Green Workforce Training Is Key to Powering LA’s Resilient Rebuilding Effort

At LACI, we believe progress on climate innovation happens when bold ideas are paired with economic opportunity for people and communities. Over the years, we’ve seen how startups can create economic value, solve local challenges, and strengthen communities—but technology alone doesn’t rebuild neighborhoods. People do. 

Nowhere is that more evident than in the rebuilding of Los Angeles’s fire-torn neighborhoods.

The devastating Palisades and Eaton fires of January 2025 destroyed more than 16,000 structures in a matter of days. Rebuilding these communities will require more than resilient building materials and expedited permitting for all electric homes; it will demand a robust, well-trained workforce capable of meeting the needs of the work ahead, all while ensuring economic opportunity reaches the people who need it most.

That’s why LACI recently launched the Resilient Rebuilding Training Course as part of our Green Jobs Workforce Development Program. This free, eight-week course brings together 30 workforce participants from across Greater Los Angeles, many of whom were personally affected by the fires. The program provides hands-on technical training, industry-recognized certifications, career coaching, and case management–designed to remove barriers and create real pathways into the rebuilding economy.

Training takes place at our home in the LADWP-owned La Kretz Innovation Campus, where participants build skills that translate directly into long-term careers. Upon graduation, we place participants into paid internships with LACI startups as well as builders, contractors, and related firms, allowing them to apply their training in real-world rebuilding efforts.

Many graduates go on to secure full-time positions in good-paying green jobs. Some even return to the LACI ecosystem later as startup founders themselves. That full-circle outcome–workforce to employer to entrepreneur–is a point of pride, and a testament to the strength of our Enhancing Communities team and their commitment to equitable economic mobility.

This course is part of a broader, coordinated effort by LACI to support fire-impacted communities. In July 2025, we hosted the LA Resilient Rebuilding Cup, bringing together more than 120 startups focused on rebuilding and resilience solutions. In November of last year, we launched our first ever themed cohort, welcoming 14 new portfolio companies working across the full resilient rebuilding spectrum–from disaster response to long-term risk reduction and preparedness. Together, these efforts reflect the comprehensive approach required to truly build back better.

Last year, I also joined a dedicated group of regional leaders and subject matter experts on the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire-Safe Recovery where we recognized the broader need to prepare our workforce for rebuilding.  

Through people-first workforce initiatives like the Resilient Rebuilding Training Course, we have an opportunity to make Greater Los Angeles a national–and global–model for equitable, climate-resilient recovery. With the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games on the horizon, the world will be watching how we rebuild.

As we look ahead, one thing is clear: rebuilding resilient communities means investing just as intentionally in the resilience, skills, and economic futures of the people doing the rebuilding.