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Special thanks to Full Circle Fund member, Amie Vaccaro, for contributing to this article.

Phil Angelides, Board Chairman of the Apollo Alliance and Former California Treasurer, spoke to an attentive room of eighty Full Circle Fund Environment Circle members and guests on Wednesday night. The meeting, generously hosted at Morrison & Foerster by member Braden Penhoet, also featured updates from the Ella Baker Center Project Team, led by Karen Hanson and Sanjay Wagle, who are working with the Oakland-based organization on their Green-Collar Jobs Campaign.

>Read more about the Ella Baker Center project by clicking here…

The Speaker

Angelides spoke about the importance of a clean energy revolution and what was needed as the nation moves forward into the new economy. He emphasized Apollo Alliance’s broad coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders that were working to advocate for this revolution. His overall message, was one of cautious optimism and “we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The Apollo Alliance chose to headquarter in San Francisco rather than Washington DC so that they can be in the heart of the action, rather than in the center of the lobbies, Angelides pointed out. The Apollo Alliance is working with Green For All (lead by Van Jones, the Co-founder of Full Circle Fund grantee, Ella Baker Center) and other organizations to create, train, nurture and promote green collar jobs. They are using Oakland as a testing ground and blueprint for the rest of the country to learn from. Not only must the workforce be trained in green collar work, but green collar jobs must be created, and they must be good jobs.

On several occasions, Angelides stressed the importance of establishing the US as an environmental leader, vowing that we must step up to the plate before we get to Copenhagen at the end of the year. He expounded on cap and trade as forthcoming and critical and advised that we bring the manufacturing of the clean energy economy back home. A good portion of our renewable energy component parts are currently produced abroad and imported; this needs to be reversed.

Listening to Angelides, one could easily draw the parallels between the membership of Full Circle Fund’s Environment Circle and the Apollo Alliance. Both are cross-sector collections of interests and minds working together for a greener, cleaner future. Angelides remarked that he is often asked “Isn’t this space too crowded? There are all these fragmented groups working different angles; aren’t there enough of you already?” To which, Angelides responded that the problem has not been solved, so it must not be enough. The way he sees it, his organization and his peers are all figuring out which issue area they’ll address, and together they will each solve a piece of the complex puzzle.

>Want to join a team of dedicated individuals working with innovative grantees in clean energy? Read more about membership here….

Posted in Phil Angelides, green jobs, Ella Baker Center, environment, grantees