- [Will] Coming up on "One Detroit," a Future of Work report on a nonprofit helping Detroiters learn how to repair and maintain electric vehicles.

Plus, residents and businesses talk about how to reach a middle ground on concerns over a renovated park.

Also ahead, a look inside the studio of Detroit artist, Dominic Pangborn, as he prepares for a big transition.

And we'll give you some ideas on how to kick off this holiday season this weekend.

It's all coming up next on "One Detroit."

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(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) - [Will] Just ahead on this week's "One Detroit," residents voice their concerns over the presence of commercial industries near a newly upgraded park in Southwest Detroit.

Plus, artist Dominic Pangborn, perhaps best known for his colorful ties, reminisces on his long career and what lies ahead.

And Cecelia Sharpe, of 90.9 WRCJ, has a list of entertainment choices in Metro Detroit this weekend and beyond.

But first up, a Future of Work report on a local nonprofit that's preparing Detroiters for the jobs of the future, working on electric vehicles.

Blast Detroit's EV Automotive Mobility Program provides hands-on training in a field that will be in high demand very soon.

(gentle music) - Now, first of all, we have a reservoir over here with the green fluid.

Does everybody remember what we talked about the green fluid?

- [Ray] Now it's time to really create a new workforce in terms of electrification.

- Even though it is an EV car, it still has to have the coolant to operate your heated motor inside.

- And we wanna be part of everything, the whole future of mobility.

But we wanna make it applicable and accessible to the community.

- [Will] Detroit's East Side on Jefferson, the Islandview neighborhood, an electric vehicle repair class.

Pierre Pickens checking out a Volvo Polestar.

- You know what I'm saying?

Like a whole bunch of motor missing, look like a whole bunch of power missing to me.

- I see 'em driving, but I've never got under the hood of an electric vehicle.

- They're coming whether I like it or not.

So I might as well know something about 'em.

- I love Hellcats, SRTs, Trackhawks of that nature, but I'm also fascinated with electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles.

- This is a great opportunity here to get involved, especially in the city of Detroit.

- And "World News Report" says that we're 38% behind in EV technical training.

10 years from now, we're gonna be nearly 50 to 55% behind.

If we don't get more trained technicians in the EV world, we are gonna be so far behind we're not gonna be able to fix our own cars.

This is a fully-electric air conditioning system.

- So this is the air conditioner right here?

- That is the air conditioning system there.

These gentlemen want to achieve something in a higher pay grade, and achieve something that a lot of other people are too scared to even try.

EV can be very dangerous if you let it be.

It doesn't have to be.

The right safety protocols, which we study every course, is number one importance.

If you study and you practice EV safety, you don't have anything to worry about.

- [Will] The 12-week class, a Detroit nonprofit puts it on, the first exposure as to how these cars work and a chance to find a new career.

- As a hobby, I do a lot of car audio electronics, like big speakers, and subwoofers, and things like that.

And part of that community is switching over the regular, gas-powered cars to new lithium batteries.

When this class was brought up to me, I immediately jumped on it because I thought that as a hobby it would be kind of cool to do as a profession in the future.

- Now electric tools, you'll be able to tell 'em, because they have a special coating over 'em.

Some of them even have the metal tips, but still the coating is insulated over the housing.

- [Will] Some of these students are in recovery, some returning citizens.

- It came about, me being in a program, to help me get back on the right track in my life and everything.

And this opportunity came about, and I felt like it was a great career to get into.

- These individuals are really trying to change their lives.

So we wanna give these individuals some alternatives.

'Cause the EV space, the infrastructure space, you talking about this is the big boy game.

- [Will] A big boy, big game, these EVs are, at least those who own them.

Surveys say that the vast majority of buyers are middle-aged white men making more than $100,000 a year.

Here's a chance to take apart a Tesla, Polestar, and Chevy Volt Hybrid, a big deal for this class.

- Some of the dealerships have their own training sessions, but they're on-hands training while they're getting paid.

These gentlemen are here volunteering their own time to learn this and understand it so that they can be better in the long run and getting a better job.

- We have some relationships with some of the dealerships, and the dealerships are always looking for entry-level technicians.

Now they're not the one at the dealership working on EVs, but they will be able to work themselves up.

Also, they will be able to get into an apprenticeship program where they'll get paid to learn.

- [Will] Not just under the hood, there's book learning and instruction on the EV infrastructure, stuff like charging stations and how to safely plug in a car.

- A Level 2 plug-in for your house, plug in to your wall right here.

And you also plug this part into your car.

- This is the, what we call, the testing ground.

If they can't get through this here, they're not prepared to go any further.

- That's what the three wires are, it's three-phase AC.

So there's three phases that go into this, which makes the high voltage, that is the orange wires.

They are the high voltage wires.

- There's a lot of testing that has to go into it.

- [Will] Instructor William Widner also offers advice about problem solving and customer service.

- Guesswork does not resolve a problem every time.

And if you do guesswork all the time, sooner or later people are gonna get a bad taste in their mouth, they're not gonna come to you, they're not gonna want their vehicle fixed by you.

- With the direction that this is going, this is gonna open a lot of doors.

Even if it's not working on the vehicles, working on the charging stations for the vehicles.

I mean, so this right now, I mean this is the ground floor.

- With this knowledge, when I do graduate from here, I will be transferring to a dealership.

And from a dealership, I'm just going to go to apprenticeship program, two-year program and just keep working until I have my own EV shop.

- [Will] Ray Smith got interested in EVs when he operated a shuttle service for Detroit seniors and those with special needs.

He was running a self-driving electric vehicle and wondered, "Will there be Detroiters able to repair them?"

There are some EV repair classes at community colleges in the suburbs, but there's still tuition.

This class is free.

- You can walk here.

You know, you don't have to catch four buses, you know, and then the buses stop running, then you stuck somewhere in the suburbs.

No, you come here where you got access.

And also we have a ride-sharing program.

I mean we offer rides, and we gonna have a fleet of EVs just for ride sharing here as well.

- I'm a combustion vehicle type of guy.

I still am, so I kind of just stumbled across the course and I decided to look into it further.

I've been doing my own research on EVs just to know something about 'em, see if it's something I would consider, and I'm starting to get a lot curious with 'em.

Like, just seeing it is actually is an experience in itself.

- [Will] Charles White, Detroiter, longtime car guy, works as a cleaning contractor.

- The more I come to the class, the more interested I become in these EVs.

Again, I'm a diehard combustion vehicle guy.

So you really taking me out of my element, but my curiosity is what got the cat clinging to the tree?

- [Will] Perhaps White's getting ready to jump in.

- [Charles] This is it, yeah, it's where it's going.

You know, the way the world is changing so rapidly, we may not have time to sit back and say, "Oh, you know, I got five or six years before I can tap into it."

Five or six years, it may be less than 30% of gas vehicles on the road.

We don't know.

- We are here in Detroit, we the Motor City still.

But now we going to the EV and we gotta be the EV City now.

And I know that GM, and Ford, and Bill Ford, them guys, and Mary Barra, they really pushing.

I mean they serious about this.

But we wanna be serious with them.

- It's like a jigsaw puzzle, isn't it?

It will only go one way.

- But this is a wake up to the future of this country, because it's moving fast.

But we have to make sure that all individuals are included.

- Ironically, I stepped away from working on cars because I got tired of oily hands and knuckles, and the messy process when it comes to the big, extraneous jobs, which is eliminated in working on EVs.

So that's another thing that kinda like got my attention, I won't get as dirty.

(laughs) - [Will] Even though White's a cleaning contractor.

- Exactly, I mean I like clean, so it kind of goes hand in hand.

- [Will] A newly renovated park in Southwest Detroit is providing a place of peace and leisure for residents.

However, some say the close proximity of commercial businesses makes it difficult to enjoy the amenities and serenity of Riverside Park.

Contributor Bryce Huffman reports on the importance of getting city officials, residents, and businesses to work together on addressing community concerns about noise and air quality.

(gentle music) - [Bryce] Riverside Park sits in Southwest Detroit, right along the city's river.

The city has been renovating the park since 2020, adding a skate park, additional biking and walking trails, plus an art installation that was added this year.

- To have it invested in and transformed is great because it was pretty, pretty nondescript.

You know, it's just fabulous to have our community be able to come here, and its close proximity.

- [Bryce] This is Deb Sumner, a longtime resident of the Hubbard Farms neighborhood in Southwest Detroit.

She says the park renovations are great.

There's just one drawback.

The park sits right next to multiple industries that threaten the natural beauty that residents enjoy.

The Ambassador Bridge Company and Hercules Concrete are among the companies adjacent to the park.

When residents have complained about air pollution and trucks driving through neighborhoods into nearby companies, Sumner said they are usually ignored.

- Was like talking, you know, to a brick wall.

So I'm like, "I'm done."

- [Bryce] Raquel Garcia is the executive director for Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, a nonprofit working to improve air quality and the economy in Southwest Detroit.

We sat down with Garcia at the Detroit Wayne County Port Authority building.

She says there's nothing preventing these businesses from being near the park and the surrounding neighborhood.

- They're not doing anything that they, you know, can be fined for.

- Garcia wants more community members to voice their opinions during city meetings.

What about the relationship between the residents and the businesses directly?

So absent city council meetings or city meetings, how do you get residents who have these concerns a seat at the table with the businesses so both of them can kind of to a common understanding?

- For us, and for lots of partner groups, that work with business, we're constantly in relationship with them, having conversations, trying to find out who is the decider.

- Garcia said the relationship between residents and businesses is important, as is the relationship between businesses and city officials.

City Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero represents District 6, which includes Riverside Park and the rest of Southwest Detroit.

Could you talk to me a little bit about that juxtaposition of this natural resource, this neighborhood resource, with these businesses that are right up against its borders?

- It's interesting, right?

Because we want parks, we want green spaces, we also want jobs.

We want a thriving economy.

We wanna make sure that we have those opportunities here as well.

So when we have a park like Riverside Park, and just to your right, you have industry, it really begs the question of, who are we prioritizing and how are we holding both truths?

- Garcia says one difficulty is getting the businesses to come to the table to speak with residents before issues arise.

When they do come to the table, what have those conversations typically been like?

- Usually it's contentious, you know, they want a permit, they want to do something, they want to grow or add something.

And the residents are asking, you know, "Please, no more industry in my backyard, please, no more trucks, please, the noise."

- [Bryce] Some businesses in the area have been better about responding to resident feedback.

One such business, Santiago-Romero says, is the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority.

The WDBA is currently building the Gordie Howe International Bridge to the west of Riverside Park.

Santiago-Romero says the company has taken the time to listen to residents and city officials.

- They continue to update me on where they're at with their community benefits, with the funds.

They continue to ask us for inputs on how to utilize that money.

- Heather Grondin is the Vice President of Corporate Affairs and External Relations with WDBA.

What are some of the specific ways you do keep that dialogue open with residents and business leaders?

- We have quarterly public meetings on both sides of the border as an opportunity for us to be able to present and update what's going on with the project, but at the same time to hear people's questions, hear what concerns that we have.

- [Bryce] Grondin said good relationships are key to any successful infrastructure project.

- To recognize that we are part of this community.

And by being part of that community, means integrating ourselves, talking, having relationships with the businesses, with community members, with elected officials, and again, keeping that dialogue open.

- [Bryce] While WDBA was praised for working to address residents' needs, the Ambassador Bridge Company was criticized by some for not meeting the needs of residents.

The Ambassador Bridge is owned by Matthew Moroun.

- Frankly, it's been a lot of tussling with the Morouns who I need to be working closely with.

They have a lot of parcels, a lot of business in my district, and I am trying so desperately to work well with them.

But it is incredibly disappointing when my residents are asking for maybe just a little bit more buffer space between your wall and the literal sidewalk people have to walk through in their neighborhoods.

(child screams) - [Bryce] The Ambassador Bridge Company did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but Sumner has what she calls a simple solution for the businesses who want to build near city neighborhoods.

- We've got bright and, you know, just really passionate, intelligent people in the neighborhoods.

We can advise them, but we have to be listened to.

We can't be dismissed.

- [Will] Well-known Detroit artist and entrepreneur, Dominic Pangborn, is embarking on a new chapter more than four decades after he arrived on the city's creative scene.

Pangborn is planning a big transition in his life, which has him unloading forgotten and unseen works in his Detroit studio.

"One Detroit's" Bill Kubota has been checking in on Pangborn over the last year and has the story.

(gentle music) - I was just coming in here today to clean out and I already threw a lot of the stuff out.

- [Bill] Like art, you threw the art away?

- Well, some of it.

You know, we all save things and say, "Well, I'm gonna get back on it when I do this or that," then that time never happens.

(art crashing) Yeah, a lot of stuff.

Going through, there's so many rooms here.

I'm going to let go as much as I can, because I personally don't have the space to carry this around.

Yeah, and those stacks of boxes, they're actually filled with artwork in it.

- [Bill] Where did you grow up?

- [Dominic] I grew up in Jackson, Michigan.

I was creating design for advertising.

- [Bill] Looks kind of '70s.

- Yeah.

Wanted to make some money, you know, but the reputation of being a fine artist, you can't make a living.

So I said, well, to safeguard I was going to design.

I just fell into it.

I just seemed to have a knack for it.

The things I designed, like graduation wrapping paper for a paper company.

This was just filled with neck ties and, of course, that's what I'm known for to a lot of the public.

I grew up with ties because, you know, I went to a Catholic school and we had a uniform.

I create all the design, all the artwork.

And some are done on the computer, some are done on freehand, some are a composition of both my paintings and graphics put together.

This is called "Art in Motion," AIM.

And it's actually a three-dimensional and we have sold literally millions of these.

- Is he an artist or is he an entrepreneur?

And everybody likes that hard-luck artist story.

He's not a hard-luck artist, he's an entrepreneur.

And then, when you hear his story, you know why.

- Yeah, and this is actually the photograph of me in Korea before coming to America.

And that's my brother on the right, and then my sister down, I'm in the middle.

My father was a American G.I., and easiest to put it is that he got lucky one night.

People would immediately turn and just call me names.

My mother came to me and asked me, "Would you like to go to America?"

I said, "Yes."

I was adopted, and literally I was the only Asian in Jackson County the entire time I grew up.

- I was wondering when I went to his studio about the number of pieces he had that were prints or whatever.

But then I realized he had shops all over everywhere, and that was his headquarters.

He needed to have all that work to supply his outlets.

- These are children's books that I designed.

Yeah, called "Follow Me."

And all these boxes has all these designer tote bags.

And so I just donated about 2,000 of these bags to a school.

Every kid's gonna have books and stuff to be put into these things.

- Whoops.

- This was a painting that evolved from a doodle.

I mean, literally, I was just on a small sketch pad.

I drew all this images and I liked it.

And next thing, I create it into painting.

- [Bill] Oh, look at that.

That's a jewel piece.

- While I'm doing a painting, I could design a logo for a corporation that could be Fortune 100 company, and I sometimes do 10 paintings all the same time.

Andy Warhol, okay, what was he?

He was a graphic designer just like me, but somebody took his and labeled it as fine art.

- I wish that he weren't so far all over the place.

And a lot of what I consider to be the more bougie collectors can't handle it.

(people chattering) - Oh, beautiful, the man of the hour!

- I know it's been a long, long time, but I wanted to make sure to come, when we heard about it.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You make it look so nice.

- Yeah, thank you.

Really don't like to be labeled.

Because, to me, every day I think different, I eat different, and art is the same way.

- [Attendee] We got the email that you were going to the Philippines.

- Well, we're trying.

The reason I'm going to Philippines is my wife is from there, so we're going to the same town my wife comes from.

- [Bill] Are you gonna just make more art there or what?

- [Dominic] I'm gonna do a lot of new things.

- Dominic, my pleasure, okay?

- Yeah, thank you.

First thing is I wanna build a house.

The way I'm thinking of doing is prefabricated.

I don't know, I might even create a business of it if it goes successful.

- And when I joined the museum board and learned that he was going to be relocating to the Philippines, I thought that an exhibit like this in his hometown before he left the United States would be perfect.

- This is a special painting.

It was literally done on Memorial Day, 2000.

All I'm thinking is the poppies for the veterans.

I wanted to do something really big and huge, and these are four doors.

These are regular house doors.

And this one, of course, is a painting of my wife.

We were in Australia, Delia was sitting by herself in the back, so relaxed, and she rarely would ever pose for me.

So a lot of times when I do a painting of her, she has no idea, and goes, "When did you do that?"

The title people are giving me, "He's an evolutionist.

Every day, he thinks different, he creates different."

If I'm to take a label, evolutionist, I'm fine with that because that's exactly what I do.

- [Will] And you can check out Dominic Pangborn's exhibition, "Uncrated: a Final Retrospective," through January 15th at the Ella Sharp Museum in Jackson, Michigan.

The official start of the holiday season is almost here, and that means a lot of holiday-themed activities are taking place in metro Detroit.

Cecelia Sharpe, from 90.9 WRCJ, has some events you may wanna check out in today's "One Detroit" Weekend.

- Hi, I'm Cecelia Sharpe, with 90.9 WRCJ, here to give you some ideas of what to do this weekend and beyond.

It's that exciting time of the year when holiday lights starts shining all over the city.

And the most beautiful thing, well, in my opinion, happens tomorrow night.

It's the 20th Annual Detroit Tree Lighting in Campus Martius Park.

I can't wait to gaze upon that twinkling tree.

And if one tree lighting just isn't enough, go to Pine Knob Music Theatre starting tomorrow to see Magic of Lights, where there is more than a mile of sparkling displays for your eyes to take in.

Saturday is the Detroit Doll Show presented by Sandy's Land at the Marygrove Conservancy.

Its mission is to inspire women and children of color to love the skin they're in.

Also, Saturday and Sunday, is the Jingle & Mingle Ferndale Holiday Market, where you can shop from local artisans underground beneath the Ferndale parking structure.

And we can't talk about the upcoming week without mentioning one of the biggest events of the season, the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Detroiters can line Woodward from Kirby to Congress to enjoy the colorful floats, fantastic bands, and mesmerizing dancing among other things that happen during the parade.

There's also so many other events happening this holiday season, so let's check out a few more.

Have a fantastic weekend.

(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) - [Will] That'll do it for this week's "One Detroit."

Thanks for watching.

Head to the "One Detroit" website for all the stories we're working on, follow us on social media, and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

- [Announcer] From Delta faucets to Behr paint, Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support for this program is provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Announcer] The DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit Public TV.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Visit DTEFoundation.com to learn more.

- [Announcer] Nissan Foundation and viewers like you.

(gentle upbeat music) (gentle upbeat music continues) (gentle music)