Lithium Valley students wait as jobs lag certificates

Lithium Valley – In Imperial Valley, community colleges built lithium training tracks fast—plant operator, chemical lab technician, and instrumentation technician. But students say the industry hasn’t arrived on schedule, leaving graduates to re-enroll, search beyond the regio

When Corban Dillon walked into the inaugural class at Imperial Valley College, he thought he was stepping into something about to take off.

He had spent the early part of his working life running his family’s courier business in southeastern California. After the pandemic and the death of his father, that work faltered. Lithium—promised as a pillar of the country’s clean-energy transition—felt like the next rung up. So when Imperial Valley College launched a new program training students to become plant operators and technicians in the emerging lithium industry. Dillon enrolled.

He completed his first certificate in spring 2024. Then came the quiet that nobody had planned for: lithium jobs weren’t available yet. A year later. when the community college started a second certificate option. Dillon joined the first class of that program too. He finished it last year—only to find that the industry still hadn’t caught up.

Now, at 41, Dillon is in his third lithium certificate and is set to finish in December. He knows the odds aren’t great. “Hundreds of anticipated jobs related to lithium extraction likely still won’t be available by then,” the program timeline suggests. For Dillon, that gap has a personal weight. “A lot of us already have jobs or have families and are trying to juggle all that and trying to get a certification. ” he said. “And not having actual potential employment as of right now. it’s hard for one person to sit there and say. ‘You know what?. Let’s continue with this.’”.

The promise and the delay aren’t just Dillon’s story. They are the central test facing local colleges in a region that bet early on a new industry: how quickly to train people for work that may not exist when they’re ready to take it.

Imperial Valley College says it is “temporarily scaling back its lithium programs because of the job market uncertainty.” The problem is familiar to researchers studying labor and green-industry transitions. Betony Jones. a senior researcher in the University of California. Berkeley Labor Center’s green economy program and a former Biden administration official. described the challenge as “incredibly common.” In her view. timing has to match employer demand—without leaving workers stranded.

“There’s this fine calibration required where employers need the workers for the projects, they can’t start training the workers when they need them,” Jones said. “But workers can’t train and then wait around.”

In Imperial County, the stakes are especially sharp. It is an agricultural area with among the highest poverty and unemployment rates in California. In March, its unemployment rate was 16.9 percent—more than triple that of neighboring counties.

Priscilla Lopez, the county’s director of workforce and economic development, described the urgency with an image that still sticks. Last year, a new hotel opened in the county, creating 50 positions. Lopez said the hotel offered in-person applications at the workforce development office. and in a single day. nearly 1. 500 people arrived to apply.

“The mentality that we see today here is: If we want a future, we need to leave the valley,” Lopez said. “But wouldn’t it be great to have these opportunities so that your kids can see the opportunities here, and maybe we keep our talent.”

Lithium arrived in the region as a headline before it became a workplace. When three companies began eyeing Imperial County for its lithium reserves, attention turned quickly to jobs. The region was rechristened “Lithium Valley.” California Gov. Gavin Newsom called it “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables. one of the companies vying to extract lithium from the region. announced it could launch commercial operations by 2026.

For students living with those promises, the timeline has felt like a moving target.

BHE Renewables’ pace is one example of how the industry’s steps don’t line up neatly with training calendars. Christina Fleming, senior vice president of mineral development, wrote in an email that BHE Renewables only just completed construction on its demonstration plant.

Controlled Thermal Resources, another company active in the region, is still in an early stage. Jim Turner, the company’s president, said it is in the “money-raising” stage, and that lithium extraction jobs are at least about two years away.

Lithium’s broader relevance to energy policy is real. Lithium batteries are currently the most common way to store wind and solar energy and power electric vehicles. An estimated 18 million metric tons of lithium carbonate is embedded in the hot brine deep beneath the Salton Sea. enough to power 375 million electric car batteries.

But in Imperial County, the training question hasn’t been about whether lithium matters. It’s been about whether the jobs arrive on time for residents who want to stay.

The pressure intensified as news of a potential lithium boom spread. Imperial Valley’s two main higher education institutions—Imperial Valley College and a San Diego State University satellite campus—responded quickly.

San Diego State used $80 million in state funding to build a new STEM campus prioritizing science, technology, engineering and math. This fall. the classrooms will open for students in the school’s new undergraduate degree programs in electrical engineering and chemistry—both chosen to support local industry needs in the geothermal and lithium sectors. As of mid-April. the campus had received nearly 100 eligible applications for the two programs. according to Daniella Rodiles. a media relations officer at the university.

Imperial Valley College, meanwhile, received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for its Lithium Industry Force Training program. The program’s three certificates—plant operator, chemical lab technician, and instrumentation technician—can each be completed in two semesters. The courses include chemistry, math, hazmat training, water treatment plant operation and plant operation.

Imperial Valley College has marketed the certificates as a fast track into the lithium industry. A 2024 promotional video for one of the certificate programs featured a voiceover that said: “Are you ready to launch your career in the booming lithium industry?. Imperial Valley College’s new chemical lab technician certificate program is your ticket in.”.

For students, it felt like an opening that didn’t require leaving the valley. George Prieto described the plant operator certificate as his first foray into higher education. Before class on a recent Monday. he showed off his newly issued badge for an internship at the local water and power utility. which will fulfill the program’s work experience requirements. Prieto, 48, previously worked in retail merchandising and deejays on the weekends.

“Usually, when they have these jobs, people from all over the world come; this gives us a chance with this being our backyard,” Prieto said. “We don’t have to go and sacrifice and go somewhere else [for a job].”

Alberto Curiel. a 24-year-old classmate. said he initially looked into an electrician certificate after hearing “how much of a demand” there will be for plant operators. Curiel wants a job with benefits in Imperial Valley that pays better than roofing. which he said he has been doing since high school for around $23 an hour. “while breaking my back in the heat.”.

“I kind of want a better trade-off,” Curiel said.

But industry representatives and the county have pointed to delays rooted in legal and political friction. They blame the delayed timelines on a 2024 lawsuit by environmental groups. The lawsuit alleges Imperial County officials underestimated future environmental impacts—such as water potential pollution and health effects—of a project proposed by Controlled Thermal Resources. A court rejected the legal challenge last year, and the environmental justice groups have appealed.

Even so, the story of how quickly jobs arrived isn’t only about courtrooms.

The Trump administration eliminated electric vehicle incentives last year. and both industry and the federal government have turned more attention to lithium projects in other parts of the country. In late 2024, the U.S. Geological Survey announced between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium reserves located beneath southwestern Arkansas. rivaling the vast reserve near the Salton Sea.

One project in Arkansas received a $225 million Department of Energy grant. and Chevron opened up a pilot well in the area. In Nevada, the Trump administration has taken an equity stake in a different lithium project. Near the Salton Sea. one of the three main companies working on lithium recently shifted some of its attention to data centers.

Imperial County residents were warned to temper expectations. In late 2024, a member of the California Energy Commission warned Imperial County residents that “the Lithium Valley is not a sure thing,” citing the trend of federal funding from the Department of Energy going toward other states.

SDSU leadership carried the warning further. Last August, SDSU President Adela de la Torre wrote in a commentary piece that “unless progress in Lithium Valley accelerates rapidly, these students will graduate into an empty local job market.”

John McMillan. SDSU’s assistant vice president of economic development. said in an interview that the “timing thing has been something that’s out of our control.” He said the university can control collaboration and training content. “What we can control is two things: One is being collaborative with the companies. trying to see if we can cobuild opportunity. ” he said. “The other thing that we can control is the students that we train,” McMillan said. “What we can guarantee is that the students will have a quality engineering and chemistry education that can make them effective in many of the industries out here.”.

Because SDSU is starting out with only freshmen in its first year offering new STEM degrees, McMillan said, it will be another four years before the campus starts producing graduates.

At Imperial Valley College, the reality is already reaching students who finished earlier tracks. The college will soon graduate its third year of industry-trained students.

Lennor Johnson, who leads the Imperial Community College District, said the “original plan was to time all of these programs sequential to once the industry comes up to speed.” By now, he said, “we thought we would be 100% in full operation with Lithium Valley.”

A district snapshot shows how many people have been pulled into the training pipeline. Johnson said a total of 173 students have enrolled in certification programs since fall 2023; 42 have completed their certificates and 57 are currently enrolled. As of Fall 2025, he said a total of 16 students had found jobs directly related to their certificates.

Imperial Valley College has responded by adjusting cohorts. It has reduced the number of students in each cohort and will not offer two of the certificates next year. Johnson said the plan is to bring those programs back in the 2027-2028 academic year. “if that timing lines up with the industry’s projections on jobs.”.

For some students, waiting has meant stretching beyond the original promise. Prieto is hopeful that his certificate will be transferable to other industries. Dillon. the former courier worker who became the first certificate class for one track and then returned for two more. believes the lithium under Imperial County means the industry will eventually come to full fruition.

In April, Dillon started a new full-time job with a mining company. He said he has good pay, benefits, room and board while on-site, and a company car.

There’s just one catch. “The job isn’t in Imperial County.”

The gap between training and hiring is the story here—not as a theory, but as a calendar. Students enroll, complete certificates, and keep waiting as companies move through construction and “money-raising” phases, while funding and policy priorities shift elsewhere.

For Dillon, the lithium industry’s future may still be real. For now, he’s still studying for it—while trying to decide how long a person can afford to keep learning for work that hasn’t yet arrived where he lives.

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