New Mexico Business Weekly by Megan Kamerick , NMBW Senior Reporter
Date: Thursday, September 29, 2011, 2:56pm MDT
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Students at the Albuquerque Job Corps Center and officials from The Boeing Co. building an Earthship at the Job Corps Center campus.
Students at the Albuquerque Job Corps Center got a hands-on lesson Thursday in the design and construction of Earthships, the famous green buildings created in Taos.
Earthship Biotecture officials participated to show 50 youth from the Jobs Corps Center the basics of Earthships, which are generally made of earth-filled tires and adobe or mud, and use thermal mass construction to naturally regulate indoor temperatures.

Ron Sciarrillo, a builder with Biotecture, worked with students and employees from The Boeing Co.’s Directed Energy Systems site in Albuquerque to get them started on an Earthship project on the campus of the Job Corps Center at 1500 Indian School Rd. NW.

Boeing is starting a mentor relationship with the center, which offers training to at-risk students between 16 and 24 years of age in office administration, health occupations, cement masonry, welding, plumbing, facilities maintenance, electrical wiring, carpentry and advanced welding.
Joe Tedino, spokesman for Boeing, said the company needs people with carpentry, electrical, facilities maintenance and related skills.
“Our interest is to encourage young people to think about careers in aerospace and defense,” he said.
The project under way now will be a demonstration and training project. The Job Corps Center is waiting for formal approval and funding to build a permanent Earthship structure for use as a library or career center. Two of its instructors are attending workshops in Taos to gain formal instruction in building the Earthships. Emily Salazar, business community liaison with the center, estimates the total cost of the building will be about $50,000.
About 47 percent of the students at the Job Corps Center are Native American and the Earthship construction is an ideal technology for them to take back to their communities, said Salazar.
“This could boost housing on the Navajo reservation,” she said
Earthships are usually designed to be off the grid and much of the Navajo Nation isn’t even connected to a grid, she added.
Chris Monette, career transitions manager for the Job Corps Center, said even though construction as an industry is down right now, the company that holds the current federal contract to manage the Albuquerque Job Corps Center, Del-Jen Inc., is part of Fluor Corp. That company has projects all over the world, and in addition to managing this and other federal job corps centers, it is often a job pipeline for graduates, Monette said.
The center also works with companies to tailor the training of the students to meet current needs by employers, Monette said. The majority of students live in dorms on the campus and they can stay for two years. About one-third have earned a high school diploma, but determined they needed more training. Another two-thirds dropped out before graduation. There is a high school on the grounds and also GED classes. Students also can stay an additional year and earn an associate degree.
The Albuquerque center is one of 124 federal job corps centers around the country. Earthship Biotecture has built Earthships all over the world and is currently working on a Waldorf School for orphans in Sierra Leone. Earthship Biotecture also has a customer in lower Manhattan.