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This is 2Fer Tuesdays. Whether that's a Tactical Tuesday or just content from one of our many live events like SPI Podcast Lounge, this is going to be a short form conversation, typically with subject matter experts designed to give you the practical tools, tips and advice for building your solar business or career and grow with us here on SunCast. What you are about to hear is content from our Career Summit, a fantastic series of conversations all about not only how to find your dream job, the perfect opportunity to transition into clean energy as a career but also how as an industry we can improve the concepts of hiring with justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. With a goal of taking candidates from being an outside observer to HIRED by a cleantech/clean energy firm in 60 days or less, I launched my Clean Energy Dream Job Case Study group in August. Hear from candidates from the program as they share their experiences. Related to the conversation that we're having today is our Dream Job Coaching Prog

This is 2Fer Tuesdays. Whether that's a Tactical Tuesday or just content from one of our many live events like SPI Podcast Lounge, this is going to be a short form conversation, typically with subject matter experts designed to give you the practical tools, tips and advice for building your solar business or career and grow with us here on SunCast. What you are about to hear is content from our Career Summit, a fantastic series of conversations all about not only how to find your dream job, the perfect opportunity to transition into clean energy as a career but also how as an industry we can improve the concepts of hiring with justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. Hear from a panel of industry professionals who have landed their dream job (or internship). Take a look at their journey and get a few tips in helping you take on that next step. Related to the conversation that we're having today is our Dream Job Coaching Program, which we call Mission-Minded. You can learn more about that at events.mysunca

As you probably already know, it is Women's History Month, and here at SunCast we have very intentional programming for the month of March. 3 years ago Miss Tara Doyle, a good friend of our show insisted that we do more for not just the gender diversity, but the equity across the board. We’re doing our best to keep that habit and intention here in March, promoting female voices and increasingly more equity generally, throughout our show. We want to nod here to all of the fantastic leadership that is coming into the solar industry that just continues to blow our minds away. It’s well documented that companies with female leadership excel across many different metrics, not the least of which is profitability. And leadership skill is something that I personally learned more from my female bosses than my male bosses. Today, we have someone that I'm really honored and proud to have on the show, Miss Anne Choate, and she’s been such an instrumental figure for so many organizations, public and private, across gove

Welcome to another Tactical Tuesday, a short-form conversation with subject matter experts designed to give you the practical tips, tools, and advice for building your solar business or career. If you’re outside of the clean energy or solar industry and you’re trying to transition from another energy sector, this episode will give you great insight into what steps you should take. Today we are going to feature Dr. Amanda Rico, an expert in the field of technical writing and resume writing. She runs Rico Editorial Services and specializes in helping folks in the energy sector level up and find the career they love. She’s also a mentor in our own Coaching Program, helping applicants achieve exactly that. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 340 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/346 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here) Y

This is financial Thursday and we're going to help you put your money where your heart is. There are some secrets out there about how your money is being invested against your better interests. Today's entrepreneur is my good friend Ravi Mikkelsen, and if you tuned in back in October 1st, 2019, you might remember that we did the episode with Samuel Adeyemo of Aurora Solar organized through ClimateLink, one of the organizations that this multifaceted entrepreneur has put together. Ravi is someone I've come to respect and admire, and today we're going to dig into his latest brainchild that is gathering traction. Certainly several of you have no doubt heard Jigar Shah and others mentioned it from the stages of Energy Gang and other platforms recently, it’s called Atmos Financial. We're going to learn all about that today and why in the world he would be trying to take on big banks. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 340 othe

Today's entrepreneur is no stranger to the wild and crazy ride we call the solar coaster. He cut his teeth in the industry more than a decade ago and has worked at companies you'd recognize like Tesla. He got the entrepreneurial bug several years back, in this case, seeing before many others the coming wave and rise of energy storage and the need for a slightly different format and a form factor in the market that was underserving almost entirely unserved at that time in history. We'll hear more about that and how Omeed Badkoobeh and Yotta Energy have sought to address a little addressed market that is actually a huge total addressable market. We'll dig into energy storage for commercial and industrial as well as the journey of this young entrepreneur today on SunCast. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 340 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/344 (Gain

This episode will be different to the Tactical Tuesdays and long-form Thursday episodes we always publish. This is a mini episode if you will. Sometimes we do this on Fridays or other days, when we have a guest that has extraordinary information that we want to share with you and it's timely, but doesn't fit in our normal production schedule. If you are a Texas resident or if you've been watching what's happening in Texas, you should know by now that there is a crisis in ERCOT. There's a crisis in the electricity markets as well as a humanitarian crisis right now as a result of hard snowstorms. And since I'm not in Texas, but I have friends down there, I called on just such a friend, Mr. Evan Caron. He's an Austin resident, who is an energy trader and really deeply understands this market. So if you have been trying to figure it out, understand what the heck is happening in that market, we are here to give you some answers. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, reco

Today's entrepreneurs are certainly no stranger to the start-up ride, as they have started a number of companies. Most recently, they have made it all the way to Round Three of the National Renewable Energy Labs’ American-Made Solar Prize, which we've discussed here before. Tim Matus and Steve Arters are intrapreneurs I've come to respect and making it that far in the solar prize is something noteworthy. They created automated robots that help us maintain solar sites, which is something that I took note of and I thought that you might find it interesting as well, not just the technology, but how exactly they got around to the technology, including some tinkering around in their garage, as all good startup stories should include. Their company, Renu Robotics was launched in February of 2018 to address initiatives to control costs on utility-scale solar farms. The collaboration of ideas led to interest in creating flexible autonomous robots able to be fitted with many different implements. Remember you can a

Welcome to another Tactical Tuesday, which is a short form conversation with subject matter experts designed to give you practical tools, tips and advice for building your solar business, or career. If you've clicked through on today's episode, an overview on where do I start in the clean energy industry, I suspect that you are thinking about a career change or you're thinking about how your career could or should be growing in the industry, and you are looking for some tips and practical advice. In fairness, this is a replay from our SunCast Career Summit, which happened back in September 2020, but it is a great overview. Not only myself but some of the guests (in particular, Eric Pasi) have written quite a bit about the answers to the oft-made question: “How do I get into this industry? Where do I start?” Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 340 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.m

Today, we are going to have an intrapreneur and entrepreneur, a friend of mine down in Austin, Texas called Zack Livingston, Head of Sales at ClearTrace. We’ll get into the ins and outs of carbon accounting, and all the reasons why it has not to date been done very well, and how his company ClearTrace is leveling up their game and yours. ClearTrace is a cloud-based SaaS company enabling stakeholders to track, trace, and manage their clean energy footprint. Zach was previously the 'Vice President of Sales and Head of the Americas' at Locus Energy and became the 'Director of Sales - USA' at AlsoEnergy after Locus and Also merged. Both companies supplied solutions for the monitoring, analytics and performance optimization of renewable energy assets. Earlier in Zach's career, he spent time interning in the Clinton Foundation's Executive Office, working with the former President and his immediate staff, and interning for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s clean water advocacy group, Riverkeeper. Remember you can always f

Today's entrepreneur is someone I've had the pleasure to get to know recently, through the context of exploring how software can serve and also sometimes be the bane of our existence. She has worked over the past several decades helping businesses improve their business operations and processes using a little piece of software. Maybe you've heard of it: it’s called Salesforce. Geraldine Gray is the CEO and founder of Endiem, and you're going to hear what that company is all about today as well. I would encourage you to stick around to the very end because this decade's long Salesforce MVP is going to share her Top Three App Exchange Secret Weapons. Of course, we'll discuss the Salesforce platform and how solar businesses can get ROI from that platform. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/339 (Gain access to all the

Today's intrapreneur has been inside the leadership team of some of the most successful brands in the solar industry and at critical times in their growth journey. We're going to take a look at her view from the Bridge as it were. Meghan Gainer is Head of Marketing Communications at Distributed Solar Development, or DSD, as we'll refer to it, which originally was incubated inside of General Electric. Her 14 years of commercial Marketing and Communications experience help her thread the needle for marketing and communications, public relations, strategy and execution for the companies that she's been privileged to help build companies like Comcast, SunEdison, Solar City, Tesla, GE, and now of course, DSD. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/338 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here)

It’s February 2021 and I’m stoked to have you here. Today's entrepreneur is a good friend of mine that many of you perhaps listened to in 2020, especially when he brought the 10 things that every entrepreneur needs to know when they're trying to raise capital: that's my friend Josh Beck. Josh is the Chief Investment Officer at BCI Technology Investments. He's had, in many ways a storied career. He's one of my favorite insider investor minds when I get to just chat with someone about what is happening in the world of global supply, especially with regards to obviously BCI is a big steel manufacturing concern. He's had some opportunities to be involved in major organizations in the industry like NEXTracker, which we spoke about in previous episodes. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/337 (Gain access to all the sho

If you listened to Episode 261, then you're no stranger to Mr. Sheldon Kimber of Intersect Power. But I wanted to bring Sheldon back, especially in this month, where we're thinking hard about what can the current administration and our industry do to elevate our voice to ensure we take massive action on climate change. Sheldon wrote an article back in the fall, and it got a fair amount of traction on LinkedIn (even Jigar Shah and many others commented on it). I wanted to bring Sheldon on to talk specifically about this article that he wrote, titled “software is eating the world, but steel is the hardware runs on” and it's a reply to Marc Andreessen's essay "It's time to build" where he posits that we don't have the drive to build the infrastructure and that complacency is killing the opportunity. Not so, says Sheldon...and we get into just exactly why we need to Dream in Steel again! I hope that you'll tune in and listen up to this dialogue where Sheldon and I dive into how clean energy as an industry is, l

Andy Klump holds the current and long-standing record of the most downloaded episode on SunCast. That's right, coming in more than 2000 downloads. I wanted to have Andy back because there's a lot about this man's life in how he ended up in China being a trusted resource for so many companies and individuals like myself around the world from Europe, to the Americas. I wanted to hear how he came about this venture called Clean Energy Associates, and I wanted to hear how he built through this adventure of living in China. Having a wonderful family, being an upright citizen and all-around good guy. Today we dig into the man that is Andy Klump, not just how he built his business, but how he's built his career. And I hope that you would come to admire this man as much as I do. He's a good friend, and a very good businessman. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. h

Today's entrepreneur I have been introduced to multiple times since 2014. Thanks to the homebound lockdowns of the pandemic this year, we finally had a chance to get to know one another. Matt Hankey is the Founder and CEO of New Energy Equity, one of the fastest-growing companies in our industry. They're the fourth largest solar commercial company in the US seventh largest developer in the United States, and one of the fastest-growing solar developers in the DC area. Suffice to say, this will be a fun dive into an entrepreneurial journey that has seen some extreme highs, probably some extreme lows, and we're going to learn a ton. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/334 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here) You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email Thank

Welcome to another Tactical Tuesday, a short-form conversation with subject-matter experts designed to give you practical tools, tips and advice for building your solar business or career. What you’re about to hear is a recorded keynote from our https://events.mysuncast.com/ (SunCast Career Summit). Paula Glover is the President and CEO for the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE). Established in 1977, the American Association of Blacks in Energy is an association founded and dedicated to ensuring the input of African Americans and other minorities into the discussions and developments of energy policies regulations. I truly appreciated and enjoyed having Paula come speak to our SunCast Career Summit back in September. And if you missed it, you're in luck because today, you get to hear Paula's keynote supporting the advancement of emerging leaders and increasing diversity across clean energy. It is a fantastic look inside how we can achieve more diversity and inclusiveness in the energy business,

This is Part Two of the episode we began earlier in the week with SEIA’s President Abby Hopper. We have a lot of ground left to cover, and we get into some GREAT insights from Abby in this one. But if you missed Part 1, I’d recommend you start there, then come to this one for the rest of the story. Abby really gets into the details on this episode about how we all can help hold President-elect Biden to account for the awesome opportunity before him to leave a lasting clean energy legacy. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup advice at www.mysuncast.com. https://www.mysuncast.com/suncast-episodes/332 (Gain access to all the show notes & resources from this episode here) You can connect with me, Nico Johnson, on Twitter, LinkedIn or email Thanks a ton to our podcast sponsors for continuing to help make this content FREE to You! Please check them out and let me know what you think!

Welcome back and Happy New Year, Solar Warrior! If you’re in the solar or energy storage industry, then today’s guest will be no stranger to you. I hope I do justice to making this useful and interesting, as she’s shared most of her thoughts and plans with us in a variety of forums. Abigail Ross Hopper became the first female President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) in January 2017 just as the Obama-era solar boom was being handed off to the Trump administration. Abby has been dubbed the most important woman in solar by the media, and it’s true she carries an immensely important role. Before joining SEIA, Abby was the Director of the Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, where she led the agency that oversaw the leasing and development of all offshore energy, from oil and natural gas to offshore wind. Remember you can always find the resources and learn more about today’s guest, recommendations, book links and more than 330 other founder stories and startup

Happy New Year, Solar Warrior! In early December, I had a chance to sit down with CPS Energy executives to discuss their latest RFP, and I was amazed by the depth of answers they provided. Not only we discussed how the RFP is shaped, but also the underlying philosophy and methodology supporting the landmark power call for the Lonestar state! As many of you are well aware, having listened to the interview with Paula Gold-Williams (the CEO of CPS Energy) some weeks ago, the largest public power utility in the United States CPS is on a journey of decarbonizing their generation assets. And, as such has been foreshadowing a quite sizable RFP. On December 1, CPS along with the City of San Antonio announced the largest municipally-owned fully integrated electric and gas utility in the US is launching their RFP under what's known as the FlexPOWER Bundle initiative for a whopping 900MW of solar, 50MW of energy storage, and 500MW of firming capacity as part of the vision for CPS’ Flexible Path. Remember you can alw