Alando Simpson, COR Disposal and Recycling’s CEO, joined a panel at PSU’s ‘Future Ready Oregon’ conference in May to discuss workforce trends, needs, and opportunities in Oregon around climate, sustainability, and diversity & inclusion. Portland State University recently published an article about the Future Ready Oregon conference and Simpson’s participation on the panel, and below we’re sharing video clips of COR’s CEO speaking on a variety of workforce diversity and sustainability topics.
In the first video, Simpson introduces City of Roses (COR) Disposal and Recycling, a materials management, solid waste recycling, and innovation company located in Portland, Oregon. Tune in to hear more about COR was started by Alando Simpson’s father, Al Simpson, 27 years ago, and how as a 2nd generation minority owned business, COR became the nation’s only certified B corp waste management company, focused on sustainability solutions in Oregon and making a positive community impact.
In the next video, Simpson answers the below question by sharing how COR is helping build the circular economy in Oregon as a way of addressing key climate and economic needs in the Northwest:
“From your vantage point, what are some of the most important workforce trends, needs, or opportunities for our region?”
Simpson’s response: “One of the most important opportunities for Portland and the State of Oregon is what I like to refer to as “P4,” which is public, private, and philanthropic partnerships. And I include philanthropic because typically philanthropy invests a lot of resources into community-based organizations. Those partnerships are really the conduit to addressing a lot of the workforce challenges here in Oregon.”
“There’s a concept that COR as an organization is working on called the circular economy, which most people are probably familiar with at this point. As a sustainability and material’s management company, COR’s objective is to take things that we’ve typically seen as having the least value, and creating value for those items for the 21st century.”
“And when you look around everywhere, we could actually create markets, and economies, and workforce opportunities in our own backyard, all through the green economy and the sustainability lens. Every chair in this room was sourced somewhere, it was manufactured somewhere, someone’s hands were on it, all these tables, these microphones, there are opportunities everywhere.”
“Some of you in this room may be in procurement positions, and you have the power to make decisions – and everything we’re talking about here, the injustices, the imbalances in society go back to power, who controls what, who owns what – you have the power to recreate the paradigm, and ensure that we’re creating models that are sustainable and localized, and ensuring that we’re taking care of our most important constitutes that we share this community with.”
“That’s what I think is going to be really vital to not only in Oregon, but also to this country as a whole. Workforce development is a very simple term and while it can be complex, it doesn’t have to be, it’s just being really intentional, and doing what you are actually saying you’re going to do.”
“We’ve spent millions and millions of dollars on workforce development in the tech industry – which those jobs are not going to marginalized, underserved, people of color. Period. They aren’t and they largely never will, even if the word equity is used all over the talking points and the messaging – unless somebody requires it to happen. In-order for us to have justice and equity, there’s going to have to be inequities on the other end, in-order to level out the playing field.”
“So, as we look at workforce development, and we really look at what it is that we’re trying to do, it all comes back to economics. Let’s be honest, we live in a capitalistic society, where the common denominator is money. How do we share that money, how do we create money, how does it get distributed out equitability.”
“When we look at the lay of the land, indigenous peoples, black individuals, hispanic individuals, they are the most oppressed in our country economically. And until we change that paradigm, we can talk about workforce development, but unless we make it a target that we’re actually going to increase the median family incomes, their well-being, their economic prosperity, by certain percentages, over a certain number of years, that’s when we’ll actually start acheiving the outcomes we want to achieve with workforce development in Portland and beyond.”
In the next video, COR CEO Alando Simpson discusses the need for providing skill development and hands-on learning opportunities around the green economy for the BIPOC community so a new middle class can be built for a diverse group of people.
Simpson shared the following: “Providing skill development and hands-on training are probably the two most important as it pertains to the groups that I advocate for, which are marginalized underserved groups of color, people who come from the same background as me.”
“Without the opportunities to be able to get hands-on experience, it’s really complex for people to get ahead, even in today’s world where you don’t have to sit in a classroom to get smart. Despite that massive shift, it still comes back to opportunities, and since the folks that are coming from those circumstances are typically coming from a single parent household, or may even be running their households at a young age, they need access to resources.”
“Back to the elephant in the room, it’s about money. If we’re not helping get resources to them so they can actually control their well-being, their future, and their opportunities, we’re not providing a good service to those individuals.”
“The opportunity is really getting those people hands-on skills and development on the ground, in organizations, in areas like the green economy, which are low barrier to entry jobs. They called it the blue-collar economy in the 20th century, in industrial manufacturing, construction, things like that, which really built the middle-class of America.”
“When we look at, how can we restore our middle class in this country? I believe it’s green jobs and the green-collar economy.”
In the final video, COR CEO Alando Simpson discusses the need for investments in climate workforce diversity in Oregon in-order to ensure there’s BIPOC climate leadership that can help be apart of driving change in the region’s climate policy.
Simpson shared the following: “Promoting BIPOC climate leadership is really important to me because people of color (POCs) by nature hire people that look like them, it’s that simple. When you have an organization that is heavily diverse, and represented by a lot of BIPOC individuals, it’s a culture, it’s a vibration inside that office environment, and people feel safe, because there’s an understanding of the traumas that people go through, and not internally inside the office, it’s what goes on externally, outside the work environment.”
“Being able to have an environment where you have a safe space, and a sounding-board with individuals who have come from similar backgrounds, with similar challenges, makes it more worthwhile for people to feel like they can stay in those environments, and for that little community, that little ecosystem, to grow.It starts there.”
“To give a quick example, we recruited an individual from California to run the maintenance department at COR. He uprooted his family and moved to Oregon, and it’s been great. We brought in someone of color who didn’t have management experience, but he had zeal, he had grit, he had determination, and we made an investment in him to bring him up here and take care of him and his family. And it’s been amazing to see him take the technology and the software that we’re installing to run his department more efficiently, and just grab it by the throat and learn it in and out, and now be able to scale it and build his team around it.”
“More importantly, what I learned from that situation is the human element, because right now, mechanics, technicians, welders, they’re hard to come by these days, and because of his background, he’s been willing to take chances and risks on folks that didn’t have the experience, but who were just interested in it, and it’s been very humbling seeing that transition, that impact that he’s been able to have on the lives of individuals who were jumping into a new field.”
“To me, it’s my job, my responsibility, my obligation, to continue to stand that up and invest in that to make sure that we’re impacting other lives as well.”
If you’re ready to learn more about, or assist COR with our sustainability solutions, building Oregon’s circular economy, or upcycling to divert more waste from landfills, contact us today!