GE Careers Blog.

The Green Job Bank released its second report on the green jobs created by the 10 winners of GE’s Ecomagination Home Challenge. The Green Job Bank is pleased to again report a positive trend, with 54 new green jobs posted on the companies websites in August (31 jobs) and September (23 jobs). Of the 10 companies, Hara Software, SunRun, Project Frog, GMZ Energy, Ember Corporation, and Witricity added job postings; On-Ramp Wireless, Nuventix, Viridity Energy, and VPhase had no new postings. These new jobs were all indexed by The Green Job Bank from the companies’ websites and are available on the search engine’s website. This brings the total green jobs created to 141 since GE announced the 10 winners in June 2011.

In two years, GE has announced 15 new manufacturing plants or existing facility expansions in the United States, from a new locomotive manufacturing plant in Texas and an aircraft engine composites factory in Mississippi to refurbished appliance and lighting facilities in Kentucky, Alabama and Ohio, among others. GE’s recent breakthrough in solar energy technology—earlier this year achieving the highest-ever reported efficiency for CdTe thin film solar panels—will be brought to market at a new manufacturing plant to be built in Aurora, Colorado, the company announced last night at an event with Governor John Hickenlooper. When completed, the expansion will create the country’s largest U.S. solar panel manufacturing plant, 355 advanced manufacturing jobs at the new plant in Colorado and approximately 100 additional jobs in New York, at GE’s renewable energy headquarters in Schenectady and the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna.

To grow the talent needed to fuel green energy’s future, institutions from universities to labor unions are focusing on “green-collar” job training. At GE, we’ve hired hundreds of engineers in the last few years, and we’ve found that, while traditional experience is important, a broad range of skills, from chemistry to software development are crucial. But we’ve also uncovered a few common threads among successful green engineers.

Two Connecticut teachers are spending two weeks in two of the state’s largest companies learning about energy and green technologies. The teachers are part of a program funded by the National Science Foundation’s Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) grant, administered by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA). Shane Clark of Bristol, a math teacher at New Britain High School, will be working at General Electric in Plainville. Clark will work with engineers designing electric vehicle charging stations.

With Father’s Day on Sunday, we’re all reminded of the great lengths to which dads have been known to go to teach their sons lessons. But perhaps no one is going as far as Pierce Hoover. Read about a father-son duo that are peddling cross country this summer in a custom human-electric hybrid vehicle, on an “Eco Tour” sponsored by Popular Science and GE. Now that’s ecomagination!