out how much [inaudible] you need you rounding up. >> average age of individuals in the trades is in the 40's from what we are told. in the 50's quite frankly those folks are getting ready to retire. we see a void. >> the average is making 60-80 thousand dollar a year more with benefits much it's hard work i will not lie. >> if you like working with your hands and creative and you look at a building and say, i did that finish and that building is there for a hundred years. come to my program you will work for anyone in the country. >> we send people to the dry waller the carpenters and the plummers. >> we are conscious who we give a job referral to.

>> we look at the skills part as far as hayou do with a hammer and nail there are other components to be able to be a team player. be able to take directs and be precise and punctual things like this you need to help you keep your jobs. >> we will looking at the interviews today and doing the critiquing from the papers. >> i was thinking last week we were talking ask that was so much thinking going on about the interview and how i was going to do it. >> i feel like, me, as an african-american woman and older

woman with children i feel i have to set an example. a lot of people don't know how to deal with anger and conflicts. the kids here look up to me. if i do something and don't set an example then they are going to follow. since i've been a positive roll model, coming to school everyday. some of those kids pick up on that and i see the improvement in them. >> one thing that i knew but the class helped reinstate is that you have to check yourself. we are all grown adults. >> i try to be motivated in everything i do in my life. if you don't encourage yourself to do something or do things for yourself you can't expect somebody else will do it for you. some people didn't make it to class because they have a bad

attitude and decided it wasn't worth it. >> when you do something you have to understand why you are doing it and you can't say and come in and say, i will make good money. construction's not like that you have to want to do it because it's not aedz work. you have to want to get up and go to work and do physical labor for 8 hourses. >> i lived next to biotechnology companies and was a recruiter. i was getting tired and felt sluggish. >> i knew from the first day we were outside being outside having fun, climboth ladder and hammer and the physical labor i knew it was something i would enjoy. to say i put 15 years into this and not retire a multimillionaire but retire healthy and feel good about the

work i have done. >> the greatest accomplishment is you drive by a building or bridge and say, i helped build that bridge or helped build the building on market street. the most greatest reward for me is i taught that student to work on the bay bridge. taught the student operating the crane that student was in my class. >> our goal is to have a core group of people, we are hoping it's over 50 percent of your grads complete and become journey people andup standing good roll models and citizens. the largest public works our

city has season in many years going on now the private project that 1 rincon hill. huge project. we had 5 or 6 people work on that project thus far. the rebuilding of the academy of science in golden gate park. the rebuilding of our public hospital laguna honda this is on going work with the same contract ors that move successful apprentices from one project to another and keep them working for several years. the construction workers of the future to be the superintendents the construction owners. that's the perfect thing there. that's success.

>> what if you could make a memorial that is more about information and you are never fixed and it can go wherever it wants to go? everyone who has donated to it could use it, host it, share it. >> for quite a great deal of team she was hired in 2005, she struggled with finding the

correct and appropriate visual expression. >> it was a bench at one point. it was a darkened room at another point. but the theme always was a theme of how do we call people's attention to the issue of speci species extinction. >> many exhibits do make long detailed explanations about species decline and biology of birds and that is very useful for lots of purposes. but i think it is also important to try to pull at the strings inside people. >> missing is not just about specific extinct or endangered species. it is about absence and a more fundamental level of not knowing what we are losing and we need to link species loss to habitat loss and really focuses much on the habitat.

>> of course the overall mission of the academy has to do with two really fundamental and important questions. one of which is the nature of life. how did we get here? the second is the challenge of sustainability. if we are here how are we going to find a way to stay? these questions resonated very strongly with maya. >> on average a species disappears every 20 minutes. this is the only media work that i have done. i might never do another one because i'm not a media artist per se but i have used the medium because it seemed to be the one that could allow me to convey the sounds and images here. memorials to me are different from artworks. they are artistic, but memorials have a function.

>> it is a beautiful scupltural objective made with bronze and lined with red wood from water tanks in clear lake. that is the scupltural form that gives expression to maya's project. if you think about a cone or a bull horn, they are used to get the attention of the crowd, often to communicate an important message. this project has a very important message and it is about our earth and what we are losing and what we are missing and what we don't even know is gone. >> so, what is missing is starting with an idea of loss, but in a funny way the shape of this cone is, whether you want to call it like the r.c.a. victor dog, it is listen to the earth and what if we could create a portal that could look at the past, the present and the future? >> you can change what is then missing by changing the

software, by changing what is projected and missing. so, missing isn't a static installation. it is an installation that is going to grow and change over time. and she has worked to bring all of this information together from laboratory after laboratory including, fortunately, our great fwroup of researche e-- g researchers at the california academy. >> this couldn't have been more site specific to this place and we think just visually in terms of its scupltural form it really holds its own against the architectural largest and grandeur of the building. it is an unusual compelling object. we think it will draw people out on the terrace, they will see the big cone and say what is that. then as they approach the cone tell hear these very unusual sounds that were obtained from the cornell orinthology lab. >> we have the largest recording

of birds, mammals, frogs and insects and a huge library of videos. so this is an absolutely perfect opportunity for us to team up with a world renown, very creative inspirational artist and put the sounds and sights of the animals that we study into a brand-new context, a context that really allows people to appreciate an esthetic way of the idea that we might live in the world without these sounds or sites. >> in the scientific realm it is shifting baselines. we get used to less and less, diminished expectations of what it was. >> when i came along lobsters six feet long and oysters 12 inches within they days all the oyster beds in new york, manhattan, the harbor would clean the water. so, just getting people to wake up to what was just literally there 200 years ago, 150 years

ago. you see the object and say what is that. you come out and hear these intriguing sounds, sounds like i have never heard in my life. and then you step closer and you almost have a very intimate experience. >> we could link to different institutions around the globe, maybe one per continent, maybe two or three in this country, then once they are all networked, they begin to communicate with one another and share information. in 2010 the website will launch, but it will be what you would call an informational website and then we are going to try to, by 2011, invite people to add a memory. so in a funny way the member rely grows and there is something organic about how this memorial begins to have legs so to speak. so we don't know quite where it will go but i promise to keep on it 10 years.

my goal is to raise awareness and then either protect forests from being cut down or reforest in ways that promote biodiversity. >> biodiverse city often argued to be important for the world's human populations because all of the medicinal plants and uses that we can put to it and fiber that it gives us and food that it gives us. while these are vital and important and worth literally hundreds of billions of dollars, the part that we also have to be able to communicate is the more spiritual sense of how important it is that we get to live side by side with all of these forms that have three billion years of history behind them and how tragic it would be not commercially and not in a utilitarian way but an emotio l emotional, psychological, spiritual way if we watch them one by one disappear. >> this is sort of a merger

between art and science and advocacy in a funny way getting people to wake unand realize what is going on -- wake up and realize what is going on. so it is a memborial trying to get us to interpret history and look to the past. they have always been about lacking at the past so we proceed forward and maybe don't commit the same mistakes. >> good morning. i am the executive director of

the transportation authority. your emcee for the event. it brings me tremendous pleasure to welcome you all, notable visitors, elected officials to the event which is the groundbreaking for a contract 4 on the presidio park where project which will deliver the southbound battery tunnel and detour road that will bring everybody who uses the oil and dive into safety by the middle of 2011. we are delighted to be able to use this opportunity. back in october, we had a ground-breaking ceremony for the

project as a whole. we had the speaker of the house nancy pelosi with us. the mayor was here, other dignitaries. at the time, we were looking at the oil drive -- doyle drive. we now have a different project for the 21st century. it is an example of what partnership and inventiveness and the full participation of the amazing community of san francisco residents can do to create a project that is really worthy of the amazing natural setting of the presidio park, the largest urban park in the park system. let me start by making some

acknowledgements. we have some speakers who i will introduced in a moment, but i am very pleased to welcome to the event, dan representing the speaker's office. i would also like to have very much thank christine from senator feinstein's office, as well as mega miller, a field representative team for senator boxer. in that knowledge and then come i want to the knowledge and leadership of both senators and their vision for how important this project is from the first moment, they have been a steadfast force in washington, d.c. for us. together with the speaker, they have been a formidable set of champions for this were the project. i also want to it knowledge the

chief operating officer of the presidio trust. a major comeback indispensable partner in the product -- execution of this project. we have had the pleasure of working with him for several years and look forward to working with them and the future until the project is completed. i also want to acknowledge the first vice-president of the golden gate bridge district team. i also want to thank the chief engineer. of course, the study on doyle drive. mary curry, the leader of public affairs. let me take a moment to introduce the administrator of the federal highway administration. we are simply delighted that he

has been able to take time from his busy schedule, which he spent reshaping the way we think about transportation, to come to san francisco to be here with us. when he leaves today, he will take with him this memento. it is a little shovel. we are giving you a paper shovel made right here in san francisco that has embedded in it native plant from the presidio. take them to your house, put them in a pot and you will have a piece of the presidio park with forever. it may even bloom.

plastic? no, it is recycled american paper. american trees. there you have it, the ultimate sustainable gift. victor mendez is an extremely good choice as the highway administrator. he has been on the job exactly one year and three days. victor was here in october to help us kickoff the project. he oversees almost 3000 employees at the highway administration. it is no stranger to overseeing things. as director of the arizona highway department, he had a challenge their. he is a civil engineer.

i always like to say -- since i am a civil engineer, too -- we can actually manage, and many of them do. they can think big. there is another example of someone not buying the traditional idea of what a freeway is, how people should move, and in doing a tremendous job to change the thinking in washington. that has been recognized by professional organizations around the country. he has been the president of many organizations. it is an honor for me to introduce him today as the first speaker in the program. victor mendez. [applause] >> thank you and good morning. how are we?

nice and risk. i came from where it is hot and humid on the east coast, to hear. it surprised me. it surprised me, everybody wanted to accompany me to san francisco. one lucky person got the assignment. thank you for all of you for being here today. it is brisk but i am enjoying it. thank you for creating this. mayor, great to see you again. many of us were here to kick off the project. a lot of you were here as well, and i am glad you are back to continue with us. as i continue to talk to the people hear about this project, and beyond this, i have to say to all of you, as a region, congratulations.

you have an incredible partnership here. it is clear that you all are working together, as different organizations, larger organizations have to fund balance on the big issues, you are doing that, and that is allow you to move forward and turn vision into reality. so congratulations to all of you. as i mentioned, i was here nine months ago for the kickoff. speaker pelosi was here. mayor newsom once here. level of support you have from your elected officials is incredible. speaker policy has been, on the national level, been helping us, as well as our committee chairman senator boxer. as well, senator feinstein has been very supportive of our transportation initiatives. we are here today to celebrate the continuation of doyle drive.

it is important for me to recognize the importance of the recovery act. what we are doing today is try to maintain this by the land so that we can stand up to a potential earthquake in the future. but that is just part of the story, if you think beyond that parameter. across the nation, from the recovery act perspective, many similar products are occurring. we are rebuilding the economy as we rebuild the infrastructure. to run the nation, there are a lot of contacts on the shelf that would not become reality now if it was not for the recovery act. that was a major infusion to pay with to move transportation colon and has been very helpful. of course, lots of men and women like the ones here today that would have not had a job without the recovery act. if you think about where we were one year ago in the economy, the recovery act was the primary purpose to create jobs.

so i and phase here to celebrate not just the project but the rebuilding of america. president obama has called this the summer of rebuilding. we are going to have more than 11,000 projects under way. we are improving 30,000 miles of road with this summer. if you think about it, that is 10 round trips between here and washington, d.c. we are improving safety, the infrastructure, and at the same time, creating jobs. it is also about making our communities more livable so that parents can have a stiffer ride to their kids' school. people can travel from point a to point b and spend more time with your friends and families and less time stuck in traffic. as i mentioned, of course, we

are creating jobs. local suppliers come all local stores, restaurants, will benefit from this investment. overall, the recovery act is responsible for 2.5 million jobs throughout the country, with and the thousands of towns created solely with and transportation sector. while the recovery has not reached every business and home, we believe strongly we are heading in the right direction. doyle drive is one of the largest recovery tax in the country -- or cover act projects in the country. california will receive more recovery act funding than any other state. almost $2.6 billion. the money is committed to 943 projects with hundred and divide

the summer. 122 of those proud of are already complete. as the work shows here, those products are being done with an eye toward enhancing safety, respect of the environment, and making california more livable. i also wanted to move this project for another reason, which is important to u.s. dot. that reason is we are involving a number of small and disadvantaged businesses, a key goal of u.s. dot. you see the new equipment here. that is simply because of the investment small businesses are able to make because of the recovery act. it is critical that small business is also a part of -- not just sharing in the economy -- by helping us to recover from an economic standpoint. let me close with a few words about our main priority as u.s. dot, and that is safety. we have many projects across the

country that are underway and we need to be extra careful when driving through work zones. we want to make sure that men and women building the infrastructure are safe, and that is important for all of us. i would ask you to please keep that in mind. whenever you are behind the wheel, please turn off your cell phone and pay attention to your driving. i were transportation secretary ray lahood is leading a national effort to bring attention to the dangerous act of talking while driving. in closing, i want to say thank you for being here. thank you for being part of this great regional partnership, your ability to move things forward. once again, from a safety perspective, please buckle up, put away your cell phones while driving, and drive safely. thank you and congratulations. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you. let me now take a second to do a couple more acknowledgements. you can jog in place if you need to. it is part of protocol. bill whitney of the marin transportation department. the parks service. also from the golden gate park service, the deputy director. since i am looking in the direction, let me also acknowledge a quiet presence with a big impact on our partnership with the mayor's office and our ability to advocate a jointly, not just on this project -- nancy