CERTs awarded 2019 Program of the Year Award from Southwest Regional Development Commission

CERTs are a statewide partnership with a shared mission to connect individuals and their communities to the resources they need to identify and implement community-based clean energy projects. CERTs got its start in 2004, when the SRDC began working with the University of Minnesota Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP), the Minnesota Department of Commerce, and the Minnesota Project to implement a Clean Energy Resource Team in Southwest Minnesota. In 2007, CERT was written into state statute and expanded to cover the entire state.

Today, statewide partners include the University of Minnesota Extension’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, the Great Plains Institute, the SRDC, and the Minnesota Department of Commerce. CERTs staff engage communities across the seven CERT regions, each of which is guided by a local steering committee. CERTs has impacted 293,000 Minnesotans through grants, events and programs since 2009, and has helped Minnesotans save nearly 434 billion BTUs of energy and avoid $5.3 million in energy costs since 2010.

CERTs received the 2019 Program of the Year Award at the SRDC Annual Meeting on Thursday, July 11, 2019 at Painted Prairie Vineyards, Currie, MN. Presented with the award were Lissa Pawlisch, CERTs Statewide Director; Kathryn Draeger, Director of the University of Minnesota Extension’s Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships; Rolf Nordstrom, President and CEO of the Great Plains Institute; Michelle Gransee, State Energy Office Clean Energy and Programs Manager of the Minnesota Department of Commerce, Division of Energy Resources; and Jay Trusty, Executive Director of the Southwest Regional Development Commission.