Today’s guest is Russell Schmit, a successful executive with extensive experience in energy‑related manufacturing, service, and consulting companies ranging from start‑ups to Fortune 100 corporations. At Sage Energy Consulting, he leads the growth initiatives for the company, works on selected projects that leverage his specialized experience, and guides internal operations to achieve high levels of client satisfaction. Beginning with his early-career work leading solar photovoltaic technology p...
Apr 29, 2021•53 min•Season 8Ep. 366
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. Today we’re digging into the idea of intellectual property, patents, and other ways to protect your business and assets, and the guest in charge of explaining this process is Russ Krajec. How patents protect you (or not), and what should you do about it? Stay tuned to find out! Russ Krajec is an author, inven...
Apr 27, 2021•27 min•Season 8Ep. 365
If you're tuning in for the first time, you're tuning in to a second-part episode of my conversation with a friend and industry colleague and leader mentor, Robb Jetty. I encourage you to check out part one of this inspiring conversation with Robb to capture more of the backstory, his origin of how he made his way into solar, and the role he has now with DSD Renewables. Today, we're gonna dig into the second half of the conversation more about what inspires him, how he made the eventual pivots, ...
Apr 22, 2021•49 min•Season 8Ep. 364
Happy Earth Day! I'm excited about all the wonderful events and activities that are going on today on Earth Day as we celebrate another year of work towards taking massive climate action. Today we are going to learn a lot about how the solar industry has evolved. The protagonist of the story is one of the guys I've watched grow in his career for more than 15 years. Robb Jetty and I have seen each other in the industry, and today we're going to dive into how he arrived at the company that he help...
Apr 22, 2021•45 min•Season 8Ep. 363
This is Tactical Tuesday, a short-form conversation with subject matter experts designed to give you the practical tools, tips and advice for building your solar business or career. Today, we're gonna be chatting with the two people who run a program I didn’t even know existed until January, Stanford's Lawyers for Sustainable Economy (LSE) Initiative, managed by Molly Melius, the Director of LS, and Jesse Lazarus, Senior Associate of LS, and a second-year law student. The Lawyers for a Sustainab...
Apr 20, 2021•20 min•Season 8Ep. 362
Today's guest is a change maker named “The Green Mark Zuckerberg” by France TV's. I’m referring to Ingmar Rentzhog, The CEO and Founder of We Don't Have Time, the world's largest social network for climate action. We'll hear more about what that means and how the idea was formed. By teaming up with Twitter and the U.N We Don't Have Time is reaching millions around the globe. Ingmar will share how you can invest in We Don't Have Time and be a part of solving the climate crisis and getting good re...
Apr 15, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 8Ep. 361
Today’s guest is someone who I've been working with and who several of your colleagues have been working with behind the scenes to help clarify thoughts, especially around the topic of growth. Today's topic is specifically focused on whether or not you are ready for growth. Do you know what it looks like? Are you prepared for the way that you need to orient your team, your vision, and your mission? We’re talking about Robert W. Cross, the Founder & CEO of Cross Consulting Services. He helps ...
Apr 13, 2021•45 min•Season 8Ep. 360
Have you ever wondered why your cell phone gets hot when it's charging? Few folks realize the electromagnetism that's picked up as dirty electricity and moves through the circuit, making the charging process less efficient, and it not only increases your phone's heat, but your energy bills, and it shortens the life of all of the devices and appliances around us. Well, today’s interview is with my friend B.D. Erickson who knows a thing or two about how to address that issue. His company, Satic US...
Apr 08, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 8Ep. 359
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. Today you will hear from clean energy executives Matt Hankey and Michael Healy as they’re taking the charge in ensuring their organization and the industry as a whole represe...
Apr 06, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 8Ep. 358
Thank you so much for lending me your ears and the only non-renewable resource that you have: your time! Today's entrepreneur is my friend Scott Nguyen, CEO of 17 TeraWatts. If you are in the broader energy business and you’re looking for an opportunity to get into climate tech and clean energy, you might want to take a listen for today's episode. Scott has 15 years of energy industry experience, 18 USPTO patents, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University. He is now working on specific tech...
Apr 01, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 8Ep. 357
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. Do you get nervous when you have to engage in conversations to negotiate your salary? You’re not alone. In today’s episode, we have Karima Ladhani, Suparna Kadam, Tara Doyle,...
Mar 30, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 8Ep. 356
Michael Parr is the Executive Director of the Ultra Low Carbon Solar Alliance, a coalition of global solar companies using market forces to decarbonize the solar supply chain, making clean energy even cleaner. Following a 30 year career with DuPont Michael established The Parr Policy Group in 2015 to provide policy and political consulting services to businesses, with an emphasis on sustainability. For almost 20 years Michael lead DuPont’s federal government affairs efforts on the environment, e...
Mar 29, 2021•30 min•Season 8Ep. 355
As we celebrate the impact of women in our culture, the way that women increasingly are being recognized as better leaders as better and more empathic executives in businesses, it's been a real privilege and honor to be able to have some of my friends and folks that inspire me on the show. This week on SunCast, as we wrap up Women's History Month, I am so excited to be able to bring to you a fearless leader. Today's entrepreneur is someone that I genuinely appreciate in the world and in the sola...
Mar 25, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 8Ep. 354
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. What do you need to start implementing a D&I Strategy in your organization? Should you be focusing on the talent management side? Join our fireside chat with the Presiden...
Mar 23, 2021•50 min•Season 8Ep. 353
Thank you so much for lending me your ears and the only non-renewable resource that you've got: your time. Today's guest, Anna Siefken has spent her career making the business case for energy efficiency, cleantech innovation, and building performance as a means to address the world’s energy challenges and the global urgency of climate change. She is the inaugural Executive Director of The Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University. www.cmu.edu/energy . Through ...
Mar 18, 2021•1 hr•Season 8Ep. 352
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. How are managers creating a diverse and inclusive work environment? You’re going to hear from a panel of hiring professionals and D&I experts as they dispense practical ...
Mar 16, 2021•59 min•Season 8Ep. 351
Today's guest is our friend Heidi Lim of Opus 12. While I hope that we can do more on Opus 12, we actually don't talk a ton about Opus 12. Today we talk about her process of finding what she calls a “career on purpose and meaning”. Opus 12 happens to be now the vessel through which she pours that energy. I'm excited to bring that conversation to you, so I encourage you not just to listen in to this conversation, but also to go take the time to read the tome that she created, which was the genesi...
Mar 11, 2021•50 min•Season 7Ep. 350
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 ...
Mar 09, 2021•59 min•Season 7Ep. 349
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 ...
Mar 09, 2021•58 min•Season 7Ep. 348
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 tha...
Mar 04, 2021•53 min•Season 7Ep. 347
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 r...
Mar 02, 2021•53 min•Season 7Ep. 346
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...
Feb 25, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Season 7Ep. 345
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...
Feb 23, 2021•1 hr•Season 7Ep. 344
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 ...
Feb 21, 2021•33 min•Season 7Ep. 343
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 t...
Feb 18, 2021•58 min•Season 7Ep. 342
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...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 7Ep. 341
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...
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 13 min•Season 7Ep. 340
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. ...
Feb 09, 2021•36 min•Season 7Ep. 339
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 fo...
Feb 04, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Season 7Ep. 338
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 happ...
Feb 02, 2021•37 min•Season 7Ep. 337
