Sustainable Careers as a Catalyst for Social Change

NAME: Mickey Lee

LOCATION: Portland, OR

ORGANIZATION: Carbon Concierge and Solar Richmond

Mickey Lee has always been concerned with environmental issues. Her focus as a student at Washington State University was on species conservation, and it was there that her passion of environmental justice was realized. However, it was her post-graduate work towards her MBA at Bainbridge Graduate Institute that solidified her dedication and drive to make significant change in the business arena in regards to social and environmental justice.

Today, Mickey is pursuing a passion of creating sustainable careers to help improve people’s quality of life. As she puts it, “If people are not given the rights of housing, good food, clean water, and ways to attain their own personal security they cannot be expected to work towards solutions to environmental degradation in their own communities.”

Mickey is currently working with Portland’s Environmental Professionals of Color to create a database of organizations and businesses that are successfully using sustainable career opportunities to reach out to disadvantaged communities.

With her TogetherGreen fellowship she plans to work with organizations like Solar Richmond, out of Richmond California, to create a pilot project for Green Solar training and job placement in Portland that can be replicated nationally. Her hope is to partner on the “Community Workforce Agreement on Standards and Community Benefits with Clean Energy Works Portland (CEWP) and its partners to establish the solar side of their training and placement program.

Through this work, she hopes to educate businesses about the value of including disadvantaged communities in these opportunities, as local businesses have been slower in reaching out to such communities than the non-profit and government sector. To do this, she will collaborate with local groups that include the Urban League of Portland, the local AFL-CIO, and Verde (a non-profit dedicated to finding jobs for people living in disadvantaged communities) all of which are partners on this project. Mickey is looking to find companies that will provide matching funding to the TogetherGreen grant to create a larger impact.

By using a collaborative model that connects non-profit organizations, government agencies, and small business leaders, Mickey’s goal is to foster greater inclusion of disadvantaged communities in the sustainable careers movement.