SoCalREN’s Charnofsky on Preparing Future Leaders for Green Careers

In conversation with VX News, LA County ISD’s Tessa Charnofsky reflects on the vision behind the Future Green Leaders Summit and the broader mandate of SoCalREN—authorized in 2012 by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to deliver energy-efficiency and workforce programs across 13 Southern California counties, with a specific focus on disadvantaged communities. Charnofsky shares why early exposure, community-designed programs, and partnerships that extend beyond the classroom are essential to growing California’s clean-energy workforce pipeline. From AI modeling workshops to youth-led home-efficiency kits, she outlines an engagement model that relies on parents, teachers, community-based organizations, and even the entertainment and gaming industries. Her message is simple: preparing young people for climate and energy careers requires an ecosystem, not a one-off event.

“[The] goal [of our workforce development work] is to expose young people—from disadvantaged communities and challenged environments—to environmental career opportunities.” - Tessa Charnofsky

Tessa, you’ve led the Future Green Leaders Summit for years, connecting the next generation to opportunities in the fastest-growing clean-energy job markets. For our readers, share how you came to lead this effort through LA County’s Internal Services Department (ISD).

I’ve been with Los Angeles County for seven years, and I currently work for the Internal Services Department, where I support a program called the Southern California Regional Energy Network, or SoCalREN. We’re authorized by the California Public Utilities Commission—the CPUC—to work on energy-efficiency programming and workforce development throughout Southern California. Our aim for our workforce development programming, and specifically with the Future Green Leaders Summit, is to inspire young people to consider education and careers in the clean-energy and energy-efficiency fields. 

Before ISD, I worked for former Supervisor Sheila Kuehl as her district director in the Santa Monica mountain communities and the Western San Fernando Valley, also supporting her environmental initiatives. But I have a pretty diverse background. I’ve worked for three elected officials—a former mayor and a former Speaker of the Assembly. I worked in government affairs and policy for First 5 LA, and I worked as an urban wildlife manager for the National Wildlife Federation, helping people create gardens and environments that support wildlife.

As for my academic training, I have a master’s in social work, and for many years, I worked in direct service and management—youth development, youth leadership, and gang prevention—so I really feel like my background primed me to support a project like the Future Green Leaders Summit; working with youth from disadvantaged communities, challenged environments, and exposing them to environmental careers while pushing for policy change and ample funding for programs like this.

You work for LA County ISD, yet SoCalREN’s footprint spans most of Southern California. Explain the jurisdictional reach of your work.

There are seven Regional Energy Networks throughout the state. SoCalREN was one of the first, and BayREN was the other. Each of the RENs covers multiple counties, and we span almost the entire state.  We’re an alternative to the investor-owned utilities, like Pacific Gas and Electric or San Diego Gas & Electric. 

The CPUC allowed the RENs to form in part so that we could provide niche or unique services to communities, with a particular focus on disadvantaged communities.

Elaborate on this year’s Future Green Leaders Summit, and speak to what the County hopes to achieve by bringing a major clean-energy workforce event to San Bernardino.

Well, SoCalREN’s jurisdiction covers 13 counties, and San Bernardino was the perfect spot. The Future Green Leaders Summit is a full-scale conference for middle-school students featuring plenary speakers, workshops, a resource fair, lunch, and this year, even an environmental-themed concert. We want events like this to reach young people whose families or communities might not otherwise have access to these kinds of experiences, and where students may not be exposed to the many careers waiting for them in the green economy.

We plan to take this event on the road to all of our jurisdictions. We have many counties to cover, and we’re looking at Kern County and maybe Inyo County next year.

The term “sacrifice zones” comes up often in environmental-justice work. In that context, elaborate on where in Southern California SoCalREN prioritizes its community engagement.

We work in communities considered “disadvantaged”—places facing higher poverty, heavier pollution burdens, more extreme heat and weather impacts, and, in some cases, higher crime. Many of these neighborhoods were historically redlined, sit next to polluting industries, or simply don’t have enough organizations on the ground fighting for change. Those are exactly the communities we want to be in.

For us, clean-energy and sustainability careers have to be accessible to everyone, no matter their race, gender, or economic background. Our job is to make sure events and opportunities like the Future Green Leaders Summit actually reach the students living in these harder-to-reach neighborhoods.

We also believe strongly in community organizing and community-directed program design. We recently launched a program called the Community-Based Design Collaborative. It’s a CPUC-approved pilot that gives communities, working through local community-based organizations, especially environmental-justice groups in San Bernardino, Kern, Los Angeles, and Ventura, the ability to design the energy-efficiency programs that make sense for them.

Usually, we go into multifamily properties or public agencies and offer our standard services like heat-pump installations, switching out HVAC systems, improving lighting, doing weatherization, and things like that. But for this program, they designed the interventions. That’s the key. When programs are shaped by the people who live there, they’re far more likely to be relevant and, hopefully, make a deeper and more lasting impact. We don’t want to swoop into a community and then disappear. We want to stay, support them, follow up, and continue reinforcing the opportunities and the messaging.

Given that California now has more than 544,000 clean-energy workers, how do you translate that opportunity into careers that feel tangible and attainable for middle-school students?

It’s not easy to motivate young people who may have never even thought about these careers, and that’s exactly why we held the Future Green Leader Summit. I think the event did a really good job introducing the idea of what a green career could be to these youth, and that’s what we aimed to do—break down the field of sustainability so that it’s tangible and something they could envision themselves doing. Beyond the Summit, several other programs within SoCalREN are designed to spark interest early.

One example is a program called Kits for Kids. It starts in elementary school: you really do have to start young. We put the kids in charge of teaching their parents how to make their homes more energy efficient. We educate the children about why energy efficiency matters, then we give them LED lightbulbs and faucet aerators and other little gadgets that they can install in their homes, and then teach their parents! They learn how this saves energy and water, and that’s an important way to start building interest and responsibility.

We also have another program called ACES—Architecture, Construction, Engineering, Sustainability—as part of our workforce education and training program. The Emerald Cities Collaborative, a nonprofit organization, is our lead implementer for this program. ACES gets high-school kids to experience clean-energy and STEM fields through dual enrollment in community college, where, after passing certain skills tests, they obtain certificates and are offered paid internships. When you give youth direct opportunities to experience these fields, to dip their toes in, this is how they become interested, how we can light a spark.

And a personal example…I told you I worked for the National Wildlife Federation, teaching people how to “garden for wildlife”, and I’m a big native-plant gardener. I didn’t care about gardening when I was young, even though my mother did and my twin brother did. Then, at some point, something clicked, and gardening with California native plants became my greatest passion. But what my family did for me is they planted the seeds, and that’s exactly what we want to do with these young people.

Regarding this year’s Summit, share what students actually experienced—the demos, performances, and hands-on activities—and explain how LA ISD and the CPUC approach engaging young people in climate and energy careers that can change our world.

The Future Green Leaders Summit was a marvelous way to expose children to sustainability and environmental protection. We had workshops that were educational but also really fun. For example, we had a workshop using AI to do 3D modeling on computers. The workshop taught kids how to construct homes that were energy-efficient and wildfire-resilient. They were having a blast. They were so organized, working in teams, putting together these new homes, and really understanding how they can build properties that are resilient going forward. They’re going to think about this later—‘Wow, I had a really good time at this conference, and maybe I want to do that work one day.’

We had another game called the Climate Cool Down, where kids worked in teams to figure out how, together, they could cool the planet, clean the planet, and combat climate change. Then we had the premier Energy Battle Royale, which the kids loved more than anything. These characters were dressed up like energy systems, such as solar, wind, hydropower, and others, and they all kind of battled it out to see which energy system was best for our planet. The kids were given playing cards that they read to learn about each system and its benefits, and they had so much fun. 

We know they can learn that changing the world is critical, but the work can also be enjoyable, and that’s what we wanted to illustrate.

Why don’t more public school districts adopt SoCalREN’s successful experiential approach to teaching and learning?

Schools do a very good job teaching children the basics, like math, writing, and reading, and they take students on field trips when they can. But resources are limited, so what we offer is an extra boost to help fill in the gaps. Public schools have to meet state standards and prepare students for tests, and that requires a lot of focused energy on the required curriculum. That isn’t necessarily the best—or the only—way for young people to learn. Programs like ours can spark interest in ways traditional instruction sometimes can’t. I’ll bet that the students who came back from the Future Green Leaders Summit returned to their classrooms even more energized and curious.

The teachers certainly felt that way. We even had the superintendent attend the event, which thrilled us. The San Bernardino Unified School District was so enthusiastic that they paid for all the buses themselves. We were prepared to cover the cost, but they offered to do it. We’re now following up with them to reinforce the learning that took place at the event and see how we can support classroom learning. Their educators are genuinely excited about this work.

One of the most powerful moments was when the Mayor of San Bernardino joined us. She came on stage and said to the students, something like, “You are the change agents. You can do anything you want to do. I didn’t know I was going to be mayor. I had no idea. But I worked really hard, and look where I am—you could be me.” She’s such a strong role model. Sometimes, simply getting children out of the classroom and into a new environment is exactly what sparks their imagination and opens their sense of possibility.

You clearly believe in hands-on, real-world learning. What influences that belief and perspective?

So, on a personal note, I went to what was called an alternative school in elementary and junior high. It was not for kids who messed up or were in trouble, but more so a hippie school where children had more say in their learning. It was called Area D Alternative School, and we had what were called “blocs”—two weeks at a time, every year, we took time off school and did totally different things with our teachers. 

Some of the blocs were going into nature, where we hiked and swam in stream-fed pools in the forest and learned about the natural environment. Some blocs took students to museums to learn about the arts. They even had a fishing and surfing bloc! The alternative school offered all kinds of experiences where the kids got to get out of the classroom and learn in a way that, motivated us and helped us find our passion!

I would love to see more experiences like this today, and maybe that’s something we can work toward. As I said, we all need to be change agents, and if there’s a better way to learn, then maybe programs like the Future Green Leadership Summit should happen more frequently, and maybe the schools themselves can organize similar events. 

How do you maintain and grow the Summit’s coalition of educators, municipal leaders, influencers, technical experts, and County agencies?

We need an ecosystem that genuinely supports young people in their learning. A huge part of that is engaging parents and making sure teachers and community-based organizations are fully involved. I’d also love to see businesses—whether they make computer games, TV shows, or movies—reinforcing environmental protection and showing young people that this is work everyone can take part in. Finally, we need our policymakers to recognize that children thrive when they are given opportunities like the Future Green Leaders Summit.  This is the kind of ecosystem we need, one that extends far beyond a single Future Green Leaders Summit and that ensures that opportunities like this are available to all.  

The County team, along with our lead implementer for the Future Green Leaders Summit, U.S. Green Building Council California, is considering how best to strengthen the summit, build momentum, and engage institutions that might be able to join this effort. We’d like the school communities we work with—including the youth themselves—to help shape the programming and hopefully find ways to create their own summits going forward.

In closing—only because of time and space—after reaching more than 2,100 students since 2023, how is SoCalREN evolving its programming, and what does long-term success look like for the initiative?

Thirteen counties are a lot of ground to cover, from San Luis Obispo and Inyo down to Imperial. I’d consider us successful if the Future Green Leaders Summit is something others choose to replicate—whether by other Regional Energy Networks, community-based organizations, or even by the schools themselves.

If our work inspires programs like this to be replicated, that’s a win. It means more students are reached, and more young people who might never have imagined a future in energy efficiency or sustainability are exposed to these exciting fields. These youth could very well be the environmental change agents our world desperately needs. Let’s give them that chance!