Business owner thinking green in Northeast Ark. http://www.jonesborosun.com/archived_story.php?ID=35101 October 8, 2008 JONESBORO — When Jonesboro business owner Len Pipkin attended a conference on wind energy in Little Rock this summer, he returned with a new title: co-chair for environmental education and outreach for the Arkansas Wind Working Group. The new position — which includes travels to conferences and grassroots activities around the state and throughout the country — is something he’s happy to fit in his busy schedule as owner of Massanelli’s Cleaners. He’s already leveraged his role to attend the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., in July and the Green Jobs Now rally in Little Rock last month. Not only does he want to learn as much as he can about renewable energy and “green” technology and industries, Pipkin wants to bring his experiences to Northeast Arkansas and help pave the way for a whole new way of doing business. In addition to making his own business as eco-friendly as possible, he has several initiatives planned for this area in the near future, including an ambitious collaboration designed to attract green industries to the region. “The only concrete event I am working diligently on at the moment should occur toward the latter part of the fourth quarter 2008,” Pipkin said. “I’ll only leak a bare minimum at this time: It’s going to involve members of both the United Steelworkers association and the Sierra Club, aka the blue-green alliance, at which time I hope to unveil a program that would create Jonesboro’s very own Green Jobs Corps.” Pipkin said a green jobs corps would come about gradually and would start with screening a select group of people and training them through collaboration with some of Jonesboro’s existing industries. They would transition into paid internships and ultimately be marketed as a “green” work force. “Gradually you build a relatively high percentage of people in a geographic area that bringing those green companies into this area would necessitate,” he said. Similar work Other cities around the United States are working on similar efforts. One that Pipkin is using as a template is the Oakland Green Jobs Corps in California. Pipkin’s new role has made him a bridge between those interested in such efforts and institutions that are seriously working toward them. One of his duties is visiting several universities around Arkansas to review what they provide in this field. “These visits will be to assess curricula options available, taking an overview of degree programs as they relate directly to renewable energy, researching certifications offered, numbering community outreach programs available to students through both paid and unpaid scholarships with a Leadership, Academics and Operations scorecard to grade each school upon in hand,” he said. Festival, conference He will also attend the Washington D.C., Green Festival Nov. 8-9 and the Net Impact North America Conference in Philadelphia the following week. All this will culminate in a workshop on international cooperation and U.S.-EU ventures in research Nov. 17-18 in Atlanta. “I petitioned for and received one of only approximately 300 lay seats available worldwide,” Pipkin said. “It’s one of the genuine first steps in making the solutions to our myriad environmental problems global in scope. It’s going to be a breathtaking gathering of world dignitaries; I am so very thrilled and honored to be attending.” He’s still working on helping to implement a program called KidWind in local schools and has plans for other events in Jonesboro. But in the meantime he said he wants to encourage people to get involved in whatever way they can. “Ask yourself the questions, ‘What do you really desire from life? What kind of life and what type of society do you want to bequeath to future generations?’” he said. “These are not issues we can simply leave to the whimsical vagaries of chance, to the decisions of political leaders, to the most readily seen, progressive social policies. Quite to the contrary: To purposefully address the issues of today and pursue the solutions of tomorrow, one must be and remain vigilantly aware. The task of building a truly sustainable society is not a game of solitaire. This game we play as a team.”

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