GTECH is one of the obvious ways in which Pittsburgh benefits from having Carnegie Mellon University and the innovative minds it attracts.

 

The acronym stands for Growth Through Energy and Community Health, and the four-year-old nonprofit grew from the work that Andrew Butcher, GTECH CEO, and Chris Koch, Chief Operating Officer, were doing as students in CMU’s Heinz School for Public Policy and Management. 

 

“We work to reclaim vacant land and connect people to opportunities in the green economy,” Butcher said. “And we capture waste streams to create products and services that benefit people. We’re at the intersection of land use, alternative energy and the green economy.”

 

GTECH, for example, contracts with land owners to reclaim vacant lots, often growing sunflowers to improve soil and to produce oil seeds for bio fuel stock, and GTECH creates green jobs in the process. GTECH also collects waste cooking oil from restaurants, churches and cafeterias across Allegheny County, processes it and then sells it for production of bio fuels to Braddock-based Fossil Free Fuels. Finally, GTECH works to educate, train and build the green workforce with a variety of workforce development providers and training institutions.

 

The Pittsburgh Foundation supported GTECH with a two-year, $50,000 grant to launch a  community collaboration to build a green corridor in Larrimer and East Liberty. The SPARC project (Seeding Prosperity and Revitalizing Corridors) is a pilot project which seeks to revitalize a seven-block stretch along Larrimer Avenue, which has about 80 vacant lots. 

 

GTECH is working with Penn State University, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, the Student Conservation Association and the Kingsley Association, harnessing each group’s strengths and involving the community in a variety of strategies, including community education and outreach, planting flowers, trees and food and building storm water management projects along the corridor.

 

“The Pittsburgh Foundation’s grant ultimately helped us leverage another $450,000 to make the project happen,” Butcher said. “Jane Downing has been such an important partner, collaborator and advocate for this project. As a new organization and relatively young entrepreneurs, working with her has been really important in more ways than just the grant. We’re grateful for Jane’s guidance wisdom and perspective.”