Solar Energy International and Veterans Green Jobs Join Forces

Solar Energy International (SEI), the solar industry’s leading nonprofit career and technical solar training provider, has partnered with Veterans Green Jobs, a national nonprofit organization that puts veterans to work in the green economic sector. The partnership allows the two organizations to advance training and employment opportunities for military veterans nationwide. Veterans Green Jobs will provide career counseling services and match qualified veterans with jobs in the solar industry during and after their participation in a training program with SEI.

For more than 20 years, SEI has offered technical career training for people wanting to enter the clean energy sector. Over the past two decades of service to the renewable energy sector, SEI has trained more than 25,000 students and has produced more NABCEP Certified practitioners than any other training organization in the United States. SEI alumni are found throughout the industry as leading small business owners and in highly technical positions for many of the leading solar integration companies all over the country. Since 2008, Veterans Green Jobs has connected hundreds of military veterans to jobs and training programs in the sustainability sector, including clean and renewable energy, energy efficiency and natural resource restoration.

SEI Veterans and Active Duty Military Training Program
SEI recently announced a scholarship and outreach program exclusively designed for military veterans and active duty military personnel. This program was created in response to a dramatic increase in recent years of veterans who wish to attend SEI training and are looking for funding opportunities to take full advantage of all that SEI has to offer. Through the new partnership with Veterans Green Jobs, SEI will be able to expand the reach of its programs to veterans more than ever before.

Kathy Swartz, SEI’s executive director said, “As an organization, we believe in the opportunities that renewable energy can afford our country, such as energy independence and sustainable use of our country’s natural resources. With that in mind, we also honor those who have served our country and who are choosing to follow up their military service with a new kind of service; service in the renewable energy sector.”

Since 9/11 and during the past decade, SEI has had the honor of training soldiers returning from their military service with the hopes of starting a new career in the solar industry. Additionally, SEI has partnered with active duty military projects and installations to provide training with the goal of spreading solar energy applications to military bases all over the U.S. and abroad.

Veterans and Active Duty Military Program Benefits
All Veterans and Activity Duty Military personnel accepted into SEI’s program will receive a full scholarship for the PV101 Online course as part of their overall SEI Solar Professionals Certificate Program training path. PV101 Online is the prerequisite course for all certificate program training paths at SEI and normally costs $795.

SEI’s Solar Professionals Certificate Program also offers a certificate track for active duty military trainers and program managers to get the deepest level of training in the industry. The Train-the-trainers certificate path will be made available in this new scholarship program to any active duty military trainer who currently has, or is proposed to having, a training role in bringing solar energy technologies to their base or unit.

Career Placement Services in Partnership with Veterans Green Jobs
Veterans Green Jobs directly places veterans in sustainable career positions by building relationships with private companies, military service organizations and education partners, and by working with veterans to develop employable skills. Veterans Green Jobs assists veterans individually through one-on-one counseling and by connecting them with employers that want to hire veterans and help these former service men and women create a sustainable career path. Its aim is to place 300 veterans in jobs by mid-2013.

By educating veterans about opportunities related to the highly rigorous training experiences at SEI, Veterans Green Jobs provides an important avenue by which veterans can build and expand their technical skill sets and increase their marketability to employers.

Eligibility Requirements
Any veteran with a valid DD Form 214 (or current Military ID Card for active duty personnel) who is accepted into the SEI Solar Professionals Certificate Program will receive a full scholarship for PV101 Online, the first course in their certificate path. All interested veterans will still need to apply for the SEI Solar Professionals Certificate Program acceptance and meet SEI’s selection criteria to help ensure successful program completion.

The new Solar Energy International Active Duty Military and Veterans Scholarship program will give these soldiers, sailors, and marines a jump start to starting a new career and learning new technical skills in solar applications. SEI offers this scholarship opportunity to those who are serving or have served in the U.S. military.