The Center for Social Solutions (CSS) is excited to announce that the Great Lakes Blue Engine project has received a $499,591.00 grant by the University of Michigan Strategic Initiative Fund, which encouraged University of Michigan faculty and staff to push the limits of their creativity and ambitions in designing projects that could change the world. This grant will support a three-year initiative to address two interconnected challenges facing the Great Lakes region: aging and vulnerable water infrastructure and an impending shortage of skilled workers as the current water-sector workforce approaches retirement age.

The Great Lakes region is confronting a pivotal moment for its water economy. Aging infrastructure, climate stressors, population fluctuations, and rapid advances in water technology are creating an urgent need for new systems, new skills, and new talent. At the same time, the sector is anticipating a significant wave of retirements, alongside job growth that is outpacing other infrastructure-based industries. The Great Lakes Blue Engine will help position the region to meet this moment by connecting water infrastructure innovation with accessible career pathways and economic opportunity. 

This project has three key objectives:

  • To compile a comprehensive labor database that maps the evolving landscape of jobs and careers related to water jobs across the 8 states within the Great Lakes Region. 
  • To identify social/economic barriers to water careers and understand perceptions among populations that are underrepresented in this line of work. 
  • To produce a regional Great Lakes Water Workforce Playbook which will outline actionable recommendations for building a water workforce that is equipped to lead. 

The multidisciplinary research portfolio housed at the Center bridges environmental resilience, labor equity, and professional leadership training under the direction of Dr. Earl Lewis and Dr. Alford Young, Jr. The research team has extensive experience with survey and ethnographic methods; community-engaged research and co-design; place-based educational pathway design; and geospatial analysis. Our foundational work on climate havens and disaster risk analyzes the specific infrastructure and land-use stressors faced by potential “sanctuary regions” such as the Great Lakes. Complementing this, our expertise in labor equity includes ethnographic and interview-based studies of African American essential workers in Southeast Michigan. This research examines the lived experiences of marginalized workers in fragile employment sectors, offering the qualitative depth necessary to design inclusive recruitment and retention strategies for the water workforce. Additionally, we are leading community-directed research supporting Michigan’s Filter First legislation which creates statewide filtration mandates for school drinking water, including expanding exposure of K-12 students to water quality and environmental protection careers and academic pathways. Furthermore, the center’s Academic Leadership Institute (ALI) has a proven track record of providing professional development for diverse practitioners, equipping us to design the high-level leadership and certification pathways proposed here. The Center’s vast partner network includes many academic and community partners in Michigan and beyond, including K-12 school communities and Great Lakes ReNEW, an NSF engine working to catalyze the circular water economies by recovering critical resources and eliminating harmful contaminants from water. These throughlines allow the Center to be uniquely equipped to ensure that the Great Lakes Blue Engine produces community-driven solutions that center worker and resident experience agbove all. 

Learn more about this project, its team, and get future updates HERE.