The Blurgh

On Fridays, I have a nice 2-hour block between classes.  Usually I use the time to either pass out or do some emergency cramming, but last week when I exited Posvar Hall I saw a big crowd of SSP kids waiting at the bus stop.  I asked them what was going on, and they said they were going to a city council meeting downtown to lobby for SSP’s new Open Doors initiative.

The initiative is focused  on making it easier for students and recent grads to enter careers within the city government, which right now is a pretty time-consuming and complicated process.  First you have to go through their online system and create an account, then see if you have to take the civil service test.  If you do, count out even being able to apply for at least a month.  After you finally get to apply, you have to wait for the gears of bureaucracy to work, and you may or may not get a call for an interview in another month or so.

It’s a process that in the end up takes several months, and because of that lot of good candidates end up in other professions. SSP feels that the city should be the employer of choice in the region and needs to be doing a better job of recruiting talented applicants and getting them through the system as fast as possible.  The plan is to team the city with the OED to place interns in different city departments, which could fast-track them since they would then already be in the system, and then for a study to be done on how to streamline and revamp the HR process.

Mayor Conway is apparently a big supporter of the idea, but there is some pushback from the council, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’ve finished my first few days at Community Recycling and Renewables (CRR), and so far I haven’t done much other than the usual get acquainted with things and random go-for duties. I have been learning a lot about the company, though, and since I’m a huge history dork I think it’s all very fascinating.

CRR is a small company, but you’d never guess it by the amount of work they do. It’s also a hybrid of sorts–it straddles the home improvement, community development, and renewable energy industries. It was started about 15 years ago by Bill Hollinger and Joanna Marcinovic, both of whom were recent grads of Pitt majoring in business. They got the idea when they were working in the labs of some prominent professors who were doing research on producing solar cells more efficiently. During their time there, the professors made a breakthrough, and shortly thereafter a few of them started out on their own manufacturing cells. It made big news in Pittsburgh, and it also got Bill and Joanna thinking.

At the time, renewable energy technology was getting more and more popular, but the application of it was focused primarily on large commercial and residential buildings. Since the cost of solar cells had come down a lot after the breakthrough, Bill and Joanna decided the time was ripe to make a transition into the home market. Both of them were also very handy and had a personal interest in home improvement, so their plan was to package home remodeling and renewable energy together. They got some help from the Office of Entrepreneurial Development at Pitt, and then took the plunge.

In the beginning, business was pretty slow. They did a few renovation projects for wealthy individuals which got a lot of press, but failed to generate a lot of business. Besides the lack of business, they also just felt like they weren’t making the impact that they wanted to make. They got into this to make money, but also to do some good for the environment.

They decided to take a chance and go speak at a meeting of one of the many community organizations in the city. It just so happened that the organization was debating ways that they could decrease their carbon footprint–they were sick of waiting for the government to take action. By the end of the meeting, they developed a plan for a neighborhood-wide renovation project that would incorporate recycling programs, education, and home renovations. They also found they were able to leverage some grant funds for the project, which brought the cost to the individual homeowners to a very manageable level. Thus, CRR was born.

Since then they’ve been involved with numerous projects in Pittsburgh neighborhood and surrounding communities. There are three main branches to their business: community outreach, vendor outreach and project implementation. I’m hoping to get a taste of each before the internship is over!

Yet again, it’s that joyous time of the semester where I need to start planning what the hell I’ll be doing in the spring.  Unlike like last year, though, I’m actually excited about it.  There’s a couple of internships I’m going to apply for that I heard about at the Office of Entrepreneurial Development (OED), and I’m also pondering asking Dr. Lemley if I can do a directed research project with him.  That way I can knock off my last upper-level class requirement, and Dr. Lemley is also awesome as hell.

It occurs to me now that I never wrote about my trip over to the OED.  The office itself was really nice–it reminded me a lot of the Study Abroad office.  There were books with information, several “Who’s Who” type of directories, and ample sitting areas.  I was a little nervous, so I whipped out my computer and sat on one of the couches before going and talking to the staff.  I noticed a good number of people coming in and out of the office–around 5 in the 10 minutes or so that I was stalling…I mean waiting.  It seemed like a lot of the people were students like me (i.e., liberal arts majors), and they were just checking in with the people who work there (who I overheard being referred to as counselors).

After I rehearsed what I was going to say, I gathered my courage, went up to the front desk, and totally blanked.  I think my exact words were, “Hey, ummmm, my name is Frank, and ummmmmmmm, I was just wonderin’ if, uhhhh, you know…I could…”

The person at the desk just smiled as I was doing my Mario Lemieux impression, and then interrupted and said, “So, this is your first visit here?”  I guess they get that all the time. We talked for a while about my majors, my interests, etc., and then I made an appointment to speak with Ms. Devali, one of the counselors there.

I went to the appointment the next day, and I was a little less nervous, but still unsure of what to say.  The truth is that I really don’t know what I want to do with my life after I graduate, and I don’t feel so great about that.  Most of my friends knew what they wanted to do for a long time, sometimes it seems like they knew since they were born.  I’ve had a lot of ideas, ranging from environmental engineer (whatever that means) to high school history teacher, but nothing ever seemed to stick.  All I really know is that I want to do something I care about, and I want to do it well.  Anyway, that’s what I told Ms. Devali.

She listened as I rambled on about that, and after I was done, she said, “Sounds good, let’s look at some options.” I was expecting her to send me away to think about it some more, so I was pleasantly surprised.  We looked at some different companies and organizations that were offering internships, and a lot of them looked interesting.  There was a really cool community development organization in Homewood, there was a marketing and design firm on the South Side, there were several online magazines…I was amazed by how much there was.  Ms. Devali also said the the OED does not advertise internships that solely involve making copies and doing busy-work, which is something I was afraid of.

The companies that really caught my eye, though, were the ones in the renewable energy field, which ranged from biofuel manufacturers to innovative recycling firms.  One, however, really stuck out: Community Renewables and Recycling (CRR).  This company combined three elements that really interested me–cutting-edge green technology, low-tech implementation, and community outreach.  Building off of Mayor Conway’s original idea to implement renewable energy solutions residentially, their approach is to work with local community groups and grass-roots organizations to develop neighborhood-wide green implementation plans.  They also get down to the actual installation level, which interests me a lot because I love getting my hands dirty!

I applied there as well as some other places as backups, but I’m really banking on CRR, which I should hear from in about a week or so.  After I left Ms. Devali’s office, I realized that going to the OED was one of the biggest single things I’ve done so far to address what I’ll be doing with my life post-graduation.  I’m really glad they were there and so helpful, even for someone as clueless as I am!

There was a SSP meeting this past week, and they were talking about something I never really thought about before, but might be a good opportunity. One of the more recent things SSP has worked on is getting an Office of Entrepreneurial Development started at Pitt, and to link it with similar offices at other universities in the area. The idea behind them is to work with researchers (both faculty and student) who want to spin their work off into companies or organizations and help them to develop their plans, assist with marketing, and to also connect them with big venture capitalist firms and grant makers in the area. It’s been operating for a few years now, and just recently they started a program focused on connecting undergraduates to these new start-up companies for internships and post-graduation employment.

It makes a ton of sense to me, because Universities are magnets for new ideas and one of their main purposes is to educate the future workforce. I’m really excited about it because most of the internships I hear about for liberal arts majors are for research or admin-type positions at non-profits, and nothing so far has really seemed very interesting to me. Anyway, I’m planning on going to the office tomorrow to see what sorts of places are looking for people, especially History & Psych majors who are clueless about where their life is headed!

I know, I’m such an attractive prospective employee…