Working For Jobs

Save The Bay/Oakland, CA

As the Bay’s leading champion for 50 years, Save The Bay is the largest regional organization working exclusively to protect and restore San Francisco Bay for people and wildlife.
We are seeking a full time Administrative Assistant to provide critical support to our team of 30 employees. The successful candidate will have excellent communication, organization, and multi-tasking skills, with attention to detail and ability to self-direct. This is a non-exempt, full time position at 40 hours per week, Monday-Friday 8:45 a.m. – 5:15 p.m., reporting to the Finance and Administration Manager. This is a great opportunity for an office administrator who would like to work for an effective non-profit organization.

Responsibilities included, but are not limited to:

• Reception: greet visitors, answer calls, respond to emails from the public
• Office facility: distribute mail, purchase and maintain supplies, furniture, and equipment, manage phone system, employee status software (electronic in/out board), emergency coordination, and other office systems
• Accounting: manage accounts payable and relationship with vendors, prepare bank deposits, process credit card payments, assist with contract billing
• Recruit and manage office and tabling volunteers
• Assist with recruitment for open jobs
• Coordinate logistics for staff trainings and parties
• Other duties as assigned

Qualifications:
• Associates Degree or Bachelor’s Degree with two years of office administrative experience or other relevant work experience
• Proficient in Microsoft Excel, Word and Outlook, and internet tools
• Experience with accounting software (Quickbooks a plus) and databases (Salesforce a plus)
• Superior communication skills, ability to interact with the public with tact and diplomacy, providing excellent customer service via phone and email
• Types 60 words per minute or more
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail; efficient and effective at managing and completing tasks to meet deadlines, and self-directed
• Ability to lift and move heavy boxes (up to 40 lbs)
• Excellent interpersonal skills with demonstrated ability to work independently as well as part of a team.
• Problem-solving skills, ability and patience to target and solve minor computer and office equipment problems
• Enthusiasm for Save The Bay’s mission and programs

Benefits:
We offer an excellent benefit package including medical, dental, vision, chiropractic,
403(b) plan, paid vacation, paid holidays and sick time.

To apply :
Please email your resume and detailed cover letter to: jobs@savesfbay.org Subject line and filename should read: Administrative Assistant – [your name].

Or mail to : Administrative Assistant Search, Save The Bay, 350 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Suite 900, Oakland, CA 94612

It is a priority to Save The Bay to recruit and retain a diverse workforce. Save The Bay is an equal opportunity employer.

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by Brad Johnson.

Cross-posted from ThinkProgress.

Leaders of the world’s megacities are meeting in Sao Paulo this week for a major climate summit,
the fourth meeting of the C40 Climate Leadership Group. From Michael
Bloomberg of New York City to Kuma Demeksa of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the mayors
and top deputies attending represent 297 million people—4 percent
of the world’s population, 10 percent of global greenhouse pollution,
and 18 percent of global economic output.

In 2005, the former mayor of London, Ken Livingston, founded the C20,
comprised of 20 of the largest multimillion-person cities in the
world. He recognized that where national governments were not doing
enough, cities could do a lot more, especially the mayors of large
cities who have statutory powers outside of national government. As the
group has met—2005 in London, 2007 in New York City, 2009 in Seoul,
and now in Sao Paulo—the group has grown into the C40, with affiliated
cities like Portland that are climate leaders.

In an exclusive interview with ThinkProgress Green, the manager of
the C40 Climate Leadership Group, Simon Reddy, explained how the group
works together:

All cities are different, but a lot of the solutions and the problems are similar.
There isn’t one large city in the world that doesn’t have traffic
problems, that couldn’t be more efficient in its use of electricity,
that isn’t trying to improve its waste systems. The leaders come
together to share ideas on waste, bus transit systems, travel demand
management.

The amount of practical decision-making power that these mega-mayors
have over energy, waste, and transit can be immense. There are usually a
huge number of public buildings, bus systems, and train systems and an
independent city budget. London has introduced congestion pricing to
reduce vehicular traffic and pollution. Tokyo has introduced policies on
energy, waste, and transit. Sao Paulo is one of the leading cities to
use landfill-gas capture and energy generation.

In the six years of this global mayoral initiative, 4,700
climate-related actions have been placed into effect in the C40 cities
where they have statutory control, Reddy said. Adaptation is an
important component, with many of the cities already having to deal
with the effects of global warming, including heatwaves, flooding, and
landslides.

The host city Sao Paulo is a perfect example of the peril and promise
of dealing with our polluted climate. The city has a population of over
18 million people, spread out over an 80-mile-wide circle. The city has
deep poverty and serious crime, with large areas of illegal slums and
shanty towns known as favelas. The city is burdened by extreme traffic
issues, and suffers from flash flooding that doesn’t drain well. At the
same time, Sao Paulo’s landfill system generates 7 percent of its
electricity. There are over 70 miles of bus rapid transit and 60 miles
on bicycles lanes serving 25,000 people a day. Like the rest of the
Brazil, Sao Paulo uses sugarcane ethanol. The city is increasing energy
efficiency in buildings and lighting.

“All cities are facing the squeeze,” Reddy said, when asked about the
austerity budgets and economic challenges of our current time. But a
lot of the initiatives being pursued by the C40 reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions by making systems more efficient. “They’re good for the city,
for the building, good for the climate.” Reddy emphasized that cutting
back on clean energy to protect short-term budgets would be a
dangerously foolish choice:

Action now on climate change will save a lot more money than if we wait till later. The costs are astronomical if you don’t prepare now. The cost of large-scale flooding, of traffic systems that don’t work, landslides. It’s worth investing.

The mayors are also trying to tackle one of the most politically
difficult challenges in the climate fight—bridging the divide of the
rich and poor. The opportunities for investment in a city like London or
Amsterdam are very different from Jakarta, Indonesia, and Changwon, South Korea.  The group is
trying to establish a carbon finance capacity building program, working
to help developing cities be eligible for the United Nations Clean
Development Mechanism funding program. World Bank President Roger
Zoellick, who is attending the summit, has been working with C40 and is
expected to announce positive developments.

Reddy told ThinkProgress he was surprised by the willingness of the
cities to participate in the climate fight. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm
of the mayors to make sure our cities are prepared for the climatic
impacts that we are starting to see now,” he said. “It’s refreshing to
see this city approach to climate action being successful in going
forward when national governments are fighting among themselves.”

Related Links:

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by Kaid Benfield.

Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

In the late 1990s, when Don Chen, Matt Raimi, and I were researching our book, Once There Were Greenfields,
we lamented the flight of business from America’s central cities to
increasingly outer suburbs and farmland. In that book we frequently
turned for data to metropolitan Chicago where, for example, Ameritech
had built a half-mile-long “landscraper” near O’Hare Airport far from
the Loop, Motorola had set up camp in Schaumberg, and Sears had fled the
iconic Sears Tower for Hoffman Estates.

Now, just as the tide has turned against large-lot suburban residential subdivisions, corporations are moving back into town (or, as in the case of Dublin, Ohio,
doing everything they can to make their suburb more urban in
character). The best and the brightest of the rising labor force, it
turns out, don’t care to live and work in sprawl.

Writing in Crain’s, Eddie Baeb reports that the new trend is changing the face of greater Chicago:

Companies seeking to tap a broader talent pool and get into the
flow of innovation are looking back to the urban core. Sara Lee is only
the latest suburban company to seek a new headquarters in downtown
Chicago. United Airlines made the move in the past decade, as did
Navteq Corp. and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc. Some
of the most successful local companies of recent years, like
Morningstar Inc. and Accretive Health Inc., never left the city.

“The whole corporate campus seems a little dated,” says Joe
Mansueto, chairman and CEO of Morningstar, who moved the company’s 1,100
headquarters workers across the Loop to a new office tower at 22 W.
Washington St. two years ago without even considering a move to the
suburbs. “We’ve always liked being in Chicago. It helps keep employees
on the pulse of what’s happening in our society. It keeps them current
with cultural trends and possibly technological ones.”

The change has the same far-reaching implications for the region
that the suburban stampede of the post-war era had on living and
working patterns around Chicago. Well-paying jobs are up in the city,
raising questions for the housing market in outer suburbia. New transit
challenges will arise as more workers ditch suburb-to-suburb auto
commuting and board trains and buses headed downtown.

Baeb’s article also points out that central city locations help
recruiting efforts not only with young, urban professionals but also
with workers throughout the region: “For most people in greater
Chicago, it’s easier to commute downtown than to a suburb on the other
side of the metropolitan area.” That, of course, is a textbook
illustration of what transportation researchers call “regional (or
“destination”) accessibility,” the single most powerful indicator among land-use factors of how far people will drive, on average, over
the course of a year. Central locations both facilitate transit access
and reduce driving distances.

All this makes even more ridiculous the recent decision of the federal General Services Administration and the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency to move EPA’s regional headquarters out of downtown
Kansas City, Kan., and 20 miles away to a completely
automobile-dependent former (natch) corporate headquarters
campus across the road from a wheatfield. EPA, of course, is the agency
that’s all about sustainable communities these days. Except when it’s
not. Will that decision affect recruiting of bright, creative young
talent? Time will tell.

Related Links:

Great places: smart density as part of economic flourishing

Tea Party reveals: ‘Sustainable Development’ is sinister attempt to destroy American Dream

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View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

Active Power/Austin, TX

We are seeking to add another experienced Manufacturing Testline Technician who has high voltage experience and is able to read schematics and troubleshoot AC and DC circuits.

Responsibilities in this position:
Perform full production testing on UPS products ranging from 150 to 1200kVA. This entails working around power levels that require 100% focus on what you’re doing at all time as well as what is going on around you and leaves very little margin for making even small errors in judgment.
Troubleshoot faults to determine root cause and document findings on all non-conformances
Replace assemblies, modules, components and circuit boards as required for fixing systems and for maintaining burned-in stock
Maintaining all equipment required for production testing including test line equipment, pc’s, tools, cabling, probes and meters
Verify equipment for reporting all quality issues and working to resolve issues in coordination with engineers and manufacturing supervisors
Responsible for reporting all quality issues and working to resolve issues in coordination with engineers and manufacturing supervisors
Able to travel as required performing system maintenance on systems including flywheel bearing changes and vacuum oil changes as well as other preventative measures.

Requirements for this role:
Experience as an Electronics Technician with system-level troubleshooting
Previous experience with 480V 3-phase UPS systems, motors or generators (over 100kVA)
Ability to troubleshoot electrical circuits using multimeter and oscilloscope
Ability to read schematics and one-line diagrams
Familiar with contactors (esp. control coils) and breakers rated up to 2000A
Familiar with IGBT based inverter modules and SCR’s
Experience in quality control procedures and techniques
Must be able to communicate well with other team members in an effort to improve production testing efficiency
Physically able to work under flywheel ( on back at times)
Able to pull pallet jack with 4,000lbs on it

Interested candidates please send resume and cover letter when applying.
Qualified candidates will receive a timely response.

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by Arne Jungjohann.

This is part one in a series on the United States’ nuclear obsession.

After the nuclear catastrophe of Fukushima, as a German living in the U.S., I often get asked these days: What’s going on in Germany with the shutdown of nuclear power plants—is that all mass hysteria? There are good reasons why Germany is moving away so quickly from nuclear power. Certainly, fear is a factor. However, this angst in the face of a nuclear catastrophe has a rational core. Fukushima provides enough grounds to take every single nuclear power plant on the face of the Earth off-line. Regardless of whether the cause is an earthquake, a tsunami, a flood, a plane crash, a terrorist attack, or simple human error, it is the failure of the
emergency power system which consequences are not controllable.

There is also an energy reality in Germany that differs from the United States. In Germany, the economic success of the renewable energy economy is so visible between the North Sea and the Alps. Hundreds of thousands of new jobs have been created for steel workers, carpenters, technicians, architects, bankers, and farmers. Foreign companies have heavily invested in wind turbine, biogas, and solar manufacturing plants in Germany. Nuclear power, on the other hand, is
viewed as a constraint for this development. Nuclear and renewables are not perceived as allies, but as a conflicting and competing energy sources. One is centralized, capital-intensive, ponderous, outdated, and anti-democratic, whereas the other is flexible, smart, labor-intensive, and open for community participation. Thus, in recent polls an overwhelming 85 percent of Germans
favor a nuclear phase out as fast as possible or at most within 10 years. To them it seems simply outdated to stick with a 1950s technology like nuclear that is risky, dirty, and blocking new investments in better technologies. It is like to holding on to your rotary phone instead of switching to a cell phone.

Germany: No question if, but how quickly nuclear power will be phased out

Following Fukushima, the German government announced a three-month shutdown of eight of its 17 nuclear power plants and a review of its nuclear strategy. That’s 8,400 megawatts of capacity off the grid. In mid-May, another five nuclear plants are down for maintenance with a capacity of 6,600 megawatts. That leaves four nuclear plants operating together 5,400 megawatts of power. Are the lights still on? Are the trains still going? Are the car factories still
humming? Yes, yes, and yes. No blackout followed; the power supply is stable. Nuclear power capacity is replaced by reducing surplus electricity exports, by using the reserve capacity of traditional back-up power plants for peak times, and by temporarily importing electricity from neighboring countries if necessary.

Some analysts have argued that the nuclear scale-back in Germany would prevent the country from reaching its long-term climate and energy goals. In reality, and as discussed here, Germany is already well on its way to transitioning from nuclear and fossil-fuel power to renewable energy. It is aiming for a share of 35 percent
renewables by 2020, and 80-100 percent by 2050. Not despite, but because of
shutting down nuclear power, investments in renewable energies accelerate.

As a German living in Washington D.C., you can’t help asking in return: Why is the accident of Fukushima perceived as something far away without consequences for a broad discussion of the future U.S. energy infrastructure? Why does the myth survive that America depends on nuclear power and must be doing so for the future? And overall, why is American society so pro-nuclear?

United States: Fukushima and no consequences?

In comparison to Germany, things run by different rules here, as the statements from the days after the Fukushima meltdown show. The Obama administration left no room for doubt that it was unimpressed by the events in Japan, and would hold tight not only to nuclear power, but also to the plans to expand it. Energy Undersecretary Dan Poneman announced: “We view nuclear energy as a very important component to the overall portfolio
we’re trying to build for a clean energy future … Nuclear power has been a critical component to the U.S. energy portfolio [and] … we do see nuclear power as playing an important role in building a low-carbon future.” Most media outlets doubt that the United States can do without nuclear power, indeed without even more nuclear power plants. Cautious questions by editorials of The Washington Post and The New York Times regarding risks and safety standards in American nuclear power plants were a rare exception in the overall reports.

It is worthwhile to check closely with the strong standing nuclear energy has in the U.S.

The United States is the world’s No. 1 nuclear country. Of the 435 reactors worldwide, 104 are in the United States, and provide approximately 20 percent of the nation’s power supply (in comparison to around 27 percent in Germany in 2010). In the United States, the share of nuclear power in the overall energy portfolio may be lower than in Germany, but the nuclear industry’s political clout is greater. One would think the catastrophe in Japan might have taken some of the wind out of its sails. But the nuclear lobby is prepared for all eventualities. Thanks to numerous advertising campaigns and intensive lobbying work in recent years, nuclear power is accepted by the broader public.

Related Links:

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by David Roberts.

What’s it going to take to substantially ramp up the amount of renewables in the electricity system? There are many nerdy discussions of that question on the interwebs, but lemme try to talk about it in reasonably non-nerdy language.

There’s a certain amount of demand for electricity that is steady and reliable. Above that, there are fluctuating “peaks” of demand each day, usually evening, when everyone gets home and starts watching TV and running the dishwasher, or in hot areas, the afternoon. For that steady core of demand, we have “baseload” power plants—in the majority of cases, large coal or nuclear plants. Once they’re built they’re pretty cheap to operate and you can run them around the clock. In nerdspeak, they have a high “capacity factor.” However, they’re not well suited to ramping up and down in response to short-term fluctuations. (It takes days to turn a nuke plant off and back on.) To supply power during the fluctuating peaks, we have, appropriately enough, “peaker” plants, which can be turned on and off quickly. (Nerdspeak: they’re “dispatchable.”) Generally speaking, these are natural-gas plants, which are smaller and easier to cycle, though the power is somewhat more expensive.

So you’ve got your baseload plants and your peaker plants. The fundamental problem with renewables, according to conventional wisdom, is that they are neither. They are variable and intermittent, with low capacity factors, so they can’t satisfy baseload demand. But the wind and sun are not dispatchable, so they can’t reliably satisfy peak demand either. They are an unholy mutt, a square peg for a system with two round holes.

In the U.S., already so resistant to change, the reaction has been to say, “Bummer, renewables can’t do much, woulda been nice.” When I was in Germany recently, though, the reaction among folks I talked to was, “Yes, that is a problem. We are going to solve it!” They don’t see it as the reason they can’t integrate lots of renewables. They see it as what has to be done to integrate lots of renewables. The dispute is between the Merkel government, which wants 80 percent renewables by 2050, and the Green Party, which wants 100 percent by 2030.

So, how would one go about solving the problem?

The answer is to stop thinking in terms of swapping one source out for another and start thinking about how to construct a new system.

The idea, in a nutshell, is to reduce and eventually eliminate the need for baseload power plants (the big polluters) by tying together enough renewables with a smart enough grid and enough energy storage—in effect, to build a high capacity-factor system out of low capacity-factor parts.

Perhaps charts will help! Here’s a sample week of renewables, from Germany, in 2007:

Sorry for the German—I couldn’t find an English version. The big gray bumpy mountains, the “residuale last,” show the residual demand that renewables aren’t covering, throughout the week. (“Wassercraft” is hydro; you can probably figure out “Windenergie” and the rest.)

So: all renewables put together are providing a fairly small chunk of Germany’s power demand. Here’s what it could look like in 2050 2020:

In this chart, renewables are providing, in effect, baseload power. The gap between what they provide and total demand will still have to be met with some combination of baseload and peaker plants, but as you can see, there’s not much room left for baseload plants. If you stack too much renewables on top of too much baseload, you end up at points with more power than you need, at which point you have to either shut down some renewables (which is, obviously, counter to the goal of using more renewables), shut down some baseload (which is expensive as hell), or export some power.

The green strategy is to build up renewables as far as possible, shut down as much baseload as possible, and fill the gap with more, and more sophisticated, peaker plants (or demand reduction—more on that in a second).

So what will be required to do this? A lot! It will be difficult and expensive. In many ways, some European countries are better equipped than the U.S., since their grids are more robust and interconnected. They can import and export power more easily. But the U.S. has some advantages too.

The first priority is a better grid. That means better long-distance transmission, to connect renewable-heavy areas with the rest of the country and to take advantage of America’s enormous geographical spread. The more you can move renewables from where they are to where they’re needed, in real time, the higher the total capacity factor of the system. After all, it’s always sunny or windy somewhere in the U.S.

The second priority, which runs in parallel to the first, is building the crap out of renewables. The more renewable sources there are on the grid, the wider the geographic area they cover, the more every region has maximized its local, distributed resources, the steadier the total supply is. That’s especially true if you ramp up hydro, geothermal, and biomass, i.e., non-intermittent renewables.

With more renewables and better transmission, you start backing out baseload. It helps that, as you can see on the graph, intermittent sources tend to be strongest during high-demand hours.

What about peakers though? The answer to that is threefold.

First, you can shrink the peaks (nerdspeak: “peak leveling”) by moving demand around (nerdspeak: “demand response”), either by persuading people to spread their consumption out by charging more during peak hours (nerdspeak: “variable pricing”), or by building appliances that can cut back automatically.

Second—another species of peak leveling—there’s energy storage. Stored energy is dispatchable: you can send it where you need it when you need it. “Pumpspeicher” on the chart above is pumped storage, which today is one of the few cost-effective, large-scale storage technologies in common use, though others are coming online. There are also batteries, ultracapacitors, compressed air, flywheels, fuel cells, and the distributed storage represented by the growing electric car fleet. Storage solves all sorts of other problems too, but let’s not get distracted.

Together, demand response and energy storage illuminate the path to 100 percent renewables, however distant that point may be. For the time being, though, you still need the third peaker solution: natural-gas plants. (Incidentally, that’s why I didn’t join in the “natural gas is dead” celebration after the Howarth study a few weeks ago. Natural gas isn’t a “bridge” for renewables; it is, for the time being, a crucial enabler. Losing natural gas would be a serious blow.)

There’s a great deal of idle natural-gas capacity in the U.S. system, so just by ramping up the plants we have we could cover some lost baseload. But we’ll also need new gas plants, ideally smarter and more efficient gas plants.

As it happens, energy companies are starting to anticipate that need. GE has a new line of 7FA gas turbines explicitly engineered to be able to start and stop quickly. Look at this bad boy:

Looks like a flux capacitor! Todd Woody has an interesting story about a new power plant GE unveiled today, specifically designed to complement renewables. Not only is the plant small, modular, and fast to respond, but it’s hella-efficient—61 percent efficient, to be precise—in part because it captures waste heat.

So anyway! Sorry for the long post. The point is, there is a practical path whereby renewables can grow to play a dominant role in the electricity system. You back out baseload with renewables and transmission, back out peakers with storage and demand response, and fill the remaining gap with natural gas. Voilà! It’s not easy, or cheap, but it’s doable. Crucially, building more baseload, nuclear or otherwise, will not move us in the right direction. It will delay us. I discussed that a bit in a previous post, but it hasn’t penetrated the U.S. energy conversation at all, which is still stuck on “all of the above” platitudes.

In Germany, on the other hand, they get it. That’s why they are eschewing nukes and going all out on renewables. They are leading. Remember leading? Seems like America used to do more of it.

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View full post on Grist – the latest from Grist

Sonoma Technology, Inc./San Francisco, CA

About the Organization
Sonoma Technology, Inc., (STI) founded in 1982, is a growing air quality and natural resource consulting firm helping clients in the United States and abroad. STI’s objective is to provide high-quality, innovative, science-based solutions for air quality, climate change, meteorological, and related needs in an ethical and objective manner. STI has served numerous government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private companies including the US Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Federal Highway Administration, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the Arizona, California, Nevada, and Washington state departments of transportation. STI employees work on a variety of challenging projects that help improve the environment, the quality of the air we breathe, and other aspects of people's lives, in a flexible, entrepreneurial work environment. In 2010, the North Bay Business Journal rated STI as one of the Best Places to Work for the fourth consecutive year.

Senior Project Manager – Transportation Air Quality
STI seeks a senior transportation air quality expert to join its team of atmospheric scientists, software engineers, analysts, and specialists. The Senior Project Manager will lead and manage a variety of air quality research projects, with a focus on transportation-generated, mobile-source air pollution emissions, including greenhouse gases. In addition, this individual will play a client management and business development role within the transportation team, leveraging the tremendous opportunity for growth in this sector. This is an excellent opportunity for a growing professional in the field with strong client relationship and management skills, entrepreneurial drive, and advanced technical experience in air quality analysis. The successful candidate will be passionate about this field and attracted to a work environment that is growth-oriented, innovative, intellectually stimulating, and structurally flexible.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities
The Senior Project Manager will perform the following and other duties as assigned:
* Lead and manage complex research projects on air quality, climate change, and transportation topics, from project development and implementation through delivery of the final work product.
* Serve as a key client contact on projects, fostering excellent client relationships, and demonstrating excellent management and communication skills.
* Conduct business development for the air quality and transportation business area, identifying new opportunities, cultivating relationships with existing and potential clients, writing proposals, and securing new contracts.
* Conduct research, perform data analyses, and report findings to clients.
* Manage research teams to ensure project benchmarks and client deadlines are met successfully.
* Present research at conferences and publish articles in industry journals to increase company visibility and reputation.
* Contribute to STI’s community of experts, serving as a resource on projects across the firm.
* Provide leadership, management, and strategic direction for the transportation and air quality business area to ensure the efficient use of resources and achievement of group and individual goals.

Qualifications
The successful applicant will have the following qualifications:

Required
* 7+ years experience in a technical role, conducting analyses in the air quality, climate change, or transportation fields
* Familiarity with air quality and transportation policies, including the Clean Air Act, State Implementation Plans, and transportation conformity
* Excellent project management skills, including experience developing project implementation plans, monitoring progress, managing project budgets of various sizes, and responding to client needs
* Demonstrated interpersonal skills and client management skills
* Prior experience in business development and proposal writing

Preferred
* Professional engineering license
* Prior personnel management skills
* Experience working with a variety of modeling tools, model-building, and using tools such as MOBILE, MOVES, and EMFAC
* A record of conference presentations and published articles
* Past experience working with government agencies, air quality authorities, or transportation planning bodies
* Regional expertise and client networks (domestic or international)

Compensation and Benefits
This position is located at STI’s offices in Petaluma, CA. Sonoma Technology, Inc., offers an excellent benefits package and a competitive salary that is commensurate with experience.

To Apply
To be considered for this position, interested candidates must follow the link below to submit a resume, cover letter, and salary requirements. CEA Recruiting is assisting STI with their search for a Senior Project Manager – Transportation Air Quality. Please direct all applications and inquiries to CEA Recruiting via the link below. This position will remain open until filled.

http://www.ceaconsulting.com/…=CEA&jobId=151

Sonoma Technology, Inc., is an equal opportunity employer.

CEA Recruiting works with leading environmental nonprofits, foundations, and businesses to recruit top talent and design effective organizational staffing strategies. For more information, visit www.cearecruiting.com.


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by OnEarth.

This story was written by Shanti Menon.

In her new book Asphalt to Ecosystems: Design Ideas for Schoolyard Transformation, Berkeley-based environmental planner Sharon Danks explores the ways in which landscape design, architecture, child development, and nutrition converge in the schoolyard. OnEarth sat down with Danks, whose firm, Bay Tree Designs, Inc, is helping redevelop some 29 San Francisco schoolyards, to talk about how communities are transforming the asphalt playgrounds of the past into green spaces conducive to better learning, eating, and playing.

Q. How have playgrounds changed since we were kids?

A. Playgrounds these days are influenced largely by liability concerns. Swings are disappearing, bars are getting lower, structures are becoming less challenging.

My 4-year-old recently broke her arm on a play structure meant for 2 to 5-year-olds because she found it so boring. She was walking on the outside of the bridge and sliding down the handrail and fell off. These structures are so unchallenging that kids are making up their own activities, which are often 10 times more dangerous.

Q. What’s your vision of a better playground?

A. We want to give kids something more than play structures and ball games. We call them “ecological schoolyards,” environments that combine diverse ecosystems with varied play environments and hands-on learning experiences. Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, says that playgrounds based on ballgames and athleticism are home to more bullying. In more natural environments, it’s less about who’s the strongest and the fastest and more about using the imagination. It changes the dynamic of who’s in charge. And there’s less conflict because the kids aren’t as bored.

Q. How can kids learn from playgrounds?

A. You can embed a curriculum into the landscape by allowing students to see natural systems as they function. So instead of studying a watershed in a book, for example, they can see rainwater falling off their roof into a pond. Most students would shrug if you asked them when it last rained, but here they can run to the window and see how dry the pond looks.

Q. Can the schoolyard help replace the nature that’s vanishing from most of our lives?

A. I read an article that chronicled how far each generation of kids in a single family ventured from their home to play. As an 8-year-old, the grandfather roamed four to six miles to go fishing. The father wandered about two miles from home, and the son about half a mile. Our kids are lucky if they walk to the end of the block. In many cases, school grounds are their only exposure to outdoor play, and if all they have is asphalt and some liability-engineered version of climbing, I’d say they’re missing out.

Q. Tell me about the work you’re doing for public schools in San Francisco.

A. We work with the teachers and parents, and sometimes the students, to do collaborative brainstorming and design that results in long-term plans to transform each school’s grounds. We help gather the communities around the projects and make sure the plans reflect their educational and recreational needs. Hands-on involvement builds a sense of ownership and also gives communities more bang for their buck.

Q. What are some of the changes you expect to see?

A. Many schools are putting in play environments with boulders and logs for kids to explore. There are ponds going in, some with solar-powered pumps. Others are experimenting with pollinator gardens, with native plants to attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. And almost every school is changing the standard seating arrangement of benches in a row—designed for passive observation—and moving toward cluster seating, so classes can engage in interactive teaching and conversation.

Q. What sort of long-term effect do you think this playground renovation will have?

A. I see these schoolyards as models of ecological design for our cities. If a school treats water responsibly, produces some of its own energy, has space for wildlife habitat, and makes some of its own food, kids understand from an early age how these things work and learn to value them. That makes for more informed, responsible citizens.

Q. You mention in the book that ecological schoolyards send a positive message about the environment.

A. Kids are often asked to save the environment before they’ve learned to love it. It puts a sense of fear into them: The polar bears are going to die, and you’re 5 years old, so what are you going to do about it? A schoolyard is empowering. Flowers are blooming where there was once lifeless space, more birds are coming, there’s less flooding when it rains. They can see their actions translating into improvement.

Q. What are some of the coolest schoolyards you’ve seen?

A. There’s a school in Berlin that used to be entirely paved, and they put in a dry creek bed that fills when it rains, with a hand pump and a sandpit. I saw 15 kids working together to dam a puddle, and at the end of recess, with great excitement, they opened the dam and let the water flow into the creek. And there’s a guy in Norway who builds Tarzan play environments involving telephone poles with metal bars set on valleys of stacked tires. Kids swing across the chasm on rope swings to the other side, and the swings are set so they can bump into each other. Here we think it’s too dangerous for swings to interact that way, but no one there seems to be getting hurt.

Q. This stuff is big in Europe and in California, but will it ever fly elsewhere in the States?

A. There are thousands of American schools doing habitat and garden projects. There’s a Boston Schoolyard Initiative, and groups in Fort Worth, Portland, Boulder, and Chicago. At Sidwell Friends, in Washington, D.C., where President Obama’s kids go, they have a blackwater [sewage] treatment wetland right at the front entrance. You walk through that to get into the school. So we’ve come a long way.

Q. How can I get my kids’ school started on a project like this?

A. The first thing is to get a committee of parents and teachers together and make sure the principal is open to the idea. Engage people, show them what’s possible, and then start to envision. Evergreen, in Canada, puts out a publication called “All Hands in the Dirt,” which includes a step-by-step process for designing schoolyards. Divide your plan into priorities and do one project at a time. Maybe you start with an edible garden and then turn it into a wildlife habitat, so you pull out the edibles and put in native plants. That way you continue to engage the community, and you make it sustainable financially, so you don’t have to raise a huge amount of money at once.

Learn more about green schoolyards:

This article was syndicated with permission from OnEarth.

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by Ask Umbra.

Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

My sister recently posted a
story about CFLs causing cancer to her Facebook feed. Is there anything to
this latest attempt to vilify the little lamps?

Brian
Spokane, Wash.

A. Dearest Brian,

Those little lamps. They need defending again. I don’t know
what it is about compact fluorescent bulbs. The odd, gentle curve of the bulb?
The way they, oh, save people energy and money? How they reduce pollution? Something
about them brings out the haters.

No haterade for us, Brian. We will be swilling the sweet
lemonade of reduced energy use.

I took a look at the piece in The Telegraph that your sister posted, and I admit that I got a bit
excited. Nothing gives me a thrill like putting on the ol’ Debunking Hat and
investigating some spurious journalism. Essentially, some scientists in Germany
said CFLs release cancer-causing chemicals while turned on (and that you should
not use them close to your head or in an unventilated area). I’ve written before on the minuscule
amount of mercury CFLs contain, and how they keep up to 10 times as much mercury as they contain out of the environment, but this is a new one.

Let’s start with the headline: “Energy-saving light bulbs ‘contain
cancer-causing chemicals.’” Hmm. What
else contains cancer-causing chemicals? How about certain kinds of makeup, canned-food
linings, perfume, plastic bottles, lube, conventional
candles, and sunscreen—and we rub some of those all over ourselves. As
far as I know, nobody is rolling around in CFLs (and I am not suggesting we
start). We encounter myriad other health risks in our environment every day
(car exhaust! VOC paint! heavy metals in our electronics!) but those have
deep-pocketed industries behind them to sell us on the sexiness and necessity
of things that are harmful to our health and the environment in their
production and disposal.

But let’s zoom in for a closer look. The chemicals in
question are phenol, naphthalene, and styrene—and they’re hardly only found
in CFLs. Phenol is
used in making our nemesis bisphenol A, and can be found, among other places,
in mouthwash and cough drops. Naphthalene is involved in making PVC plastics, mothballs, and diaper-pail deodorizers. Styrene (not
to be confused with Poly
Styrene, RIP) offgasses from building materials, cigarette smoke, and copy
machines. It’s also found in shoes. (Shoes! I would love to see a piece in The Telegraph about how we should stop
wearing shoes because scientists discovered they contained a carcinogenic
ingredient.)

Next, buried below the fold—unseen by skimming
web-surfers who have already forwarded the link, I’m afraid—one finds this:

British experts insisted that more
research was needed and urged consumers not to panic.

Dr. Michelle Bloor, senior lecturer
in Environmental Science at Portsmouth University, told the Daily Express:
“Further independent studies would need to be undertaken to back up the
presented German research.”

An important sentence one fears many readers will gloss
over. I hope further research is done—we can be alarmed later if numerous, reputable studies support these German
researchers. Until then, we should all focus our energies on worrying about more
important things. Like making our cities more livable. Improving public
transportation. Holding politicians accountable for their Earth-destroying
tendencies. Pressuring companies to create less waste and use less-toxic ingredients.
Eating food that’s grown closer to us and with fewer pesticides. Spending more
time with the people we love instead of being enslaved to our possessions. (Fill
in the blank.)

If CFLs are still worrisome to your sister, Brian, you can
always remind her to use them in a well-ventilated room (a precaution she
should also take with things like paraffin candles and toxic paint, which
interestingly enough have not warranted Telegraph articles) or point her to LEDs.

Finally, I’m not a regular reader of The Telegraph, so I can’t speak as to its reputableness, but it’s a
historically conservative paper that’s
also currently running stories on how Viagra “could” make you deaf and about a
man who says he had sex with a thousand cars. Food for thought.

Skeptically,
Umbra

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Active Power/Grand Rapids, MI

In this role as a Field Service Technician you will provide professional services for customers including technical site analysis to resolve customer issues and to perform field service duties on Active Power’s complete range of 3-phase equipment. Fundamental knowledge of electrical distribution systems, basic test and measurement equipment, in-depth knowledge of electrical code and IEEE requirements, and in-depth knowledge of electronic principals is required.
You will be responsible for customer(s) in the Michigan region (Grand Rapids, Michigan) during the entire Service Delivery lifecycle including installation, maintenance, calibration and troubleshooting of products/equipment. Candidate should live within 2 hours of Grand Rapids, MI. or be willing to relocate after training period (90 days) and be able to travel by car and air to other possible customer sites as needed.

• Perform Startup/Commissioning, preventive maintenance and any unscheduled maintenance on all equipment across the entire product line on single module and multi-module systems.
• Perform basic Power Audits of customer's distribution systems
• Work with other team members to complete custom and large installation projects
• Educate/inform customers on basic operation of their equipment.

Skills required:
3-phase 480v critical power systems (switchgear, generators, etc).
• High level of technical knowledge of electronic/electrical component theory.
• Must be able to perform duties with general direction, receiving only general guidance with respect to overall objectives. Work is usually quite independent of other team members
• Ability to calculate figures and amounts such as proportions, percentages, area, circumference, and volume.
• Ability to read schematics
• Proficient personal computer skills including Excel
• Must be able to communicate effectively to various intellectual levels
• Must be able to lift and carry heavy objects up to 80 pounds

Education and Experience:
• Experience with high-voltage 3-phase UPS products involving installation, maintenance, calibration and troubleshooting is required.
• Candidate should have previous/current work related experience installing large UPS systems or previous military experience as a nuclear electrician’s mate or with electrical power production.

Individual should enjoy a customer facing role and have excellent communication skills (both verbal and written).

Knowledge is mandatory in the areas of: principles of electricity, including circuit breakers, switches, fuses, regulators, relays, instruments and meters associated with electric generation: interpreting instrument and meter readings; wiring diagrams, drawings and technical publications; use and purpose of test equipment including, but not limited to, digital multi-meters; basic computer skills; safety rules and practices; and operation and repair of electrical power production systems.

Experience with 480V 3-phase UPS systems, motors or generators (over 100kVA) is mandatory.
Ability to troubleshoot electrical circuits using a multimeter and oscilloscope is required.
Ability to read schematics and one-line diagrams is necessary.
Experience as an Electronics Technician in a high voltage environment with system-level troubleshooting is highly desired.

Interested candidates please send resume and cover letter when applying.
Qualified candidates will receive a timely response.
Active Power is hiring due to an increase in customer sales.

We are not using any outside vendors, recruiters or third parties for assistance.

We look forward to hearing from you!


Apply To Job

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