruction methods and has clients in 40 states and three provinces. Last year, he helped create 20 new deconstruction contractors across North America.
"I love the idea that we're an expanding industry that's hiring," he said. "We're creating new jobs that have never existed before."
To that end, Bennink is the instructor for 130 economically disadvantaged people going to deconstruction school in South Seattle. The program, paid with federal economic stimulus funding, is recruiting more students who want to get into the growing field.
Deconstruction involves the careful dismantling of homes and buildings with the goal of preserving reusable materials. The practice often diverts more than 70 percent of construction and demolition waste from landfills, preserving raw resources.
Marlena Sessions, chief executive officer of the Workforce Development Council of Seattle-King County, said the program has trained 50 students to date, of which 40 are already employed. The highest salary so far is $25 per hour while the lower range is around $10. Students were previously not working or were under-employed.
"Even in light of the Great Recession, there are opportunities out there so we need to match employers' needs," she said. "When you have these people working, all becoming taxpayers, it stands to reason it will help us all by getting them trained for new jobs and new careers."
Three classes have been completed since January and four more are planned throughout the summer.
The program is funded from a $3.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to the Workforce Development Council's GreenLight Project. The project provides green job training to unemployed or low-income people. It is open to high school dropouts, veterans and former inmates.
The Building Material Reuse & Deconstruction training at South Seattle Community College's Georgetown Campus is being funded by $141,000 of the grant amount. It is limited to those living in White Center. Sessions said tuition, supplies, case management and job placement costs between $2,000 and $3,000 per student.
The 15-day trainings are organized by CleanEdison, a national clean technology training provider.
As part of Bennink's curriculum, students learn about four major areas: deconstruction and salvaging of materials; processing and transportation; warehouse and retail elements; and how materials can be manufactured into other products. Students deconstruct a building, such as a garage, have classroom learning time, and visit a recycling and reuse store.
Sessions said the range of qualifications give students a "real competitive edge" in fields beyond deconstruction, from weatherization to manufacturing. She said employers tell her people with these qualifications are needed.
Beyond the classroom, Bennink is hoping to instill a passion for entrepreneurship. There are re-use stores in Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia and Bellingham, but Bennink said that's not enough to serve the region's inhabitants. He'd love it if a student wanted to start a re-use or deconstruction store in Federal Way, Kent or Algona.
"Most (residents) are very under-served as far as this goes. Every time we throw stuff in the landfill, we're throwing jobs away with the material," he said.
A new business, Bennink said, goes much further than creating a new job in benefits to the local economy.
Bennink said he's seen a lot of interest in deconstruction during the recession. Because deconstruction takes longer and can be cheaper than demolition, general contractors have sought training to keep employees on a job longer.
Once the economy picks up, Bennink said he is worried contractors will go back to their normal way of working.
"We're trying to get some people trained before that happens, and this is when people need us anyway. This is when we're trying to create as many jobs as we can."
