Next Step Living is a residential energy efficiency company, providing home energy diagnostics and improvements to the greater New England area. As a socially-conscious, environmentally focused, results-driven organization they are dedicated to helping our customers lower their energy bills, increase the comfort of their homes, and reduce their carbon footprint. Through collaborative efforts with major utilities, communities, and employers, they strive to help bring social, economic, and environmental change to cities and towns across the country. In an increasingly resource constrained world that necessitates new behaviors and lifestyles Next Steo Living believes that this new way of living is the logical “next step” beyond our current lifestyles. Next Step Living focuses on energy consumption, and even more specifically, residential energy consumption. Residences account for 35% of all wasted energy, offering tremendous opportunity, not just for energy savings but for community building and green job creation.

As part of this philosophy, Next Step Living began hiring Job Corps students from throughout the Boston Region approximately two years ago. At the Westover Job Corps Center, the largest center in the Northeast and certainly the largest for construction trades in Massachusetts, this employer is a strong fit. Next Step Living works in Metro Boston and the Worcester area, west of Boston. Scores of Westover trainees hail from these areas and seek placements in their hometown areas when they finish. Next Step Living has continuously included Westover graduates in its total Job Corps hiring mix. Rebecca Weibel, Westover’s veteran CTS specialist stated that “Those that start working for them, stay working for them.” She continues, “We have seen wage upgrades and positive surveys at the six and twelve month points.”