"We don't want people to think that you have to come out of MIT to be able to install solar power. A well-trained individual can make as good a worker as a lifelong electrician."

So says Phillippe Hartley, the general manager of a solar installation company, Phat Energy, in a radio report filed today on NPR's Marketplace.

The report, by Caitlan Carroll, looks at a job-training program that takes ex-gang members off the streets and teaches them how to install solar panels.

Like most of the students in the [training] class, [Albert] Ortega's an ex-gang member and convicted felon. He found out about solar panel work right after he finished serving time for selling drugs.

Ortega: I had just got out of prison and the guys at the re-entry program, some of them were enrolled in the solar panel class. So I got kind of curious, I wanted to know what it was about.

The East Los Angeles Skills Center runs the class. Ex-gang members filter into the course through an organization called Homeboy Industries. It's the largest gang-prevention program in the country.

Ortega liked designing solar panel systems, and he saw it as a way to support his family and stay out of prison.

Ortega: I wanted it badder than anything I ever wanted in my life before, you know?

On a weekday morning, the lobby of Homeboy Industries is packed with ex-gang members signing up for job training. The solar panel course is the newest offering, and it's full for the next few months.

The program has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal and Good Morning America as well, and is a great example of Van Jones and Green for All's vision of how a green-collar economy can improve the environment, the economy and the underserved in the U.S., all at the same time.

Listen to the full story at PublicRadio.org.