AgEE program offers energy efficiency resources Merced County farmers

Agriculture is a huge economic engine for the San Joaquin Valley, with annual gross production values in excess of $25 billion dollars. As with all industries, to be sustainable and remain economically profitable, it is becoming increasingly important for farming operations to find ways to reduce energy consumption, costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The new Agricultural Energy Efficiency (AgEE) Internship Program will provide a strategic energy resource for agricultural operations in Merced County. 

The program, which kicked off in April, is offered through a partnership with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the Great Valley Center (GVC).

The goal of the initiative is to provide information and technical assistance to local farmers on energy efficient solutions that may help to reduce energy costs, improve sustainable practices, and build capacity within Central Valley communities.

Five college interns have been hired – four are University of California, Merced students and one is a student from Merced College. The interns are being trained to augment the work being performed by PG&E’s Energy Solutions and Service  team.  Duties will include building relationships with agricultural customers while matching available resources with each customer's operational needs.

Major objectives of the program include promoting energy efficiency, building local presence, workforce development, and fostering a long term relationship between the utility and its customers.

“In order for energy efficiency and climate action to take shape on a regional scale, a broad cross section of community stakeholders must be involved in crafting solutions to preserve the Central Valley,” said Bryce Dias, the program manager who oversees the AgEE program and GVC’s other energy and climate initiatives.

AgEE is just one of the energy and climate strategies on which GVC is working.

Green Communities, another collaborative effort implemented by PG&E, ICLEI and the GVC, provides GHG emissions inventories for budget-strapped local governments, assisting them to quantify and address GHG emissions. The Great Valley Center will soon be hiring seven additional college interns for a third round of Green Communities this spring. The program, dedicated to providing innovative energy efficiency and climate change solutions for governments and communities, has completed 25 projects to date in the San Joaquin Valley.

These programs are funded by California utility customers and administered by PG&E under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission. Click here for more information on GVC's Energy and Climate Initiatives.

Green Communities completes successful Round 2 of emissions inventories

24 Local Governments Served in the Central Valley!
The Great Valley Center has completed Round 2 of the Green Communities program, which to date has assisted 24 local governments in the Central Valley with the development of municipal Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventories.  The inventories help governments to assess their “carbon footprint” as a starting point for GHG emission reduction.

Coverage Map: Round 1 is blue, Round 2 is red       

The program is funded by California utility customers and administered by PG&E under the auspices of the California Public Utilities Commission. Green Communities provides local governments with the tools to begin reducing GHG emissions in response to statewide policies and recommendations, and provides fiscally strapped governments with the necessary resources to take the first step. A collaborative effort between Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA, and the Great Valley Center, the Green Communities Program provides support to local governments and communities in pursuing their GHG emission reduction goals.

"If it wasn’t for this program we would not have the resources to have completed this project," said Erika Durrer, Senior Planner for the City of Manteca.

Under the program, GVC staff and interns from local universities were sent to local government offices to collect data, calculate the data into emission figures, and report the results back to the local governments. The staff and interns received intense training by ICLEI representatives, who also provided the tools and software critical to the development of these inventories.

The inventories help governments analyze and track GHG emissions, transportation, fuel use and waste production, and identify opportunities to reduce local energy consumption. In addition to revising development patterns, city and county governments can identify ways to reduce GHG emissions from vehicle fleets, landfills, wastewater treatment plants and administrative buildings. As an added benefit, local governments that become more energy efficient tend to reduce operating costs associated with energy consumption.

"We were able to have our 2010 inventory done, which showed improvement,” stated Elisa Moberly, a Management Analyst II with San Joaquin County. “The inventories help us to see what areas need work, especially by department, which will be very helpful as we proceed."  

Program Accomplishments

Round 2 of the Green Communities program included participation by 11 cities and three counties, representing a 40% increase in outreach from Round 1. During the extent of Round 2, a total of 671,864 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) were inventoried, a tremendous increase from the 108,747 metric tons of CO2e inventoried in Round 1.

Government staff showed great support throughout the program. For instance, Round 2 employee commute survey responses were obtained from 3,778 current employees, more than 8 times the number of Round 1 employees participating in the survey.

A large portion of the program was performed by university interns who were offered training, tools, and resources to assist local government staff with the development of inventories. Throughout the process, interns were able to build green job skills and experiences, as well as establish professional relationships within local government organizations. Of the 13 interns retained through the entirety of the program, 100% rated the program above average, 92% indicated that their knowledge of GHG emissions had improved as a result of the program, 85% indicated that they expect this experience to help them pursue career goals, and 23% indicated that they obtained a job or promotion as a result of participating in this program.

“Having completed this internship, I continue to use the knowledge I learned in the classroom, and in my daily life,” reports Kyle Joel Sierra, a Round 2 intern from California State University, Bakersfield. “Although this internship is heavily focused on GHG emissions, it will show future employers and graduate programs my interest in the environment and my working knowledge regarding the matter.”

Next Steps

The Great Valley Center is planning to continue working with our partners to present energy efficiency and climate solutions to communities in the Central Valley. While astounding progress has been made over the last two years, there is still much work to be done. The GVC plans on expanding our focus from local government operations alone to working with local governments and community stakeholders to assess and address emissions at a community-wide scale.

The next step is to conduct community emissions inventories. Like the local government operations inventories, these will establish a baseline emissions level for each community. Taken together, the baseline inventories inform the target-setting and strategy stages by providing detailed information on sources and quantities of emissions. The long-term emissions monitoring strategy is simplified in the ICLEI Five Milestone Process model.

With continued support from our partners, Great Valley Center plans to continue offering GHG emissions inventory services in 2013, and to get local governments started on energy action plans, climate action plans and other projects to help communities take the next crucial steps in addressing emissions: setting targets and selecting strategies for reduction.

To get involved, contact your local government or visit the Green Community program's “How to Get Involved” page.

Connecting Californians for Reform summit offered at the Great Valley Center via Skype

The American Leadership Forum and Reviving California invite you to the 4th Annual Community Summit - Connecting Californians for Reform.  Join regional leaders, community members, students, journalist and elected officials across the state on Friday, October 5, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in on of seven locations statewide that are hosting the Summit simultaneously via Skype.

In Modesto, participants will gather in the Community Room at the Great Valley Center, 201 Needham Street, to hear topic experts discuss specific ballot measures and how their outcomes will affect democracy in California. Presentations will be followed by interactive small group dialogues with the opportunity to share highlights between venues. Dejeune Shelton, Senior Fellow with the Great Valley Chapter of the American Leadership Forum, will moderate the Modesto session.
“This is the second year we’ve incorporated Skype technology to connect disparate regions around the state,” said Anu Natarajan, Program Director for Reviving California. “Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype in the past year has enabled us to not only harness Skype technology, but also Microsoft’s evolving technology platforms for civic engagement.”

Featured Summit presenters include:

• Betty Yee, Board member, California Board of Equalization
• Joe Mathews, Contributing Writer, LA Times; Editor, Zócalo Public Square; Senior Fellow, New American Foundation; Co-author, California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It
• Yolie Flores, President & CEO, Communities for Teaching Excellence & former board member of the Los Angeles Unified School District
• Mike Genest, Chairman, Capitol Matrix Consulting & former Director,
• California Department of Finance
• Bob Brownstein, Policy Director, Working Partnerships USA & ALF Senior Fellow
• Michele Siqueiros, Executive Director, Campaign for College Opportunity

The Summit is free and open to the public. Although there is no charge, space is limited, so participants must pre-register. To register for the Modesto location, contact Linda Hoile at the Great Valley Center, 209-522-5103 ext. 140 or email linda@greatvalley.org. Check-in is at 8:30 a.m. and the program starts promptly at 9 a.m.

This year’s event features a social media sharing section in which the public is encouraged to use the Twitter hashtag #CALReform to Tweet questions and comments prior to the Summit. Day-of participants will be asked to do the same, in addition to sharing photos and highlights via twitter.com/revivingca and facebook.com/revivingca. For more information go to www.alfsv.org

Reviving California is a project of the Common Good Collaborative, powered by American Leadership Forum – Silicon Valley. Since 2008, Reviving California has played an active role in the state’s fiscal and governance reform efforts by focusing on educating and engaging the diverse population of Silicon Valley. The goal is to replace political rhetoric with authentic conversations, move beyond the blame game, reward integrity in the political process and create the conditions for individuals, networks and communities to engage in democracy. For more information, visit www.alfsv.org/revivingca

Summit Partners include the three American Leadership Forum chapters - Silicon Valley, Mountain Valley (Sacramento region) and Great Valley (Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties); Coro Center for Civic Leadership-San Francisco and University of San Francisco; Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good; Inland Empire Economic Partnership; San Diego Foundation and UC San Diego, and Southern California Leadership Network.

Class III begins transformational leadership development journey

The challenges facing the San Joaquin Valley are daunting. We struggle with high rates of unemployment, housing foreclosures, obesity and asthma, as well as low average household income and low educational attainment levels. The rapid population expansion of the last decade has placed increasing pressures on transportation, air quality and water resources. We must address these challenges and many others to effect a positive outcome for our communities.

Solving these complex problems, however, is further complicated by diverse ways of thinking and approaches to dealing with issues. Our culture, how and where we are raised, and our life experiences all effect how we think and solve problems. Unfortunately, these differences many times get in the way of collaborative problem solving. The need for inclusive, effective and cooperative leadership between government, business, education and non-profit community leaders has never been greater.

To address these needs the Great Valley Center joined with community leaders in 2008 to begin the American Leadership Forum (ALF) Great Valley Chapter, understanding that ALF recognizes, respects and embraces these differences and uses them to promote collaborative problem solving within and among communities.

The chapter seeks to build a diverse network of leaders in San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced Counties who are equipped and motivated to address our area’s pressing issues.

Over the course of a year, ALF Fellows come together for an intense, national-caliber training on how to solve problems and work together to tackle challenges facing our communities and region. Most participants say it is life-changing and the single best program for developing and refining their leadership skills.

A key factor in class selection is representation from a broad spectrum of organizations, backgrounds and cultures – involving a cross section of leaders who might not ordinarily interact. This builds understanding and valuing of diversity and creates bridges of relationship and trust within the network of leadership.

How does our region benefit?

Led by ALF national facilitators Kevin McCarthy and Kristen Jacobsen, the 22 leaders selected as Fellows for Class III began their year-long, leadership development journey in June. During their training they will establish relationships built on trust and cooperation; be armed with new skills in dialogue, systems thinking and community leadership for taking on complex issues; learn to appreciate diverse views, and identify resources to turn dialogue into action.

The ALF program strives to motivate “servant leaders” to a lifetime of active public engagement and to become catalysts for positive community change. In addition to their leadership positions on the job, the Senior Fellows serve as board members and as volunteers in a variety of community organizations – spreading their new insights and skills out to their communities.


The transformation that Fellows report taking place within them during the program eventually translates in to transformational change for our region.

Green Communities intern hired as a program coordinator

Caldean “Dean” Biscocho is proof that an internship can help you land a job.  Selected as an intern for the Green Communities program in November, he has been gathering and analyzing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) data for the City of Tracy over the past five months.  In June, Dean was hired by Great Valley Center as a full time program coordinator within the Green Communities program. 

He now assists interns and local governments in collecting and analyzing GHG data, preparing final reports for agencies.  These reports provide a carbon emission baseline for local governments, helping in their efforts to reduce emissions and improving energy efficiency.

Dean graduated from University of California, Davis in 2011 with a degree in Civil Engineering and a minor in Construction Management.  He worked as an undergraduate research assistant for the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, focusing on California environmental policy.  He was deeply involved in the campus civil engineering community, becoming club president of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) UC Davis Branch. 

“As president of ASCE, I oversaw the administrative responsibilities of the club.  This helped me develop as a professional,” reports Dean.  “We were responsible for the project competitions for our civil engineering students, with the top two regional teams advancing to the national competition. It was an exceptional experience.” 

Dean also served as an intern for the Development and Engineering Services Department of the City of Tracy, where he learned about the Green Communities program sponsored by Pacific Gas and Electric Company. After he expressed an interest, PG&E connected him with the Great Valley Center, where he was eventually selected as an intern.

Dean intends to work further into the civil and environmental engineering arenas, hoping to obtain a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering.

“The people who work in the environmental sciences and engineering community have a worldly mindset that I aspire to,” Dean explains. “I enjoy the learning involved with reanalyzing how we live as Californians and Americans.  The Great Valley Center radiates the mentality of giving back to the community in a sustainable way.  This provides motivation for people like me, who grew up here, to stay here and contribute to the valley.”

Dean speaks Tagalog and visits family in the Philippines. He also has roots in the Central Valley, and currently resides with his family in Tracy.  Part of a musical family, Dean plays piano and dabbles in music composition.

When asked what advice he would give to college or graduate students considering an internship experience, Dean responds, “Go for it, but take it as seriously as possible.  It will only be as rewarding as you make it.”

The Great Valley Center welcomes Caldean “Dean” Biscocho to the staff team!

Park leaders learn to guide strategic change at National Parks Institute

The third National Parks Institute, a 12-day seminar organized collaboratively by University of California, Merced, National Parks Service (NPS) and Great Valley Center, came to a successful conclusion on April 28. The NPI seminar, which migrated from Fort Baker in Marin County to UC Merced and wound up in Yosemite National Park, brought together 27 leaders in park and protected area management, including 16 from around the U.S. and 11 from countries around the world.  

Under the theme of “Leading Strategic Change”, participants tackled topics ranging from the affects of climate change on national parks to exploring how to build value to the park visit experience in order to compete for scarce resources.  

  

Thomas Lovejoy, Professor of Biology at George Mason University and chief biodiversity advisor to the President of World Bank, spoke to the group during a public plenary lecture at UC Merced. Lovejoy pointed out, "We have twice as much biologically active nitrogen in the world today than is natural, and the consequences are many dead zones in our oceans."

The NPI class also heard presentations from Stanford University Professor of Management and author Charles O'Reilly; Keshav Varma, Program Director for World Bank's Global Tiger Initiative; UC Merced Professor of Technology Management Erik Rolland, and dozens of other experts from the NPS, universities, and community and partnership organizations.  They also heard from past seminar participants who were inspired by their NPI experience to instigate new park programs and initiatives. To view a video of some of this year's speakers click here.

Each class member brought an “individual challenge case” to discuss with their colleagues, and during the seminar they worked on action plans to address their challenges.  Watch brief videos of some of the participants as they discuss challenges they are currently facing in their parks and why they wanted to attend NPI: Tom Leatherman,  Sula Jacobs, Stan Austin, and Judy Forte.

NPI’s third class left with fresh strategic planning and leadership skills and examples of successful partnerships and programs from parks around the country and the other side of the globe. Class members also gained a broader understanding of some of the complex issues faced by their colleagues, and established a network of new contacts.

Steve Thede, Deputy Superintendent of Badlands National Park, said of his experience, "The NPI helps the NPS (and part of the international community) move forward in our thinking, understanding and capacity, with the promise of much more in the future. Without opportunities such as this, we won't take the time, nor have the benefit of the expertise of those who shared with us, to see how what we do fits into the bigger picture...and how we can take more strategic and  effective actions."

Read more about the 2012 National Parks Institute through UC Merced or NPS Digest.