E n v i r o n m e n t a l W o r k f o r c e D e v e l o p m e n t 

and Job Training Success Stor y

Cypress Mandela Training Center

Oakland, California

Hig h lig h t s

Since serving as one of EPA’s 

original Brownfields Job Training 

“Pilot” grants in 1998, CMTC has 

gone on to receive an additional, 

two-year EPA Brownfields Job 

Training grant every time it has 

applied. CMTC has also received 

funding under the Agency’s new 

and expanded Environmental 

Workforce Development and Job 

Training program.

Core training focuses on 

hazardous waste remediation, 

including asbestos and mold 

removal and supplemented with 

masonry, plumbing, carpentry and 

surveying, as well as solar and 

other renewable energies and lifeskills. Students graduate with eight 

different certifications.

Through a collaboration with EPA 

and a local contractor, CMTC is 

testing an innovative, safe and 

non-intrusive remediation method 

with the potential to revolutionize 

the way lead contamination in soil 

is addressed.

Poverty and unemployment have long been issues for residents of 

West Oakland, California, with rates doubling national averages. In 

1989, after an earthquake collapsed the Cypress Mandela Freeway, 

community activists expressed their desire that cleanup and rebuilding 

jobs created through the disaster should be filled by area residents. The 

problem was that few who lived in the area had sufficient training and 

no area training programs existed.

In response, with West Oakland’s predominantly low-income and 

minority, unemployed residents in mind, neighborhood representatives 

applied for and received funding from the Federal Highway 

Administration (FHA) to train residents with the skills needed to clean 

up earthquake debris on the freeway. A large, vacant building in the 

city’s warehouse district became the Cypress Mandela Training Center 

(CMTC)—and 90 percent of the first round of trainees were hired for 

freeway cleanup. This success led to additional funding from FHA, the 

U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), the State of California, and other 

public- and privatesector sources; 

and solidified 

CMTC’s presence 

in the community. 

Word of mouth 

began to spread 

and waiting lists 

began to form for 

training classes. 

In 1998, CMTC 

applied for and 

received an EPA 

Brownfields Job 

Training Pilot for 

CMTC students learn 

construction skills as part of the 

16-week training program.

Contacts: U.S. EPA Region 9 (415) 947-8000 or visit the EPA Brownfields Web site at: www.epa.gov/brownfields
$200,000 to prepare local residents not only to 

clean up the contaminated properties that had 

plagued their neighborhoods, but for lasting 

careers in environmental remediation. An 

experimental “pilot” grant at the time, this EPA 

funding allowed CMTC to further expand its 

environmental training curriculum and change 

the lives of disadvantaged residents. From 

initial courses in lead and hazardous materials 

cleanup, CMTC now offers comprehensive 

coursework in environmental remediation that 

includes modern, “green” cleanup techniques 

as well as life-skills training leveraged through 

non-EPA funding. 

“We have high standards in this program, both 

for our students and what we offer,” explains 

Art Shanks, who has been with CMTC since 

its inception and is now the Executive Director. 

“Classes begin at 7:00 a.m. sharp and are 

no-nonsense. They learn masonry, iron works, 

plumbing, carpentry, surveying, construction 

materials handling, blueprint reading, and 

CAD (also known as Computer Aided Design 

or Drafting) skills; lead, asbestos and mold 

removal; confined space cleanup; and first aid/

CPR. We are also a green-approved training 

center, teaching students about solar and other 

renewable energies, materials recycling, and 

energy-saving insulation techniques.” Students 

graduate with no less than eight different 

certifications. “We also give them the life-skills 

training they may not already have,” Shanks 

elaborates. “We teach them how to manage their 

time, parenting skills, how to overcome chemical 

dependencies, and avoiding toxic relationships. 

They learn anger management and how to 

budget their finances. But our high standards 

make students raise the bar for themselves and 

ensure their success after graduation.”

Offering three 16-week training cycles per year, 

CMTC now has as many as 400 applicants 

on their waiting list—understandable given 

the program’s near 90 percent placement rate 

after graduation and local word-of-mouth, 

which is CMTC’s main source of recruits. “We 

had a diversion program that we offered for the 

Justice Department,” says Art Shanks. “We went 

in and spoke to a group of around forty first-time 

drug offenders, 18-to-22 year olds. We explained 

that through this agreement, if they went through 

our 16-week program, they’d have their records 

expunged. Only six or seven accepted the offer 

initially. But one of those who chose not to enter 

the training saw one of our graduates on the street 

later in his surveying uniform, making $22 an hour. 

The kid asked him, `How can I get a job like that?’ 

and the other kid told him, `You were at the same 

meeting I was, Mr. Shanks came in and offered you 

the program and you turned it down.’ But that kid 

ended up re-applying and eventually got into our 

program and graduated. So we’re taking kids that 

are problematic in our community and turning them 

into responsible citizens—we are changing the 

future of this city.”

Since proving its value—as well as the value of 

the EPA Environmental Workforce Development 

and Job Training Program (formerly known as 

Brownfields Environmental Job Training Program), 

in 1998—CMTC has been the recipient of EPA Job 

Training grants (each spanning two years) every 

time it has applied. Through the years, CMTC 

has forged close relationships with local business 

organizations to help graduates find jobs, including 

the Alameda County Building and Construction 

Trades Council, and the Associated General 

Contractors and Minority Contractors Associations. 

More recently, the Center partnered with a local 

community college to offer trainees classes 

“[The program gives] you what you need to create 

a good career... it’s like you have a Harvard 

degree in construction and cleanup. Without the 

program I’d be working some odd job now, I have 

no clue where I’d be.”

—CMTC Graduate 

Charles Jones

Contacts: U.S. EPA Region 9 (415) 947-8000 or visit the EPA Brownfields Web site at: www.epa.gov/brownfields
in carpentry 

and modern 

weatherization 

techniques. 

In 2011, CMTC 

entered into a 

collaboration with 

EPA and a local 

environmental 

contractor, 

SFS Chemical 

Safety, Inc., to 

test a method of 

soil-based lead 

cleanup with 

the potential to 

revolutionize how 

such cleanup 

is performed. 

Oakland’s 

South Prescott 

neighborhood—

built on the site of a former landfill used for 

disposal of debris from the 1906 San Francisco 

earthquake, with lead levels averaging twice 

federal safety guidelines—will serve as the 

perfect proving ground. This new method uses 

dry, ground up fish bones, which are regarded 

as waste product by fish processing plants. 

Workers trained by CMTC dampen the crushed 

bones, spread the resulting paste over selected 

yards, and work the mixture into the soil with 

a rototiller. The process allows neighborhood 

trees and plants to remain undisturbed. Over the 

next several weeks, a chemical reaction takes 

place that bonds lead contamination with bone 

particles, rendering the lead harmless to humans. 

At the time of this article, CMTC had only applied 

the paste on three South Prescott properties, 

and the method’s effectiveness was still being 

determined. But ultimately, this EPA-funded, $4 

million test project could potentially replace the 

method of digging up and disposing of hundreds 

of thousands of tons of contaminated soil—an 

expensive, time consuming and difficult process 

that has been used for decades. 

For CMTC’s nearly 2,400 graduates, the 

program’s value is already evident. “It was what 

I needed to get back on track,” he explains. “The 

CMTC staff care about the individual that they’re 

training. They give you what you need to create 

a good career. With those certifications, it’s 

like you have a Harvard degree in construction 

and cleanup. I found work within a week after 

graduating. Without the program I’d be working 

some odd job now, I have no clue where I’d be. It’s 

made a big difference in my life and I’ve already 

recommended five or six friends for the training.”

CMTC students learn modern 

insulation techniques in addition 

to other skills.

Brownfields Success Story

Cypress Mandela Training Center

Oakland, CA

Solid Waste 

and Emergency 

Response (5105T)

EPA 560-R-11-012 

October 2011 

www.epa.gov/brownfields/

Contacts: U.S. EPA Region 9 (415) 947-8000 or visit the EPA Brownfields Web site at: www.epa.gov/brownfields