Green Ridge Solar – Turning Electrical Skill Into a Renewable Energy Company

Two years it was, it was a lot of sleepless nights.

It was sleeping at the office because we didn't have time to,

to go home. There was too much to get done.

And there was a point, you know, just, it was a few years ago

that somebody came up to me, one of our, one of our managers.

So it was like, I can do this better than you.

And so I had a lot of coaches that said they cared more about

coaching great men than coaching great players.

And I feel the same way with the people that we have employed

with us. I did not fail.

I tried, you know, everything I could do to not fail was

ingrained to me. And so I think it's that feeling

of when it's tough or there's challenges, I, I don't let

myself fear anymore. I immediately move to how are we

going to get through this? Hey there and welcome to From

the Ground Up show, the show where we inspire and encourage

the next generation of free thinking leaders by telling the

stories of those that have been there, done that and are still

getting it done, building a life that they love with their

hearts, their hands and their hustle.

I'm your host, Eric Loden. Thank you guys for joining me

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going. So this morning I am really

excited. I am joined by Alex and Brian

from Green Ridge Solar. They are the cofounders of Green

Ridge Solar. Alex and Brian started out

putting their electrical and construction knowledge to work

serving their neighbors in the community and by helping with

solar projects. A few short years later, they

run a successful company serving all of Oregon and Washington.

They specialize in providing superior service before, during

and after installation of only the top end solar equipment.

So Brian and Alex, thanks for joining me.

How are you guys doing today? Good.

Doing great. Thanks for having us here.

Awesome, awesome. Well, we will dive right in.

And this is the first time we've had two guests at the same time,

so we'll have to figure this out as we go together.

But we start off every show just getting a little bit of

background and we like to roll clear back to the beginning.

So do you guys want to maybe take turns telling us a little

bit about your childhood and how you guys met?

Sure. Thing you want to start, Alex?

OK, I'll start all right childhood, huh, all the way

back. Well, Brian, I both grew up in

in Oregon for the most part. So I grew up in kind of the

Wilsonville, Sherwood area went to went to high school there

always been in Oregon. So nothing, nothing super

special. But yeah, we let's see it was

after our wives met, I think at a dog park that Brian and I came

to know each other about 10 years ago and my wife basically

consequently. And Brian Brent tells story

better, but worked, worked for him in a brokerage for some

time. And Brian, why don't you tell us

the story on that? Yeah, sure.

That Alex's wife, Rachel worked for me in a real estate

brokerage that I was an owner in and we did kind of rehab, flip

projects, new construction on top of the real estate side of

things. So I got to know Rachel really

well at the same time, got to know Alex really well.

And him and I were at AI think we're at a company dinner and we

were kind of site. We're sitting next to each other

and we're talking off to the side.

And this conversation of of electrical came up and solar

specifically. And Alex being an entrepreneur

before this, as well as as myself being one, we kind of

just mesh really well. And honestly, I think it was

that night they were like, hey, let's, we're going to do

something together and let's, let's go figure this out.

So that's all the credit to all the credit to our wives, Rachel,

Alex's wife, and Taryn, my wife, they met, they made the whole

thing happen. And so yeah, it was just kind of

a a funny way to go about it, but we lived real close to each

other and it and it just came together so.

Cool, cool so. As far as as far as me, no, I

was just as far as me. Like I grew up in in Sherwood as

well. Alex and I actually didn't

didn't know each other or a couple years apart, but we were

here around at the same time. So I grew up here, attended

college at University of Oregon after after that and then came

out of U of OII, played football there.

And, and so as I came out of school, I didn't quite have a, a

great idea of what I wanted to do.

And my dad had been a journeyman electrician for his whole life

and he was a business partner in a, in a separate controls

automation company. And he convinced me to stick

around for summer and and kind of learn the ropes on some

electrical stuff and I fell in love with it and got my

journeyman license being an electrician.

And then Fast forward to now, I hold a masters license in both

Oregon and Washington and oversee that stuff for our

company. Okay, awesome.

So from the time you guys met, how do you go from a wives

meeting at a dog park, a meeting for drinks or dinner, and then

now launching a company together that it seemed like a pretty

quick step, but what what did those steps look like?

I think the I was, I had another company at the time, it was

fairly self-sufficient. And so I think there was kind of

this desire maybe get into something else at some point.

And I think, you know, I'll be honest, like solar had never

crossed my mind. And you know, I'm sure most

people that have run into solar companies, you know, the the

stigmatism behind high pressure door to door sales and, and kind

of that whole thing. I had no, no back in, you know,

marketing and advertising and and running sales program.

And so I think what interests me at least was I saw an

opportunity in kind of emerging industry in Oregon that was well

supported, well funded. Obviously we're in Oregon at

least we're in a pretty solar friendly political climate, if

you will. And so there was a lot of

momentum in policy, you know, government, even utilities

wanting to adopt, you know, sold.

And so, you know, when we started talking about it in my

and it really is probably something to look into and

Spring and I got to talk and know each other a little bit

better. He was involved in his real

estate business at the time. I kind of took on more of the

day-to-day as we started to build that out and and yeah, I

mean, the rest is history. We could tell the story, of

course, but I just, I don't know.

It was, it's very rare that you meet somebody that you want to

get in business with and then and then to have actually

successful relationship for 10 years where, I mean, I can

literally count on one hand the number of times, you know, Brian

and I have argued, yelled at each other.

I mean, those types of things like it's, it's really been a

great relationship. We're a Ying and Yang scenario.

We balance out each other well. And so if it was easy to to

decide to get into business together.

Wow. That's like you said, that is a

rare story. We often hear the other side of

those stories kind of the the nightmare partner scenario.

So that's, that's great that you guys were able to work together

that way. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's pretty unique.

I mean we've we've talked about this several times that we've

built such a good relationship over the years.

If there was ever the next thing that we do, we always talk about

being able to do that together because that balance that we

have, I think we see things very similar the way that we we view

the world, the way that we view a business in general.

But then our skill sets are we have enough crossover and what

we do. I know enough about the

financials, the sales, the marketing aspect.

Alex knows a ton about that side and and the opposite there.

I know a ton about the technical, the electrical, the

operational side and Alex knows a fair amount of that as well.

And so we're able to balance that.

And the other thing I think is really important is we work the

company together as much as maybe some of the larger

companies would disagree of this.

We kind of work the strategy and the the CEO type of mentality

together. But then we kind of drop back

down into our own lanes and, and oversee each portion of the

business that we're, we're in charge of and trust each other

in both of those aspects. So that, you know, when Alex

makes a call, I don't need Alex to go and come to me and, and

run past, you know, 5 details on why he decided to change the

contract because it's going to, you know, be a better fit for,

for us and for the customer, right?

Like, I don't need that sign off.

And vice versa. If I say, hey, I want to add

three more guys to my field crews because we're in this

tight spot right now. I don't run that past Alex,

right? Like we understand and have that

rapport and that that history together that we both can stay

in our lanes, but then come together and talk high level

strategy and what that looks like together at the top.

And I think that's what's made us so successful over over the

last 10 years. You know, we've been a slow,

progressively growing company over 10 years.

And because of that, we're solid.

And, and we're around, unlike some of these really large

national companies that we've seen kind of crash and burn over

the last several years because they, they don't seem to be able

to figure a way to maintain. They only know how to grow.

OK. Yeah.

That's pretty cool that you guys trust each other enough to kind

of run your own, your own areas of expertise.

And did it start out like that in the beginning or is that

trust that's been built over the last 10 years?

That's it. That's a good question.

I think personality wise, I am a risk taker.

Alex will take risks, but he is a much more calculated risk

taker than I am. So because of that, my natural

instinct with people is more of the trust people first and then

if you kind of screw me over, that's when I'm not going to

deal with you anymore. And I think Alex is a little bit

more of the opposite, where he's going to be a little more

reserved about how he trusts you first and then you earn his

trust and and it moves on, right.

And so I think because we had that mentality, maybe initially

I was more trusting in Alex and but because he sees that I was,

Hey, you take the ball, you take the ball.

You know, I think that that helped build the confidence

there. It was fairly fairly quick.

I mean, we didn't, I can think like Alex said, handful of times

in 10 years where we've had any type of like heated discussion.

Just about everything else has been, hey, we see this in the

same same light here. We're both 90% in, let's figure

out the last 10%, right. So I, I think it's just unique

and there's not a lot of those partnership stories that are out

there. So yeah.

Yeah, to, to put it, to put it in layman's terms, like if you

go to blackjack table, Brian are putting blackjack together right

up there and like $500 I'm maybe 25 like.

Yeah. Everything says is accurate.

It took, it took a few years, I think to really to really trust

in our in our skills. And then obviously, I would say

we've developed new skill sets, which is, you know, life cycle

of every entrepreneur, you, you have to learn things that you

didn't think you would have to learn.

And so, you know, I think we've naturally gravitated towards the

things that interest us, but also the things that we're good

at. You know, I feel like it could

almost be an attorney at this point, not something I never,

you know, wanted to do necessarily, but you, you become

proficient in the things that you need to for survival and I

think also refine interest in as well.

So. Yeah, 10 years in such a highly

regulated industry, you probably are qualified to be an attorney.

Yeah, Construction in general, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

I often feel like I'm getting close to being a legal expert or

an insurance expert. And I, I run a roofing company.

I can't even imagine electrical and then solar on top of that.

And everything you guys work with, with local governments,

federal governments, there's a lot of regulation you guys deal

with. That's all.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like you guys

both had a pretty early entrepreneurial streak, you

know, running, working in real estate, running a real estate

company. Alex, you mentioned you had

another company and it sounds like both of your father's kind

of ran companies at one point or another, if not their entire

career. Did you guys always know that

you were going to grow up and be an entrepreneur and and do your

own thing? Or when did you kind of decide

that that was the route for you, rather than just getting a job

and working for somebody else? Oh, man, I mean, I, we both went

to college always. I actually my degree was in, was

in information systems IT yeah, with a business degree as well.

And you know, I got out of that, out of the university and took a

took a job with a with a company.

It was great pay like really there's no downside to it, but I

realized and and IT has changed in 10 years, significant 15

years significantly. So it kind of it kind of evolved

and then bubbled out and now you're seeing, you know, you're

seeing IAI kind of take over a lot of development.

But I knew that I wanted to do something my on my own at some

point. And I think it was, you know,

after about a year of working for, you know, this company, I,

I knew that now was the time because if I ever bought a

house, if I ever got married, like I was going to have things

that I was responsible for that, you know, taking risks on a

business just may, may not be as appetizing.

And so I actually worked for you interviewed AMW architectural

Metal Works, I think Grant in particular.

So Ken is my, is my stepfather. And so I worked for him growing

up as a kid and, you know, was always around the

entrepreneurial, you know, ups and downs.

But I think what I saw the most was just being available to, you

know, drop in a moment to go take care of something, go do a

family trip, go grab dinner, I mean, whatever it was.

And I knew that I wanted something like that.

I knew that I was smart enough that I could put something

together, but I didn't know, again, exactly what it was going

to be in. And so, yeah, I think that was

kind of the the evolution of getting into business.

I mean, was pretty much a year after college, pretty much got

into doing my own thing so. For me it was kind of similar.

My degree was in economics and with a business minor and when I

full Full disclosure, all I ever wanted to do growing up was be a

professional athlete. And so going to school and

getting the opportunity to get a scholarship and play football,

that's really what I was there for.

I enjoyed the school. I did learn some things at it,

but at the end of the day, I went with the the economics

route and you know, have a solid degree that came out from that.

Did I apply that degree when I came out of school?

Very much no. I think that the the trade

background in my family was really prevalent at an early

age, a long time when my dad and his business partner, Scott

Kenny, they owned a company called Taurus Power and

Controls. And so they did power systems

and control automation. They had engineering in in house

from an electrical side with with Scott.

And then my dad was the the VP of that company and he ran more

of the electrical project management side of things as

they grew things out. And so during that time, you

know, struggling, you know, business, getting things off the

ground. And my dad did a lot of work for

his friends who were general contractors doing, you know,

wiring subdivision houses on nights and weekends, right,

because he had his electrical license and he had his his own

thing that was going on. So we, my brother and I sat in

the in the minivan till 10:30 at night, you know, parked on a

subdivision St. and my mom and and my dad would would rope

houses and then we were old enough.

I was in there too. Pulling home runs through the

attic. You know, that's bear.

You know, it's all it's all framed up.

And he's like, I'm, you know, pull, pull these ten home runs

across the the vaulted ceiling here, right.

So now obviously, like it's the 90s, a little bit different

time, probably not something you're going to see a lot of

now, but that was really that's I remember that so vividly as

part of my childhood. And so my dad was a was a

grinder, he was a hustler. And then eventually as their

business really took off and became successful, he didn't

have to do a lot of that side type of work or or things like

that down the road. But just as Alex said with, with

Ken, his, his stepfather, you know, the ability to say, Hey,

we're taking this time, we're going to go do this sports

thing. Hey, I'm going to be there at

all the events. I, I can't, I can't think of one

time that my dad really missed any sporting event for myself or

my brother because of, because of work, right?

Like he, he always made time and found that the opportunity

there. He coached heavily all the way

through, you know, middle school and high school.

So seeing that was really cool, and at the time, I don't think I

recognized it as much. But now as we Fast forward to

our adult years here, I see that being exactly how I'm able to

offer the same type of a lifestyle for my family.

I coach my son's stuff, my wife has coached him and our

daughters. And so it's just it's a really

cool cycle to see that and I think that's what really got us

into doing their own thing. I worked for six years as an

electrician at Taurus, Taurus Power and Controls and it was

great. I loved it.

They both had an opportunity, Scott, his business partner and

my dad, they sat myself down and Scott's son Brian, who's a

little bit older than me and he's an engineer and kind of

gave us the idea that this could be, you know, passed down to US

one day. I was pretty young and I just

thought, you know, I just don't love doing this.

I think I want to try something on my own, that risk taking

thing on on my own. And I really was into

construction at the time and trying to do, I did a couple

house flips with my wife and I. We did those together.

So that kind of took me away. Brian stayed with the company

and eventually took it over and sold the company and has done a

fantastic job at Taurus, which is really cool.

So maybe if that opportunity came to me in my 30s, it would

have been a different situation. But now, but at the time being,

you know, 2425, I think, yeah, it's about 25 that we're like, I

got my journeyman license. I'm like, OK, I think I'm going

to go and and do my own thing and just just stepped out on a

on a whim so. That's kind of how it sounds

like. Yeah, that's great.

Well, it sounds like you guys both pursued a a college

education and with varying degrees of seriousness As you

look back on it now, was that a a wise decision?

Would you go back to school or would you dive right into

business or right into the trade?

And. I, you know, at the time I made

again, education has and I think the need for education is, is

changing. The way we educate is changing.

Definitely at the time, I think it was the right thing to do.

For me personally, it was it was a structured learning

environment. It pushed me, you know, to do

and learn things that I we wouldn't have otherwise.

I would say that you do refer back to your education through

parts of your life and business especially.

I think in today's world, I'm not sure that I necessarily

would have because I kind of knew that I always had that

mindset of like, I want to start my own thing.

If I had four years do that and maybe go in and take, especially

now, like IT you can go in and get a intensive training program

in six months done and then you're, you know, you're ready

to go. I mean, it's education needs to

change, I think and evolve to the way that our world works.

Now. I of course, would encourage my

kids to go eventually. We've got three kids, but I

don't know if it's as necessary for certain types of industries

like it used to be. So, yeah, OK.

Yeah, feel pretty similar to that, mainly because I saw both

ways with what Alex is talking to.

I saw a background in going to college, getting a degree, kind

of one of those degrees that's a little bit open-ended in

economics. You can take that in several

different directions. I think Alex's degree had some

specialization in it that kind of already was driving him down

a certain industry path. And for me, it was a little more

open-ended. And then when I come out of

school at the time, it would have been 2010.

And so as we come out in 2010, the job market is still kind of

recovering from 08, right? And so there's not a lot of

opportunity that was just out there in people's faces to

explore different options for me.

And so the option to kind of stay home for that summer and

work, make a little bit of money and then and then move on.

That was kind of my dad's suggesting he was like, hey,

come and work for me. See what this is about.

If you like it, maybe there's an opportunity there.

If you don't move to wherever you're going to move cross

country, go do your thing, right?

And he was always extremely supportive of of all the

decisions I made because of that.

But then I went to trade school, you know, and trade school, my

view on on all of this has definitely changed.

The cost of college now is so expensive unless you have a

specialized degree that's going to lead you down the path.

Lawyer, doctor, something maybe very specific in the in the IT

security realm, these types of things that are very

specialized. I feel like the education system

right now is still justified in my opinion for those types of

things. However, to go and get a, you

know, political science degree or an economics degree, right?

Like they're good things. You learn some stuff, you get a

better understanding of the world.

But most of those kids that are there doing that, it's an

experience for them to go and do.

And at 100,000 dollars, 200,000 dollars, $400,000 to do that.

I don't think that it makes a lot of sense for those types of

degrees. Now I have people who, when I

went into trade school, I started at the very, very bottom

as a level 1 apprentice. I get a portion of the state's

journeyman wage for electricians, right?

And while I do that schooling, I have to track 8000 hours of work

experience as well as I want to say it's 5 or 600 classroom

hours. But you work full time while

you're doing that. So you go to that school on the

nights, on the weekends to make up those school hours and you

get to work full time. So not only you building your

physical skill set, you're learning at the same time and

you get to see what's applied in the school out into the field on

a daily basis. And because of that, I was 20,

what, 20 or 2121 when I went into the apprenticeship program.

I had people who are good friends of mine who went in at

the same time as me, who are 18, some of them 17, who had just

graduated, turning 18, coming that beginning of the school

year. And they went through the

program with me, with, you know, a 3-4 year head start in life.

We both get a journeyman license at the same time, get our cards

at the same time. You make a really doable wage.

I was able to buy a house when I was 23, right when my wife and I

were were dating and we got to do that together and close on

the House right before we got married.

That was, you know, it was just a really good overall experience

and I highly recommend it. Whether it's electrical,

plumbing, you know, welding, pipe fitters, you know, even

equipment operators, you know, all of these different things.

Like I think for a long time people will be like, Oh, well,

if you don't go to college, you kind of go down this route of

these other jobs. And now the landscape has

changed where I feel like the other jobs are equal to or more

than important than other aspects that we see from the

college front. So I think you most of the most

successful people that I know have all been people who have

grown some type of blue collar industry business and have

really taken it from there. And even when we see it in, you

know, large, large scale Fortune 500, like there's the owners of

that, the founders of those, you'll see so many stories of

people who dropped out of college, didn't go to college,

learned on experience, had this great idea in a garage.

And I think the majority or more of those types of businesses are

founded by those people who are just go getters and not

necessarily the most educated. You become the most experienced,

which then leads you to be the most educated.

But at the end of the day, experience overall is really

what I feel about it. Yeah, you guys kind of nailed my

feeling as well. I was, I was there about the

same time frame and same generation and decided to go to

college and then don't use my education very much anymore.

And I feel very similarly. I think the landscape there is

changing and man, starting life without a career and a couple

$100,000 in debt is not a great way to start and think people

are figuring that out. So it'll be interesting to see

what happens over the next few years and that experience, that

maturity that a lot of people gain in college.

I think there's a lot of places you can go to get that.

And like you said, a trade school is a great place that

you're on your own, you're working.

Maybe even better. Instead of being surrounded with

a bunch of dumb college kids like yourself, you get thrown in

the trades with some more mature guys that have been there for a

few years and the the peers that you learn from actually know a

little bit about life instead of just the next frat party.

Amen. Awesome.

Well, we got quite a bit of background there.

I want to learn a little bit about this business.

So it sounds like you guys started from pretty humble

beginnings kind of just helping neighbors, helping people and

have really grown it into quite a business.

Can you tell me a little bit about that process, how and

where you got your start and and what you've done to grow it the

way that you have? Yeah, go ahead, Al.

Yeah, we started. So it was 2006, it was a 10 year

anniversary year. Yeah, much, much like I think

anybody that starts a construction company humble

beginnings, you're, you're doing all, you're doing everything.

You're running all the hats, making all the calls.

And in the beginning there is actually written when we started

Green Ridge, we had, we had another partner involved in the,

you know, the first couple years it was kind of just figuring

out, I mean, I, we originally had partnered with a company out

of, out of Utah that wanted us to basically do all their

install operations in Oregon. And that process was ruling.

And we made so many errors. We made so many mistakes.

We thought we had, you know, things dialed in, went through

the, you know, permission to operate and getting the utility

to approve our projects. It took months and months and

months and countless hours to just get even the first couple

deals done. And then as we started to figure

that out, we're like, OK, you know, we we can do this and we

just need, we just need more sales volume.

And it was about that time in the first, I think it was the

first year that company ended up just torpedoing all of their out

of state deals that they had. They find off, you know, fired a

bunch of people. Come to find out there was a

bunch of embezzlement by one of the primary owners.

And so the whole thing just just naked overnight.

And we're like, we've got guys, we've got trucks, we've got, you

know, rent payment. Like what are we going to do?

You know, are we just going to fold?

Like we had, you know, I think, I think we have borrowed like

25,000 a piece. And at the time it was like

that's, that's like my life savings.

So that's a down payment on a house.

Like we can't walk away from that.

And so it was towards the end of that first year that we decided

we were, we were going to do this ourselves and not just make

this kind of a side hustle because we had again, we had

both had businesses at the time. And that next two years was it

was a lot of sleepless nights. It was sleeping at the office

because we didn't have time to to go home.

There was too much to get done. We invented an entire marketing

automation platform, a setting process internally for all of

our leads to gather appointments, validate customers

and sites. And we did sales, you know, we

knocked on doors for a short period of time.

That was kind of like the only way we can get people to, you

know, respond to us all the way through sales process.

And then, you know, we were, we were doing installs alongside

the guys for the first, you know, first year or so.

And then eventually, you know, as things started to take off,

we were able to take some step back that yeah, I mean, that

first couple years was really, really tough.

And I think we hit the industry early enough that there was

enough kind of funding involved, not just from a standpoint of

like tax credits, but the state had through Energy Trust in

Oregon, they had they had rebates something.

Then the Department of Energy had something going on, too.

We were able to kind of use that and reinvest, you know the

earnings of the company back into growth.

You know, for the first couple years, I mean we were, we were

about 50 to doubling, so 50% growth to doubling the company

year over year. And then we got to a certain

size and we kind of said, you know, this is, this is, this is

not sustainable, right? Like we, we've kind of hit that

limit. And, and then we start to get

serious about, OK, we need, we need to know our financials.

We need to know, we know what's our, what's our, you know,

what's our 30 day plan, 90 day plan, one year plan, what's our

three-year plan? What does 10 years look like?

We really need to start planning this out.

And I think at that point it was, you know, we, we were kind

of starting to figure out like our roles were going to change

significantly. The things that we need to be

focused on were the business not, not necessarily being in

the business every day. And that's, you know, again,

that's that's kind of how we got started.

Yeah, OK. The the first four years, Alex

and I both were still running and operating our other

businesses at the same time as well.

So what we had done, which is pretty unique, I think is that

we didn't take a dollar out of the company for for pretty much

four years. We weren't on a salary, we

weren't on any of that. We just made sure that we could

do enough in our other businesses to pay the bills for

our families. I mean, I, I sold my house, I

sold a condo, an investment condo, everything to the point

where I even we moved back and my family moved back in with my,

with my parents for amount of time there just to be able to

make sure all this was going to go together.

So we did not take a dollar from the company for four years.

And I think that was a really, it was a tough decision for both

of us because I think that we saw that we could run a good

business, but it was a necessary one that has really set us up

for the mindset that we have now 10 years into the into the game.

And that was, I think that was a really kind of a unique

experience for the both of us to see exactly how how far it goes

when you could just constantly reinvest back into your company,

back into your company. But our heads down the whole

time like working in the company and not working on the

companies. As you probably know, when you

start a business, you're good at the thing, the end result

product that you're doing right. That's what makes you great

because you're like, hey, we got this down.

And that's what we kind of found very quickly, that we were

really solid at making sure our installs were quality.

We did a good job. We would learn and you have some

mistakes and learn along the way, but we felt like we were

delivering something that other people weren't able to deliver.

So our heads are working everyday just trying to turn the

next dollar to make sure that the company can keep going

instead of stepping back, looking at our balance sheet,

looking at our financials, having a proper strategy on how

we want to spend that money, where do we reinvest it?

Not just, you know, cash flow is king in a type of business like

ours. Making sure that you manage that

in a way where seasonality gets a little hotter and then things

cool down at certain times of the year that you can manage

that kind of ebb and flow that takes place.

So I think that first four years was like the defining moments

for us as a as a business to really understand.

And then we turn the corner on the quality of growth the year

following when we really start to focus working on the business

and growing it in a way that was sustainable.

For the long run, OK, Yeah, man, with those first four years like

that, no wonder you guys are such close partners.

That would really solidify that partnership relationship having

fought through all of that together.

So yeah, wow. And it sounds like you guys told

just went all in, sacrificed a lot, gave everything you had to

this. What was it about this business

or maybe the solar industry that made you guys think this is the

one, this is what we're going all in on?

I think it was the way that we run the business.

We both came from a construction backgrounds, right.

Alex's stepdad had the sheet metal, architectural metal works

sheet metal and installation. He saw that growing up.

I saw my, my dad doing the same thing at, at Taurus.

And we had both been around construction enough and have

done enough construction projects to know that, hey, this

is kind of the blueprint for how a construction company should

run. When we looked out at the solar

industry, what you saw was very few construction companies or

very few solar companies running as a real contracting business.

They were all running as sales organizations that had several

subcontracted agreements with maybe two or three different

companies. Maybe that company was the

actual install arm for now, 10 different sales organizations

throughout the country and they're subcontracting out all

of their labor to do their installs right.

Or they have someone who's on the doorstep pressuring someone

to make a sale, you know, kind of doing things in an unethical

way that now leads a really poor bad experience for the customer

as it gets handed off to the, to the person installing who now

says, well, I'm just here to install.

I, I can't tell you anything about your loan or where your

money went or anything like that, right?

So we saw that at an, at a very early point in the business,

that's where the industry was. And we said, why, why, why do it

that way? Why not just be an electrical

contracting business that happens to specialize in doing

solar projects? So let's run it that way.

Let's run it with a, you know, job costing to every job, a set

up with a way where we're tracking hours on every project,

have reasonable Commission structures for people who sell

for us. And so that was really what I

think turned the corner for us and made us interested in doing

that. There's this gap of this quality

installation contractor for solar that would care because we

live in, in the industry or in the areas that we're working,

right? We're, we're living in Sherwood,

we're living in Tualatin, we're living in, in Wilsonville.

If we're servicing these people and I run into you at the

grocery store and I did left 25 holes in your roof and it's

leaking everywhere, that's not a very comfortable situation for

me as the business owner when I walk through that store and I

run into you, right. So that I think was in my

opinion, kind of the, the defining thing that we saw this

gap that was, it was niche enough that we could build a

business us out of it. And, and now I think Alex and I

both agree that we feel the industry is starting to really

shift in that direction. The companies that are around

that are doing well are quality companies that take care of

their customers, that don't just look at you as a flash in the

pan sale that I've knocked into you on a doorstep.

They want to educate you and then really show you what the

benefits, both financially, environmentally and for your

energy independence are available for you.

Maybe just one, one comment on that.

I think so Brian summed up a lot of what I was thinking, but I

think for me it was the technology.

So again, IT my background, I'm a tinker.

I, I, I've always involved in, I've been involved in tech in

some, in some way. The technology behind solar

changes every six months. There's improvements every six

months. There's changes in product,

there's changes in code, there's changes in, you know,

efficiency, whatever it is. And so for me, although it's a

little bit of a, a stressor because like just even having an

old, you know, old stock of something, it becomes obsolete

really in about a year and a year, year and a half.

Like that's the, that's the product evolution cycle in, in

the renewables industry. And so it's been fun to stay on

top of that. And even though I'm not a, a

licensed electrician, I've become so well versed in the

hardware and the firmware and commissioning and, you know,

troubleshooting that it's, it's just kind of always satisfied

this need of, you know, of being involved in a, in a tech

business. It's just a, you know, different

product. So yeah, it's, it's very unique.

There's, there's very few industries that kind of go

through that amount of stress every year in changes and

evolution. And so staying on top of that

is, has been fun. Yeah.

Yeah, that's really interesting to me.

I feel like that trend is almost the opposite of what I see in a

lot of roofing markets as they're moving more towards the

sales organization that then utilizes subcontractors to do

most of the work. It'll, it'll be interesting to

see which model wins out there. So it sounds like you guys have

been really successful kind of bucking the flow and and doing

your own thing and makes sense to be able to provide better,

better service to your customers, better quality,

probably a little bit more stable life for your employees

as well. Yeah, that's been huge.

We take a lot of pride in being able to offer those

opportunities to people and have them be on board with us.

One of our longest tenured employees has been here almost

the whole time. And, and he started with us when

he was 18 and he just started, as you know, a grunt in the

field. And now he's been able to work

his way up. He's a lead on the installer.

He he handles a lot of quality control and safety stuff for us.

And at the same time, he's been able to put himself in a

position to buy a house on his own.

And all these things that, you know, he came to us when he was

a younger saying, I don't think, I don't know if those things are

in the cards for me, right? It's been really cool, really

cool to see. That's awesome.

That's really great. So Alex, you kind of dove in a

little bit with, like you said, the changing technology and the

stressors in the industry. I'm, I'm somebody I know very

little about solar at all. Most of what I know or

understand is frustrations with people that poke holes in my

roofs. Yeah.

And and then, you know, just what I catch little clips on

social media or whatnot. Can you guys maybe give us some

insight into the the development of the solar industry over the

last decade and some of those technological changes?

And then maybe I know you guys are kind of in the middle of a

lot of governmental and regulation changes as well.

How has that affected your business to date and how does

that affect things moving forward?

We're going to need like probably two more.

Hours. Yeah, exactly.

Not in a in a high level the product and technology has hit

you know that that cross point, if you will on a graph of where

the cost of the product and what it can do and how long it can

last has definitely crossed the the return on investment

threshold that most. That was that was one of the big

questions, as I know, at least in the circles I'm in.

That was the thing for a long time was without the government

subsidies, solar doesn't make sense.

It doesn't pay for itself. But yeah, the technology is

finally caught up and we're kind of crossing that threshold now.

Yeah. So, so the cost of the product

has come down a fair amount. You know, competition, you have

worldwide manufacturing competition, inverters and

things like that. Panels really, I mean panels

basically last as long as you have them on your roof.

I mean, they're, they're now warranty to be 25 to 30 years

from the manufacturer against performance and defect failures.

So not much that goes wrong with them.

If they work from day one, they're probably going to last

you the 25 years. Inverter technology.

Inverter technology has come, you know, we're at a point where

we're talking about 99.8% round trip efficiency on inverter

equipment at Max capacity. I mean there's not much more you

can do to improve that. I think the next evolution in

our product is there are some different cell technologies that

are coming out, different chemistries and material makeups

that I think will eventually hit the market that can take us even

higher efficiency. But we've kind of peeked out

with what we have available today at a reasonable cost.

The other thing that's really evolved in our industry is

energy storage. So batteries in particular, we

do, we're one of the largest at least for the the Energy Trust

of Oregon or a partner with them or one of the largest battery

suppliers in the state of Oregon for home backup, you know,

resiliency type stuff. And that technology has had in

the last five years just billions and millions of dollars

invested in new chemistries, better and longer cycle counts

on your materials, better power doesn't really getting to a

point again, cost of energy per kW or storage has really gotten

to a point where do I want to spend the money on a generator

or do I want to spend just a little bit more on a battery.

We're kind of we're crossing that threshold.

And I think for me, it was the day that we found out that

Generac was investing in solar and specifically some storage.

That's when I kind of said, you know, they see it as much as

everybody else. And if those guys are that kind

of, I think that's yeah, I mean, that's really that's really on

the technology side. I mean, that's that's kind of

where we're at today, right? I don't know if you have

something else. Yeah.

No, that's that's kind of the the gist of it.

I think the next piece to your question is like subsidized

versus not subsidized. What does that look like from

the government standpoint? I will say that from day one,

Alex and I saw there was some benefit to having an FTICA

federal tax credit that was available for residential

customers for their solar and that tax credits always averaged

right around 30% different administrations over the last 10

years. It was, you know, a sliding

scale. At one point it teared up and

teared down, but overall it's roughly about 30% is what the

federal tax credit was for. For a customer.

That was a solid program that's been around.

However, we saw pretty early on the evolution of the technology

moving in this direction. And so I think Alex and I had a

pretty firm belief that this industry needs to stand on its

own 2 feet. And when those subsidies go

away, we need them to stay away, right?

And So what has happened here as of last year when the Trump

administration passed the big beautiful bill, they, they

daylighted that program and they, they, they finished it as

the end of 2025. There's no longer a federal tax

credit for residential customers.

Now there's been through the industry in a little bit of a

tailspin because of how it went about having it cut off.

Just have a dead stop. There was no type of phase out

initiative. It left manufacturers

scrambling. It left installers scrambling.

It had a huge upward pressure on on sales for the entire country

because people wanted to take advantage of this tax, tax

credit before the end of the year.

And so all of those things kind of made this perfect storm for

2025, right? But our thought was as the

industry evolves here and this tax credit fades out, the

competitiveness, the pricing, the quality of the installation,

the different product offerings, being able to be battery storage

or EV charging or these types of things that go along with a

solar product. Those are all important aspects

to the business and that can help you sustain something that

changes so quickly when something like the tax credit

drops out. Yeah.

One other comment around that is, you know, our relationship

to energy has changed a lot in the last 15 years.

And it used to be, you know, power was so cheap in Oregon.

Incandescent bolts, you know, baseboard heat, you can leave

stuff on, you can have a hot tub and it's still affordable.

Like our cost of power was so inexpensive.

And the way that we generated our power was, was, you know,

honestly very renewable hydroelectric and things that we

hopefully we never lose those due to politics and lobbyist

groups. But honestly, you know, coal

fire, natural gas, like we were doing the right things.

As the state has evolved in policy over the years and we've

started to remove some of those facilities, utilities cost of

power has gone up. It's gone up significantly.

And the biggest driver behind that has actually been

liability. The utilities really started to

wake up when we had the massive fires down in California and

PG&E basically got sued into bankruptcy in the state of

California, if I'm not mistaken, go in.

And basically that changed the liability and the responsibility

for utilities for to provide, you know, high quality, safe

power delivery. And if you look at Oregon's

infrastructure, like I think they've gone about it the right

way. Like let's, if it's not broke,

don't fix it, right? Like let's not spend extra money

that we don't have to. That has changed significantly

to where now everything has to be upgraded because you have you

have Transformers and power lines that have been out for 60

years that haven't changed. And there's new technology to

improve the reliability and the safety of that equipment.

And so, so that was kind of the the last 5-6 years we saw a lot

of, you know, increases, you know, Oregon was typically about

3% a year increase. So just keeping up with

inflation, we've seen anywhere from 18 to 25% annually for

about an average for about the last five years.

Data centers have played into this as much as anybody wants to

say the other day on that we've given away a lot of energy

infrastructure upgrades to the data centers and those that

operate the data centers and that has come back on the

ratepayers. It's, it's done, it's it was

kind of done without anybody knowing.

And so cost of energy I guess is what I'm getting at is it has

gone up a lot. And what we're now seeing is

that especially in business scenarios, which we do a lot of

commercial solar systems, is that a lot of your bill is

actually made-up not by the kilowatt hours that you consume,

but the amount of instantaneous power that's delivered to your

site. So like as an example, if I'm a

manufacturing facility, which is really common for us to go into

now, I may have you know, a $50,000 a month bill, but 25,000

2020, 5000 of that is due to the amount of peak current that I

demand at some point during the day, the week, the year.

And so I get charged a lot extra for the the utility to be ready

to deliver that in a moment's notice.

And so a lot of people don't understand that.

A lot of businesses don't understand that what they see is

my power went up 100% in 3-4 years.

I got to stop this. This is rating profits.

This is rating into my costs. And, and so now what we're

seeing is this evolution. I mean, as a company, we do

residential, that's what we started with.

We spun off about 3 years ago a commercial division.

That commercial division is, is scaling like crazy as businesses

become aware of how power cost them money and how they how they

use that power. Not only are we providing solar,

but we're providing battery infrastructure to mitigate

loads. We're looking into doing

capacitor bags for, you know, high, high discharge scenarios

and even working with the on site equipment to help regulate,

you know, how many loads get turned on at a given time to try

to keep us out of that, you know, that excess power demand.

So solar is a lot different than the average person thinks.

You know, the conservative mindset, the liberal mindset,

like hate that we're in that because out of that it's pure

form. We see ROI especially on

commercial now of anywhere from 3 1/2 years to you know, maybe

seven years. There's not many investments

businesses can make. They get you return on

investment like that. And then after that 3 1/2 to

seven years like every single year that power is virtually

free. People who are not aware of that

and it's awareness campaign doing now to get people to at

least look at their bill and say what what's going on here

because just paying that is you don't have to do that anymore.

So. Yeah, education of the.

Consumers is huge. Yeah.

It sounds like it. And so you said 3 1/2 to seven

years for most commercial applications.

Is it similar numbers for residential as well Residential.

Depends. Usually with commercial

buildings, you have a lot more space to put panels on.

So you can, you can pick the best or ideal, you know, roof

surface or ground mount, depending on the type of

business. Residential is a little tougher

because you're dealing with smaller footprints and so

usually a lot more roof pitches in different directions.

And so ideally we want to be South facing roof at about 3035°

in Oregon. That's, that's kind of our peak,

if you will. And so if you're able to

accomplish that on a typical roof residential, even without

the the tax credit, we're still in the six to probably about 10

years is kind of the the maximum that we want to go after.

I mean, if somebody's like, hey, this is never going to pay you

back unless you have some other ulterior motive, like it doesn't

make sense, right? We have lots of trees.

We have a lot of, you know, a lot of things that sometimes we

can't make that project work, but it's about 6 to 10 years on

average. And that's without, you know,

again, without the tax credit, which to Brian's point, like tax

credits just bring bad actors in your opinion?

I've watched, we've watched this industry for, for, again, 10

years. And tax credits, all they do is

they bring higher prices unnecessarily and they bring

people in that just want to make, I guess, money.

Yeah. And we're kind of glad the

administration finally put a stop to this.

I'm a little concerned it'll be brought back if we have, you

know, administration change guarantee, it brings back

companies that you know, shouldn't be involved in this

industry. It's, it's satisfying to see

like even in 2026, we're still selling residential work, we're

selling commercial work. So like it's, it's proven itself

to us that it's going to continue and it's going to stay.

Yeah, tax credits are not needed in solar.

And you're we're probably like the two of the two of the guys

that you'll hear, like probably the only two guys you'll ever

hear say, yeah, I'm your new one.

I don't, I don't want us to be tied to this anymore.

And if it comes back and guarantee it just brings back.

Billions of dollars are in this industry and it's it can stand

on its own 2 feet. There's adjustments made by

every company from from the biggest manufacturer down to the

smallest installer. But the reality is it levels it

out. It puts us in a good position.

And then it's going to promote better performers, people that

want to be around for the long run quality that that goes a

long way. So that's how we.

Feel. Yeah.

Well, that's yeah, I love hearing from somebody kind of

inside the industry that then knows a little bit more because

I said most of my information comes from social media or

unreliable sources and we get to hear it straight from the

horse's mouth here. So I think hearing what you guys

said, it sounds like the solar maybe would not have been as

politicized as it has without the tax credit.

If it indeed can stand on its own 2 feet and is now cost

effective. There's probably a lot of people

that were not really excited about it that would get on

board, like you said, just getting customers educated and

and people educated on where it's going and what it can do.

Percent. Yeah, that's great.

All right, Well, dive back into your guys's process of building

the business. We talked a lot about getting

started and a little bit about solar before we do that.

Actually, I had one other question, I guess your typical

solar install, Alex, you mentioned you're adding

batteries and new technology has come in that's improved and

maybe just change the installs. What does a typical install look

like? What does the system look like

and how does it work for somebody that just doesn't

understand at all? Well, why don't I talk about

part of it and then brand can maybe maybe hit the technical,

you know, I we get asset all the time, right?

What's this going to cost? I always tell people what's

about the remodel or kitchen remodel, like it can be 20

grand, it can be 150. That's so it really depends on

the site and it depends on the end goal of the the consumer,

the business that's buying it. What we typically see in our

market and this is not indicative of all markets.

It's also not indicative of all companies.

We see average systems, just solar, they can be in the

twenty, $25,000 range up to somebody that is consuming, you

know, enough power to probably power two or three homes, you

know, this could be over $1000. So it really just depends on the

consumers use power, how much. And then again if you're adding

batteries into that mix, you know, we primarily in Oregon.

So Oregon and Washington actually are very similar

because we operate in Washington as well.

We are one to one net meter utility jurisdiction.

So any power that's produced is calculated or tracked as

kilowatt hours. It's put back on the grid or

it's consumed at the home site locally.

And our utilities basically interchange those kilowatt hours

with us and they bank credit, but the credit is not dollars,

it's kilowatt hours. And so because of that, we are

not required to have batteries to make solar work.

So a lot of our customers are buying soul with batteries for

the resiliency component. Brian, get in more of the

technology. But essentially, we're able to

now provide power indefinitely to a consumer that has lost

power, whether it's a massive outage, if it's a, you know,

it's a clot, you know, catastrophic event where, you

know, you know, in Oregon, we have fear of major earthquakes

and knocking out bridges and power systems.

These systems can't literally power your home for as long as

the sun is still shining. And what's crazy about that is

like, we both have systems at our homes, like, we both have

batteries. We've both gone through, you

know, up to seven days, six days worth of outages.

And like it was amazing to be able to prove that this actually

can work. I actually have a little tiny

home that runs off solar and batteries.

And it's been that way for a better part of a year.

So if the technology is there and the reliability is now

there. And so it's like I said, there's

some benefits into that kind of depends on the consumer.

But Brian, you can probably touch more on the on the other

side of that. Yeah.

I think to simplify it, people look at solar and battery as a A

compatible product that we can use to do what Alexis says,

provide resiliency and energy independence.

That's what our focus is here. Now we're going to speak to our

market specifically in the Northwest.

It is different in a Southern market.

It's different down in Southern California and down in Arizona.

Yeah, a lot more sunny days. And it does affect things what

people say to us all the time. So I didn't even know that solar

could work, you know, in the in the Northwest, because when you

get so much rain, you get so many clouds, right.

And the simplest way say, well, you get sunburned at the beach

even when it's cloudy, right. So you have UV rays that still

come through the technology and the absorption levels of the

cell technology on a solar panel are constantly improving but are

really, really good. So you're able to pick up in low

light conditions. You are still able to generate

generate energy. So that's in a nutshell why it

still works here, right? Same exact concept.

We may have to have a little bit larger system maybe down in

California. A normal home needs 10 panels to

operate and offset someones power bill on their 1500 square

foot house. Right up here, we're looking at,

let's say we have to add maybe three or four more panels to do

the exact same thing, right? That's kind of where.

I'm assuming that that would be better there in the Northwest.

You guys are kind of you're almost testing like the worst

case scenario. So if you're seeing a 3 1/2 to 7

year pay out in the Northwest, those times would probably

shorten in other parts of the country.

Is that accurate? Yes, what the detail behind it

is really what I was going into, which is about 98% of the solar

customers out there are interconnected with the utility

grid, right. You got to get approval if

you're going to be tied into a utility grid that's going to

help offset your your bill in any way, shape or form.

Alex mentioned before in the Northwest they have a one to one

net metering program. What that looks like is

essentially for every kWh that you produce, you can offset

something that you can consume and they just do that at a

direct one to one ratio. Now other parts of the country,

specifically down South, because the solar is so good, the

utilities actually have to, they have different requirements in

place there. They maybe give you only a

portion of what that value of a kWh is worth or they have time

of use profiles, which would be we're going to charge you more

money for your power supply to your home during the peak hours

of the day where most people are using it.

And we charge you less in, you know, at midnight when no one is

using it, right. And So what that's led to is

it's not a direct correlation to having like the same type of ROI

and then directly dropping that down for someone, let's say in

Southern California or in Arizona or in Texas.

It's really based on the utility that you are interconnected

with. So if everything was just one to

one across the country, the answer would be yes.

It would be a direct correlation to seeing a much faster rate of

return for areas that get more power, more generation through

sunlight in a given year, right. So the reason why it is still

very viable for the Northwest is because we have a favorable net

metering policy and then as well as the ability to have

batteries. And the batteries were really

started down in Southern California to help offset the

time of use situation that's going on.

If there was no solar present and you had a let's use a Tesla

Powerwall, their very first version so to speak, as an

example, down in Southern California, that's where they

rolled out and they're essentially a battery that's

attached. The premise is I'm going to

charge this battery from the utility grid when my power is

the cheapest at midnight. And then it's 7:00 PM the next

day when everyone's using their power and the cost of power is

so high. I'm going to actually use the

battery power that I've stored and apply that to what I'm

consuming in my home to keep the cost down.

So that was that was the kind of first evolution of batteries.

Now batteries are at a point where you can have different

profiles set up for that based on the pay scales and the

metering schedules that are available to you at each

utility. You have them up here where that

time of use isn't as prevalent in the valley where we're at.

And so most people use solar and more of a resiliency standpoint

for an outage, for storms, for those type of emergency

situations and just being able to have some Peace of Mind for

the reliability and energy independence in case that wasn't

available. So that's kind of how how it

works technology wise. The very simplest terms, you

have those solar panels that are absorbing UV and they're

creating DC electricity, right, DC power just like you would

have in your car battery. And then that power has to be

inverted into AC. That is what is used in all of

our homes across the country and our commercial facilities.

So that inverting technology is different amongst different

manufacturers, but it's the simplest form.

There's a, an inverter, a brain of the operation that's going to

invert that power from DC and turn it into AC.

Now Alex said before the technology has come a long way

where in the past the efficiency of being able to do that would

you would lose a lot in heat, right?

That that cost energy to be able to, to do that.

So you would lose a lot in heat dissipation and losses

essentially. And now the inverting technology

out there is in 9899% efficiency levels across most

manufacturers. And so because of that, you get

to see a true conversion that's taking place from AC to DC.

And so, yeah. And then there's the same

concept with batteries. You can have batteries that are

connected on the AC side of a grid, or it can be connected on

the DC side. And what that allows that to do

is you can have your solar panels directly feed into your

batteries and charge those batteries first, then come

through the inverting components and turn it to power used in the

home. So that allows like a direct

correlation there, which minimizes a loss that takes

place when there's no conversion that has to take place from DC

to AC going into the battery. Or you can have a battery that's

set up on the AC side of that. You'd have your inverter that's

already inverting the power to AC and then goes into the

battery from there and then can be consumed at any given time

for the the customer's needs. So kind of real basic terms,

that's how the structures laid out across every every state,

every country. And that's kind of where it sits

based on where you live, really based on your ROI and how your

utility connection is made. OK.

And so in areas where the trade off with the power company is

less favorable, I guess you guys don't necessarily work in those

markets. But is it more common to see

people utilizing batteries to go almost entirely off grid in

those markets? Is there still a payout if you

just forgo the grid altogether and do your own power with

batteries and solar? Yeah, it's, it's, it's dependent

on the utility cost driving rate to the to the rate payer.

But like California get it is is kind of the leading example.

Obviously California cost of energy is is, but there's no,

there's no incentive to be off grid.

Off grid is like you pull the meter out, you're never touching

the grids electric again that that's not what anybody should

do. You always want to to at least

be connected to the grid. But but yes, you have to add

batteries to basically site store the energy that you

produce so that you can use it at, you know, at a different

time. And then of course, you know, if

if you run out of juice out of the battery, you can still buy

it. It's usually at night when power

is the, you know, at the least cost.

And then you're resuming, you know, the next day you're

picking back up with with your solar.

So it can be done. It is done every day.

It's obviously more a little bit more expensive because you have

extra equipment. But we are headed towards, you

know, battery technology again has gotten to be so much more

reliable than used to cost per kWh has come down.

We're heading into solid-state technology.

So batteries that are they really have very little

electrolyte. They have high, high energy

densities for storage and they're going to be produced at

a much lower cost. And one of those, which is if

anybody can check this out on like, you know, Wall Street

Journal or any, any publication, but we have a sodium ion based

battery that's hitting the market in, in the EV industry.

And it's, you know, it's being made in, in China.

But those batteries, the energy density and the cost to produce

those, it's in the neighborhood of about 100 times less

expensive to produce than our current cell chemistry today.

So we're entering this period where again, I'm, I'm telling

you, every six months, you know, there's something new coming out

change it hits before people know it.

But their BYD is the, is the auto manufacturer, the, the

batteries made by CATL, which is the largest battery manufacturer

in the world. They're, they're now charging

those batteries. They can charge, you can charge

an EV with that battery up to 80% in about 4 to 5 minutes.

So about the same time it takes to fill up your car with

gasoline or diesel, they're now able to do that with EV, EV

charging. The issue is power delivery.

Of course, it's, it's takes an immense amount of power to

deliver that. But my point is, is that we in

the next, I think five years, it'll be, we'll be at a point

where you do not have to interconnect with the utility.

If you if you chose not to, you'll be able to provide that

power reliably for a long time at the same cost or potentially

even lower as that technology advances.

So that's why I like again, as we look at the industry, yeah,

this is, this is a little rough patch with the incentive change

and stuff like that. But we're, we're still headed

towards energy independence. So I think you're going to run

into, you know, utilities instead of provide providing a

lot of energy to all the homes that they interchange with.

You're probably going to pay more for just being connected

and interchanging with your neighbor, right?

Yeah, I think some of that will change.

Interesting. Yeah, that's really interesting.

And do you guys in your business, do you combine like

solar and wind? And I know there's some some

small residential sized windmills and that kind of thing

out there. Do you ever incorporate those or

do you do strictly solar? We're we're pretty much strictly

solar when I mean winds, not a bad option if especially if you

have it right, it's a little harder to rely on because you

don't know, you know, seasonality.

Yes, there is some of that, but like if you're in a high wind

area, absolutely you could have, you know, you can have a wind

based energy, you know, the innovator.

It's a little harder to interconnect with on the

equipment side because it there's not really anybody

making reliable wind equipment in the US for a consumer grade

product. So you're buying, you know, a

lot of foreign Chinese product and it's a little harder to to

get reliable, you know, AC voltage out of those.

Yeah, not, not. We don't really get into that

too much. Especially at the small consumer

level or or even the small to medium manufacturing level as

well, right. Like we're if you're talking

utility scale, wind farm, those types of things like obviously

that's out there, that's been talked about a lot.

But at the back, at the root, you know, where we're at, it's

not as as prevalent. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, we're, I live on top of a hill above a lake in Wyoming, So

certain months out of the year, you know, 50 mile an hour winds.

That's just Tuesday. Right might be a good solution

for you. Yeah, for a part of the year

anyway. Yeah.

So, all right, Well, we we talked a lot about solar in

general and your guys's background.

Let's let's dive into your business a little bit.

What has been the most difficult step so far building your

business? Do you got one in mind?

I I got one in mind. Where do you start?

Yeah. So I think at an earlier stage,

the most difficult step was structuring the company in a way

that would had to be based off the numbers.

Like I said at the beginning, when you're starting a company,

you're hands on, you're in it all the time.

You're, you're usually producing the final product for most

people, right? Like as small business owners,

that's what you do. And so it's very easy to say,

hey, I produced 10 widgets and, and they've made us money and I

have a little bit of a margin on each one and, and we move on

from there. But there's so much more to

projecting and where you need to be at and where you see the

company at. And so when we started to put

that in alignment, you know, year 4, year five of the

company, we had to take the step to say, we need to get someone

in who we can work with on a daily or weekly basis, help us

align the financials better, educate us further on what we

should be looking at from a financial standpoint, a healthy

financials on the business. And so that process, it really

took like a year and a half for us to be locked into the right

thing, have the right pieces in place with the right people and

understand our business health from a financial standpoint.

And then once we were able to have that and we were able to

relay that to our team as we put in, you know, goals and growth

strategy and what areas do we need to focus, I think that

became a lot smoother for the company.

And it was not as strenuous on Alex and I as the owner.

Kind of, hey, we had a good month and then we had a bad

month or we had a seasonality change, right?

It's really great in the summertime and then it sucks

when it comes to winter time, right?

Like if you know that there's some seasonality to your

business 1, you can do things to try to offset that seasonality.

You can diversify your offerings as a company, but at the same

time we can plan for that and make sure that we are being

smart with the way that we handle our cash flow and those

types of things to sustain the business during maybe where we

see some slower sales seasons and those types of things.

So I think that was probably the biggest hurdle that we faced

initially. But now that we're kind of over

it and we have a really good system in place as to how we

review those financials and and what we work off of, it's been a

real a blessing. I think so you mentioned earlier

that you know a lot of roofing companies are going to kind of

outside install resources. You know, our our industry

because of what we do, it's, it's a lot more technical.

There are companies such a national players that do the

outsourced, you know, how certain install kind of arm.

What we run into with that is like there's so much liability

in the product. And so, you know, punching holes

in somebody's roof, high voltage DC electricity filled components

filled, you know, system downtime, if you will.

What we actually have done with that and that and I'll get to my

point here in a little bit. We, we developed a service

division that it literally just takes care of people that fall

in their faces or can't, can't get reliable service where the

equipment was installed incorrectly.

So we're kind of capitalizing that on the back end.

But we believe in the product so much that we want to make sure

that it is, it is done reliably. It's done the same way every

time. So that when we say, you know,

this is a 25 plus year system, we, we truly believe it'll last

25 years plus. And I have, we have systems from

10 years ago that are humming right along that don't have any

issues. So I think we've learned that

efficiency of people and processes is what makes us

better than somebody that's grown at 300% a year.

When you're in high growth every year, all year long, your

business becomes focused on growing.

And when, when the market corrects or there's changes like

tax credits, you don't know how to run just a normal day-to-day

stable business. Your business is set up to grow

at 300%. And so for us, you know, again,

we've done stable growth, you know, the last 10 years.

Part of that that we've developed again is optimizing

each position in the company so that if I'm a salesperson, let's

say sales people in other companies, they will be knocking

doors, they'll be closing deals, they'll be doing their

proposals, they're scheduling their site audits, they're

signing their contracts. They do a lot of things that may

not be really what's maximizing your skill.

And so for us, we've, we've tried to hone in on each

position and each stage of our workflow having as as much

automation and, and optimization as possible.

And so that has been a big challenge.

It's been in multiple years of going through iterations of

changes and tweaks. We're still in the middle of

evolving in our software stack. That honestly is probably been

the second largest difficulty is, is getting software to work

the way that you need it reliably because we rely on that

so heavily to to make it sufficient.

So, you know, evolution of the company, evolution of the

market, like it's one of the things that we continue to

invest a lot of time and resources in.

Because if I can have one less employee or arguably do one

more, you know, volume worth of employee without that employee,

if you want to look at it on a class is half full, then then I

have to we have to continue to optimize, you know, our back end

systems and the way that we operate internally.

And so that's that to me has been, it's been one of the

biggest feats. And like you want to focus on

other things because they're easier.

But the reality is like that project will probably never

completely go away, but it's probably one of the most

valuable things that we can do as a business to stay relevant

and stay profitable. The business isn't profitable.

It doesn't help anyone, right? I think a lot of people get this

misconception that the the business owners are, you know,

they're driving around in a Ferrari and they just have all

everything. They just, every dollar that's

made goes back to the owner and I think it's easy to get that

perception, but in reality it's it's just not the case.

Like we have to run a profitable business to allow our employees

to have better quality of life, better quality of work, right.

And so, yeah, everyone here seems to understand that, you

know, and we want a team atmosphere.

I think we probably share a lot more than what a lot of other

companies do when it comes to where we sit from a financial

position in the company, just to give that transparency to our

employees and to our customers on where we're where we're

trying to go. It's a key core value to our

company is transparency. And so Alex and I try to make

sure we're living by that as we operate and run the business.

So our executive team, they know those metrics, they know where

we're sitting right now. They know why if this month was

not profitable, the importance of why the next month has to be

right. And because we have to be able

to do more with with less physical resources and AKA, you

know, labor is the most expensive part of any business.

But then that means that we can continue to breed better quality

of life for our employees as well as develop better quality

employees, right? Like they do more specialized in

what they do and whether they end up staying with us for a

long time or they move on to something else, they can get the

best experience for them as an employee working for us.

So that they're kind of hyper focused in their quality of

work. So that that's, I don't know, I

think that's really important for people to understand.

Oh yeah, you nailed a couple things there that you

articulated well that have been big things for me.

I know I used to chat with my employees regularly that we live

in a low bid, low cost industry. If you want to make more money

than other people in other companies, the way we do that is

by being more efficient than those other companies.

In order to pay more than everybody else pays, we have to

get more work done than everybody else gets done.

And yeah, becoming skilled at your craft, becoming efficient,

focusing on that is a big way to do that.

And I like that the companies exist to make a profit.

And you know that that sounds a little harsh or a little

calloused, but without profit, they don't create jobs.

Without profit, they don't serve customers.

Without profit, they don't innovate industries and.

So, you know, like that is the core of everything they do.

And there's so much positive that comes from a healthy,

profitable business that does provide jobs and a good standard

of living and can provide benefits and take care of their

employees and, you know, has money for research and

development and innovation in their field and can get out and

serve their customers well and provide good services.

That all comes from a healthy financial foundation, a company

that's bankruptcy after going out of business, you don't get

any of that. So yeah, I appreciate that.

That was a great way to articulate all of it.

When were you most afraid as a leader?

We never afraid. What are you talking about?

Me. You know, it's funny.

I was actually talking to my wife about this the other night.

We had some, some friends over and you know, this, this

perception of owning a business, especially to somebody that's

not in, you know, an entrepreneur has owned a

business before is like, man, you know, all the liability and

the stress and like, how do you, how do you live, you know, a

normal life? And it's like you just learn

that most of your problems will resolve themselves now, not not

without effort, of course, but you have successes and those

problems will go away with time. And you can rely on those past

successes to dictate your future successes.

And so I think for me, you know, the things that I would stress

out about, I mean, I remember the first time I got a letter

from an attorney or we got a letter from an attorney for

something ridiculous, right? And I'm like, Oh my gosh, you

know, we're getting sued for $1000.

Like this is this is bad. And, you know, we, you have

successes in those trials and then you build upon those

successes and you know, there's not really a need or maybe even

AI don't feel like I, I shoved the fears down deep and, you

know, box them up and kind of forget about them.

But there's not a need to to worry about, you know, the

things that are kind of outside your control because time is

dictated that we're going to be successful.

And I think because, you know, again, Brian and I are willing

to look at, you know, innovation and change.

And we're in a very heavily, you know, they call it the solar

coaster because there's so many things changing all the time.

We stomach that, but we also, we get ahead of it.

We think all the time about what's next, what can we do,

what's what's coming, what's changing.

And so staying on our feet and being aware has made us, you

know, we've been able to ride through all the, all the

challenges, the dips and come out on top.

And I, you know, I grew up in, in the sheet metal industry,

like I worked for my dad for, I mean, all through high school.

And you know, there's challenges in every business.

But man, solar is, is just, there's so much that changes all

the time that we've had to become like, if there's one

skill I've developed, it's the ability to, to change to, to

redirect the business if we need to, and to make tweaks along the

way to keep us relevant. And so honestly, I think that's,

you know, owning the business or roofing company, you probably

understand or anybody listening, that's a skill, it's a it can be

a fear, but that's a skill that if you can overcome like you're

unstoppable in that in that case, so.

Adaptability is is huge to core, core value of our company as

well. And yeah, I'd say I don't

remember who said it, but it really it, it's really about

just getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

You know, that's where that's where Alex and I live at now.

When people ask, how do you do it?

Oh, there's, you know, there's so much pressures.

You've got, you know, 40-50 employees.

You have all this stuff that's going on all the time.

You just learn to be comfortable in it.

And understand, like Alex said, you live off off of the

successes, right? You're going to have some

failures. You're going to have some things

that are going to happen, but you're going to overcome them

and you're going to learn and you're going to move on and try

not to repeat. As long as you're not repeating

the same mistake over and over again, you're good, right?

If it's a new mistake, that's fine.

That's part of growing and learning every single business.

I listen to a podcast with, uh, Jensen, I forget his last name

from NVIDIA, right? Like he the founder of NVIDIA,

that dude thing. You're bankrupted that company

10 times, you know, and it was, but then now it's massive.

It's the, it's a huge innovator in the world, right?

So there's not going to be failures in your, in your

business. And I think just accepting the

fact that there is a way to fail forward and, and just trying not

to repeat the same mistakes, I think that's really, really

important, Alex. They both came from, grew up

playing sports and had an athletic background.

We like to hire ex athletes. Those are the, the type of

mentality I think that really goes a long way in business to

understand that as long as we're failing forward, we're, we're in

a good spot and we can learn from from those and turn them

into successes. So I'm in complete agreeance

there with with Alex on that. Oh man, that's a great

perspective. And there were times leading my

business that I felt that way, that oh man, we haven't failed

yet. This is just the next problem.

I was not able to maintain that mindset all the time.

There's always a bigger problem and a next problem that we've

never faced before, so. Yeah.

Good for you guys. I think, yeah, thinking back

now, if I could maintain that attitude more frequently, life

would be a lot smoother, a lot better and more enjoyable.

So is there something that significantly delayed the growth

of your business that you would do differently?

Yeah, it's funny. We we're kind of at this point

So, so I won't give specifics, but we we did, we did around

2023 million last year in total right now, OK, that's between

Oregon and Washington. So our company is not big by any

means, but we're, I would say we're not small anymore.

What we really haven't like where we want to be is

definitely different than where we are today.

And for this, this week we were talking about, you know, we

talked to our, our leadership team specifically about like,

what do we want to do? Are are we good with just being

at this size? Do we want to maintain at this

size? Like what, what do you, because

our leadership team is, you know, they're, it's a couple

individuals and us and you know, we look at them as part of the

business and they make and they help us keep make key strategic

decisions. And I think, I think the

consensus is like, hey, the market's opening back up like

competitions falling, big national players.

I mean, if you follow any of the news about, you know, solar,

solar, the solar industry at all, I mean, we're talking about

hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollar a year

companies built up to a billion. I mean, I think one of the

biggest was almost a billion dollars in volume gone, you

know, and so for us, we're we're like, hey, this is going to open

the market back up and there's going to be less competition.

It's hard to operate solar in general.

So like it's good to see these companies that were doing it

shitty ways for the last 20 years, like they needed to go,

they did. We're not serving the customer

well. And I think you know, we we are

now in this period of like we can grow.

We could do 40 million, we could do 50 million.

There's some things that we're going to have to change to get

there. But I think honestly that's been

one of the most difficult as of late challenges is like knowing

how to hit that next, you know that next step.

I feel like we're at the bottom, you know, the bottom of the next

step and we keep just running into that, you know, that that

riser board and that big leap that we want to take.

I know it's going to require some changes.

It's going to be uncomfortable for for all of us, but we see

the opportunity. We see the industry, like I

said, the technology, the battery storage, like there's so

many things coming down the line that if we can continue to

evolve and do it the right way that we can prove, you know, to

ourselves and maybe, you know, potential investment partners

down the road, like it can be done.

We can be healthy, we can make profit and we don't have to be

teeter tottering constantly on verge of bankruptcy.

I mean that's that's what the industry is going through right

now. So I think that's right now,

like the last couple years, like that's been our focus and it's,

it's just hard to hit the go button sometimes I think and,

and actually make it happen because you, you kind of hold on

to like, hey, this is always the way we've done things or you

know, we don't want to take this risk.

And I and I think that we're at that point where we've got that

next big leap in our future. Yeah, I'd agree.

It's the, it's we're at the size where the next step is a step

where a lot of people, a lot of resources that we know other

business entrepreneurs and owners, we're kind of moving

beyond where their knowledge base is, right.

And we're moving to a different, you know, category, a different

volume level that requires significant amount of change.

So how we, how we tackle that is really going to really project

the success that we can have here in the next, you know, 3-4

years. Yeah, OK, well, I'll be excited

to get an update here in a few years and see how you guys have

overcome that and and where you're at.

It sounds like you're just growing like crazy and on a

great track. Is there a lesson that you wish

you would have learned earlier? I'm.

Probably going to beat a dead horse here, but from the

beginning it's, it's about mind your financials.

You know, that's the biggest, that was the biggest one.

If you can start the business with a clear path to visibility

on your financials and run your business off the financials.

So we always say this to employees and the people that we

talked with, right? Like Alex and I feel 1 certain

way as individuals and people, but the business is its own

person, right? And the business has its own

needs and it, and it has its own wants.

And those sometimes don't align with what Alex and I feel

personally. But we have to lead with what is

the business need. And so if that means the

business can't afford to have two extra people, then those two

extra people cannot be with the business, right?

If it means that we need to gear up to 10 more people, then we

need to do that and make sure that we can handle the volume

that comes through. And so the only way to do that

effectively is to know your financial position as a company.

And so I would say that from an early on stage, I get it, the

first year, maybe the first year or two, it can be a whirlwind

when you start a business and all you really care about is

like, I just landed that big project.

That big project was $25,000, right?

Like that was huge. And we knocked that project out

and that was awesome. And we did $200,000 in business

this year. And that was killer, right?

But you go back and look at it, well, I paid myself, you know,

50 grand of that. And then we did this and I

didn't really mind the materials on that job as well as I could

have. And then by the time you look at

it, it's like, well, maybe I made 4% on 200,000, right?

Is that going to sustain my ability to say, I feel like I

want to hire two more people to help me get the next two

$100,000 in work? Well, probably at 4%, that's not

right. And so those are the things and

you just make gut decisions those first couple years.

And that's why we see that high attrition of businesses failing,

starting and failing, starting and failing in the first five

years. And I thoroughly believe it has

to do with the lack of financial understanding of how the

business needs to perform. So that's my biggest learners.

Understand your business financials, your business is its

own person and provide that own person with the needs.

As long as you live by that, you can sustain a healthy business

moving in the right direction. Yeah, that's good.

My mind would be to honestly, it's to stay, to stay humble

like Brian and I have done, I feel like well over the years,

but I mean, there's guys have done much better than us.

And I think that sometimes you become too prideful in the way

that you're doing things, the the processes, the systems that

you've come up with, you become stagnant to a point where you're

not open to really looking at change.

And I think that having pride or or at least not being open for

change has has bit us in the butt where if we had, you know,

maybe listen to an employee who brought up a valid, you know,

valid case. Like we tell people all the time

our employees were like, we have an open door.

If you want to knock on the door and come in and share a thought.

If you want to tell me that I'm a terrible boss, like do it

because I'm going to do the same with you.

And so if I'm, if I'm going to sit here and tell you you're not

performing well, it's really not fair that you don't get to do

that back with me if it's, if it's valid.

And so I think, you know, our, our employees bleed green, you

know, our, our logo screens, just little context.

Yeah. Like, like we, we are small biz.

They're still that kind of family atmosphere.

We're definitely like, well, you know, again, it's, we're

structured and people have responsibilities, those

positions, but it's being humble and, and willing to listen and

make changes because we don't always have the answers.

And what we're doing today may not, may not work tomorrow.

There's a lot of things that we could have avoided if we had

just made changes sooner or delayed, you know, again,

progress of the business. But those are the things that I

wish I could go back and change time because I maybe we'd be at

40 million, you know, this year. But that's, that's what you

learned. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, thanks guys.

Is there a viewpoint or an opinion that you once held

strongly and you've changed your mind about throughout the

process of starting and building your business?

That's a tough one. I used to think Brian was a bad

poker player, but we. Found that out quick, I think.

I think that for me it's probably.

I'm sorry, Eric, can you repeat that so I can understand a

little better? I don't want to say something

stupid. Is there an opinion or a

viewpoint that you once held strongly and you've changed your

mind about as you started and built your business?

So maybe a way that you looked at something or just an opinion

that you had that throughout your experience, You're like, oh

man, no, I was wrong about that. Yeah, I think it's I can do it

myself. That's, that's that's the answer

in my opinion for years and still in a lot of facets of my

life. I think that, well, I'm just

going to do it myself, right, and take care of it.

And I think that mentality is one that is needed in a lot of

positions and business. But at the same time, as you

grow and as we develop as a company, it is not sustainable

to be that. I'm going to do it myself, guy,

because you have resources at your disposal that you need to

help lean on. It hurts your team if you're I'm

a do it myself guy. It doesn't allow them to to grow

in their positions. You know, it's really important

as leaders that we're always trying to find a way to remove

ourselves, work ourselves out of a position, right?

If I'm actively involved in a specific piece of the operations

department as well as trying to lead the operations team, I need

to find a way to make sure that I can either train someone and

put someone in place to do that role that I'm doing inside of

the operations department, or create a new role and put

someone in place to do that so that I can do a better job of

leading the operations department.

And so I think that would be the biggest one.

I think when you're young and scrappy and you're just new as a

business, I can do it myself is a is a great attitude.

I think as you begin to mature, you have to understand where

that line is drawn and where you need to rely on your resources,

your connections, your your, your employees, your

subcontractors to build a quality set up for you and your

business. Yeah, great.

I would probably. Honestly, that was the same

thing that came to my mind is I had very much the same like

small business entrepreneur. It's really easy to get.

I mean, there's you see it all the time.

You see businesses and and owners that are that are doers

and they can be successful. You know, they can be, they can

be wildly successful. I think that, you know, when,

when we set out to do this, we didn't know, we didn't really

know how big this was going to get and what the industry was

going to do. And so it was that evolution of

it's time for me to give up things because I'm a roadblock,

not not a I'm not a conduit, right.

And I see that all the time, unfortunately, like I wanted to

do all the IT for the business. I wanted to develop our

software. I wanted to be IT support.

I wanted to, you know, I wanted to know the product in and out.

And there was a point, you know, just, it was a few years ago

that somebody came up to me, one of our manager.

So I was like, I can do this better than you.

And I know that's hard to hear. I can do this better than you

need to focus on other things. And I was like, you're right,

it's inevitable. So I'm glad that those

conversations have been had. I'm glad that again, our

employees are willing to come up and talk to us about that

because they're looking out for the business.

It'd be just as easy for something to say.

Well, I'm going to let that, you know, guy that sits up there

make mistakes. I don't really care.

I'm collecting paycheck. Like I don't have any of that

here. Everybody here is, you know,

they're on the right seat and they're on the right bus.

And yeah, and it's really important that, you know, you

build your business around that. So that'd be mine as well.

OK man, you guys are full of great advice.

If you could go back and start all over, would you choose to do

so? Would you do it again?

Oh yeah, and a heartbeat for sure.

I don't know if I could ever, I don't know if I can ever work

for someone again. And so whatever that looked

like, I think Alex probably feels fairly similar.

We have no problem, you know, working together with people,

but having the flexibility to do what we want to do inside of our

industry, inside of our business.

I think that's really, it's probably a key attribute to

everyone who is an entrepreneur, right?

It doesn't mean it's easy and that's there's a lot of failure

involved, but I would do it. I would do it in a heartbeat.

I think we would do it differently for sure.

And we could see more successes earlier and less roadblocks.

But yeah, 100%, I think Alex and I would do it over again.

I mean, we, we gave up doing other businesses that we thought

that we loved to focus on one that was more of a long shot

because we we were willing to to see that the value add to an

industry as well as a value add to each other as as business

partners. Yeah, it'd be the same I think.

I think the non complacency, if that's even a word of this, of

this career of this industry has has developed a lot of extra

skill that I don't I don't think I would have gotten maybe in

another industry. You know, I, I feel like the

things that we've learned in this, whether whether we're here

for another 10 years or, you know, whatever that looks like,

we we have some goals, we have some plans, but I know that I

could sit down. I probably wouldn't start a

business again. I think I'm kind of like that,

that first four years, like I know it can be done, but like

it's time to buy a company, right?

Like that's really what my next, you know if.

If we're not here at some point, that would be my next thing, the

skill set that we've developed and then going back to that

attitude of like problems or not, we're going to be

successful. I, I truly think that we've

developed, you know, these skills that could be applied to

other industries. And I know I would be successful

in those. So yeah, the, the, the learned,

the learned skills that I think we got out of being in a

stressful environment has made for Better Business owners and

future business owners of other, you know.

Yeah, I think you're like the third or fourth person I've

talked to just in the last couple weeks that was a startup

entrepreneur and said, Oh yeah, if I had to do it again, I'd buy

a business instead of starting from scratch.

Yeah, well, this it takes time or it takes a lot of money to to

rapidly expand a business. And so I think, you know, you're

going to pay for it one way or another at this point, like my

kids and my family time are more important to me than sleeping

for the office, for, you know, for sales, like if it's doesn't

doesn't work. So that's that's probably why.

I think that's probably the case for every one of those people

I've talked to is when they were young and had no money and had

the time, they went through the grind and the startup.

And, you know, I think they're probably happy with the decision

they made, but if they're going to do it again, they're just not

willing to put that in again. Different, different phase of

life. What has been your biggest win

as a leader? What are you most proud of?

You know. I don't know if this is the only

one, but it's it's being able to see.

It's being able to see, I guess our employees reach new heights

and new potential. Again, like you bring people in,

they're in this too with you and they're developing their own

skill sets and, you know, advancing and changing and

evolving their career. It's, it's rewarding to watch a

certain individuals kind of and they, they come here, they're 18

years old, 19 years old, they have no career.

They start out in the warehouse. They started as a field laborer

or maybe somebody in the office and, and being able to see them

advance their skill set to find new skills that like they're

actually really good at that they didn't know about.

And then sit down with them and be like, you have something

here. And if you want to pursue this,

like I'm, I'm here to, I'm here to support you and maybe put you

in a new role. But like this, you could go

somewhere with this long term. This is a skill that you have

and you need to develop. I think being able to see that

has been has been really rewarding as a as a business

owner. Yeah, I agree.

It has to do with the the ability for the people that we

work with to, to grow and kind of come into their own into into

their roles. It's kind of like a parent,

right? You get to see your kids grow up

and you get proud of them for making their goals and getting

the A's on the report card and stuff like that.

I think that's the most rewarding as well.

We've seen several people just hit those, hit those strides and

and come into their own as leaders.

I think it's probably even more so for people who are stepping

out of maybe a, a physical role that has them maybe working with

one or two people and, and they have tasks that they're doing

everyday, right? I'm thinking more field, field

type of position here. Or even someone who's like just

specializing in, in doing permitting applications, right

from an office standpoint. And then those people elevating

themselves into roles that eventually lead to leadership

roles where now you're in charge of, you're in charge of other

people, right? And those skills that you

learned are able to be passed down and you're able to now get

kind of boned up on your ability to lead those people and show

them the right way to go about it.

I have a couple people in mind inside of our company that I

think have had a fantastic job of transitioning from a kind of

a solo minded worker into a real leadership role and earning the

trust of their employees and the people that report to them.

And, and because of that, we've been successful because of those

people. That's great, I love it.

Almost everybody I asked that question to, they don't talk

about their career, their money, their name, anything like that.

They talk about their people and that's great.

What has been your best resource to grow as a leader?

I would say for me it's going to be coaching, coaching experience

and not in the traditional sense of of business.

Athletics. It's a huge part of my life.

I played football from the time I was in 4th grade till I was 21

and I had every different type of coach out there, position

coaches, head coaches, etcetera. I got to see the way people

interacted and worked together and then also how they reacted

and worked with their players. And I don't know if there's a

more fitting parallel in leadership than sports and

coaching as it is to business and employees and developing,

developing people, developing character traits, developing

humans, right. Like, as much as people want to

say that they're their own person, it's their

responsibility to grow as as an individual.

And, and it's self educate. Like, let's face it, everyone is

influenced by the surroundings that are around them.

And so if you have good people, good leaders, good coaches, you

will increase your abilities as not just an employee or as an

athlete, you're going to increase yourself as a as a

human being. And so I had a lot of coaches

that said they cared more about coaching great men than coaching

great players. And I feel the same way with the

people that we have employed with us.

And I think that's stuck with me.

That's phenomenal. I might.

I might feel that that's a good line.

Thanks. There you go.

I might might just be partnering with the right professionals in,

in various aspects of your business.

So I feel like we've, we've been pretty relentless on trying to

find, you know, good legal partner, good contract CFO, some

of the, you know, tax professionals.

Like again, it kind of goes back to like the concept of, you

know, you try to do it all yourself.

Sometimes you got to get out of your own way and you need to you

need to find somebody that can truly provide that value.

I think we've been able to make a lot of strategic decisions and

kind of back those up and validate them with, you know,

partners, partners that that are, you know, crafts expert

Craftsman of their own trade, whether again, what whatever

that is. So it's difficult, I think to

network. Sometimes a business owner like

put yourself out there and make that a thing.

But you know, it's, it's so important to to have somebody

you can go to for, you know, those types of situations where

you're just you're just not the expert, you know, in that

materials. Yeah.

Great. Well, I know you guys have been

through a lot of ups and downs. We've talked a lot about the

changing industry and you know the solar coaster.

I like that. What is it that motivates you to

keep pushing when things get really hard?

Well, there's, there's the fear aspect, right?

Like there's a lot on the line all the time.

You've got, you've got your own mouths to feed.

You have, you know, 50-60 employees that you, you're again

responsible for. I think it's at its core, it's

just that I really, I just don't, I think people let their

businesses go when they, when I really do.

I, I, I don't think if you look at every industry that's out

there, there's not many situations where you couldn't,

you couldn't figure out a way to come on top.

It may be hard, it may be difficult, but it, it, it can be

done. Or at least that's, that's the

belief that I have. And so for me, it's this, you

know, it was just same thing as a little kid, like I did not

fail. I try and, you know, everything

I could do to not fail was ingrained to me.

And so I think it's that feeling of when it's tough or there's

challenges, I don't let myself fear anymore.

I, I immediately moved to how are we going to get through

this? Let's make a plan, let's make

things happen. And it's because of that where

you're not sulking and, you know, you become depressed or

you become, you know, like a deer in the headlights look

like, no, you divert that energy and you put it into how do I get

through this? That skill, I think is what

makes businesses, you know, successfully even through

difficult times. You look at like look at, look

at Rockefellers. I mean, if you go back and look

at these, these companies have been around forever and, and

business tycoons, they didn't go, they didn't go back and,

and, you know, take a month off and just be depressed because

things aren't going well. They rounded the truth, rallied

the troops, and they figured out how they're going to get through

it. There's a there's a lot of good

books out there, biographies on people you read Shoe dog, you

know about Phil Knight and Nike. Polarizing character one way,

however you want to look at them.

You read the Elon Musk biography book.

I read Rockefeller about John D Rockefeller and all three.

There's just no, there's no quit.

There's no, hey, that's OK. Like there was failures for

sure. And every single time they took

companies on the edge of bankruptcy.

But what they didn't do is just sit back on their hands and say

that shoot, well, it's over, right?

Like no one ever did that and no one that's successful ever does

that. And so for me, I think that the

motivator is that I don't think it's ingrained in my DNA, just

being the competition level that I have in me to want to just

give, just fail by giving up, right?

I could not do that. If I'm going to fail, it's I'm

going to fail, you know, going out on my sword, right?

Like that's the reality of the situation.

And so I think that mentality is, is aligned with Alex and I.

And that's why, you know, we will we will pick up the phone

at 2:00 in the morning or we will drive ourselves, you know,

six hours away on a whim because they have some problem that just

can't be seen to be solved out in the field, even though we

haven't touched the field work in three years, right?

Like those are things, you know, hey, so and so-called in sick.

We had everyone get sick all of a sudden, Alex and I throwing

tool bags on and going and doing something right.

Like those are the things that motivate us and and want to keep

us going. I think that our families

providing for our families is huge.

I think we, we both hold that as a really like key value as US

men and as husbands is to provide thinking that's

ingrained in our DNA is, is men. And so that's really important.

And then we feel the same way towards towards the people that

we bring along with us. I don't want to offer an

opportunity to 50 people that's doomed for failure, right?

Like I want to add that opportunity that says you can

improve your life, you can grow with us, you can be the next

operations director, you could be the next CFO of our company

if you have the desire and and the ability to, to overcome the

adversity and push through. Yeah, I think that's that's kind

of what it is summed up for me as well.

OK, Well, thanks guys. Yeah, I think you guys again

articulated well something that I don't know if it's learned or

you have to be born with it or it's just situational.

But every great entrepreneur, every great leader kind of has

this attitude of I'm going to win or die trying, that there

just is no give up. You have to stick with it.

Was there a significant turning point in your business?

I know you guys had a rough start up.

You talked a little bit about those first four years being a

really, really tough grind. Was there a point where you were

like, OK, we made it, this is really going to happen or or

we're a little bit more comfortable now or you could see

the future a little more clearly.

Was there a significant point where you really felt like you'd

kind of maybe not made it, but stepped up to a comfortable

level? I mean, I, I don't know if

there's a specific point in time where that happened.

I, I feel like, I feel like our, our business is in the maturity

phase, right? I mean, there's, there's growth

potential and again, we've set our set our sights on that, but

I feel like we're stable. And in that last like five

years, it's, it's just been kind of a, you know, we're not, we're

not dying. We don't have to worry about

that. We've got some, you know, some

key people in place. The the systems are working.

So yeah, I would say the last five years have kind of been

more comfortable, if that makes sense.

And then, you know, again, I think it, it's not just solar

that we do at this level, it's, it's, it's growing, it's growing

a company, it's inventing new ways to, you know, improve and

drive down costs. And so, you know, the, the

physical work is done day-to-day by other people.

And so now we get to just focus on using our, using our brains

more to, to continue driving the company forward.

And I think, I think that's like, I don't know.

I know I have several friends that are small business.

They wear all the hats like they're out, they're out doing

estimates and trying to sell and, you know, run the business,

do payroll. I feel like we're beyond that

finally. And, and we get to focus on

bigger, bigger picture stuff. And, and obviously there's

problems and things that come up here we have to get involved in.

But yeah, it's about probably five years ago that we really

turned the corner. OK.

No further ad. OK, that's great.

Well, this is my favorite question I ask everybody.

Do you guys follow a particular faith tradition?

And if so, how is that impacted your partnership, your business,

your leadership? Yeah, we're both members of the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the LDS Church.

So probably not the perfect example of of what somebody

would be, but I think I do think that it is.

It's keeps us grounded. I think that, you know, success

sometimes can breed again pride. And so I think keeping us

grounded, we have common mutual beliefs the way, you know, we're

both honest, you know, transparency, as Brian

mentioned, is in our core values as our company, where in an

industry like that's not known for being transparent, like

it's, there's a, there's a conflict, You know, we could be

dishonest and probably make a lot more money, but that's,

that's not how we run our business.

And in fact, if anything, we're just overly transparent because

we, we want to be the opposite of that.

So I would say it, it, you know, it's, it drives our partnership.

I think a lot of the reasons why, you know, Brian and I work

so well together and have been able to, you know, conflict, we

conflict resolute, we do conflict resolution, you know,

very often. But we, we, we put each other at

the same levels, our own needs, if that makes sense.

So it's not, it's us. If it's not going to benefit us,

I can't, I can't do it. I can't make that decision.

And I think honestly, that's where a lot of partnerships and

failures occur as people become, it's about me and me first.

And it's kind of same thing with with God.

I can't, I can't put myself and my needs in front of what God

wants us to do. I can't do that with, you know,

my family like. So I think having that as a core

value is what is what made us work well together.

Yeah, I completely agree. And we've varying experiences

through life and and where we have with our faith and our

relationship with God. I encourage everyone who's

worked for us and and we're open books about this, this type of

stuff. I wouldn't say that we're

actively talking to people at at work trying to get them to, you

know, join a religion or anything like that.

But at the same time, when people ask questions about

lesson about our lives and why we are the way we are, why we,

we typically are always optimistic in the way that we

approach things. Is, is has to do with that.

It just has to do with our rooted cause, a rooted faith in,

in, in Jesus Christ and the, you know, his sacrifice for us and

our ability to understand that there's more out there than than

just us as a, as an individual and that someone's always

looking out for us. I've had I take a lot of pride

in our ability to help people that are coming to us in in time

of time of need. And I say that through we have a

really unique opportunity that that's there's out there

publications and stuff, newspapers about it, that we

have a program that we've worked with the Department of

Corrections for a long time. And they have an amazing

apprenticeship program that's run by an individual named Jodi

Marlette over in Eastern Oregon. And they have an electrical

apprenticeship program along with other trade programs that

are there individuals who made mistakes in their lives, but

then we're able to get 2 year licenses while they're being

incarcerated, travel around, perform maintenance and services

on other facilities for the DOC. Those those individuals getting

an opportunity to come and work for us and then fully obtain A

journeyman license. I I have 6 or 7 the guys who

have come and gone or still with us that have been through those

programs and have been able to now have a family, buy a home,

move on from bad decisions that they made in their past and

really rehabilitate themselves into society.

And are key members of our company and key individuals and

contributors to the communities that are around us.

And I don't think the willingness to maybe take a risk

on something like that is there without the understanding that

forgiveness is real and that people deserve second chances.

So that all kind of comes full circle as to our faith and why

it kind of leads the way in in what we do.

Alex and I can be difficult business guys as well, which

maybe isn't always the most Christ like, but we take a lot

of pride in trying to, you know, lead by example and be in a good

position to provide for others. Yeah.

Thank you, guys. I appreciate you being so open

and honest with that. So we've talked about it a

little bit. You guys have set some, some

pretty lofty goals to continue to grow.

But big picture long term, what's next for Green Ridge

Solar? Where, where do you see the

future of your company going? Yeah, man.

And I think I think we kind of alluded to some of that, but you

know, we want to continue to grow market share volume.

There's a lot like it, there's there's some innovation that's

going on behind the scenes, things that we're we're adding

to make us more competitive by offering more kind of energy

solutions and less focus on just just providing, you know, power.

And so I think as we continue to develop out those channels, you

know, our goal, our goal really is to become one of the of the.

Top leading energy providers in the Northwest, I don't know if

we'd ever, you know, expand beyond, you know, in Washington,

California, maybe maybe one state over.

But I think that what we're developing as a, as a business,

both in reputation, I mean in solutions is I would say cutting

edge, but also it's, it's a little unique.

And I, I think, I think the market is, is buying it.

So yeah, again, I mentioned some of that before, but solar itself

is one thing, but there's a lot of ways to address energy cost

and not many companies look at all the kind of all the facets

of that. And so, you know, it's, it's

kind of like you can put, you can put a Band-Aid on a wound,

but if it's infected or whatever, like it's not, it's

not going to resolve itself. And so I think our industry

needs to evolve a little bit to be looking at more than just

slapping panels on and getting paid.

And so that's a big focus for, again, part of our growth, but

also just the evolution of the business.

Yeah, yeah. That's awesome.

I wish more businesses took that viewpoint of, you know, not just

executing to make money, but looking at where the industry's

going as a whole and how they participate in it.

That's great. So if I wanted a system

installed here in Wyoming, you guys are not going to be the

ones to chat with. You're not interested in coming

much further than Oregon and Washington?

Might we might fly out and take care of you, but probably nobody

else. Yeah.

OK, well we only in the summer. Yeah, only in the summer.

Yeah. We do have a lot of listeners in

Oregon and Washington. If one of them is interested in

chatting with you about their power needs or solar system,

what's going to be the best way to get a hold of you?

Probably the easiest way is just to drop onto our website,

itsgreenridgesolar.com. And if you're a new visitor to

that site, you'll be prompted to put some power bill information

in. That's probably the easiest way.

You can always call us OK as well or e-mail us at

hello@greenridgesolar.com and our phone number is

503-395-1943. OK, Well, I will make sure we

get all of that content in the show notes.

So if anybody wants to reach out to you, they can't.

Do you guys have anybody that you'd like to see on the show,

Somebody running a really cool business or really cool

industry, something that you'd like to learn more about?

Matt Risinger. OK, You know who Matt Risinger

is? Yeah, I don't.

Oh, really? OK, look up Matt Risinger.

Matt Risinger is a is a home builder.

He started in the Northwest, but now he's in Texas and he's built

a really big platform called Build where he talks about

construction and trades and he's really big on home like building

healthy homes, building more efficient homes, air quality,

you know, building science, a ton on building science.

And I find it super interesting, especially if you have an

audience that is more inclined on to be on a little bit more of

the blue collar side. He's got a, he's, he's big, he's

got a really big platform. And so he would be very, very

interesting to see on. I think he's a really unique

guy. I've heard him talk a few times

at some conferences. I met him years ago when I was

building homes as well. So he, he's, I think that'd be a

good listen. Awesome.

Well, I'll look into that. Now that you tell me a little

more, I think I've seen some of his content, but I.

Wasn't. Oh, I'm sure he has.

The name right away. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's great. I'll see if I can get a hold of

him. That'd be fun.

Yeah, awesome. Well, our last question to kind

of wrap things up to either fuel or settle the debate.

If you guys have a job to do with a cordless tool, which

brands do you prefer? What do you think the answer is

knowing? Yeah.

Electrical related Oregon, I'm guessing Milwaukee it's.

Funny, all of our guys run Milwaukee tools.

Yep. Everything's Milwaukee.

The company's Milwaukee, yeah. Company's Milwaukee.

But if you were to look in the back of my truck or at home, you

would find, unfortunately, you'd find yellow so.

Yeah, you'd find the wall, both both Alex and I.

Yep, that's the same for me. It's kind of like once you

start, you know, you're kind of stuck.

I mean, you start buying tools and then you're buying batteries

and then you it's like, in fact, you know, what's funny is those

pack out boxes that Milwaukee makes.

I love them because they're they're they're great, but I

literally have my DeWalt tools inside of of.

Red the Milwaukee packets. I don't show anybody.

Yeah, it's a big commitment to jump ship and make a change.

Like you said, you kind of get get stuck in a groove.

And I'm finding, yeah, yellow and red are the two big names.

Nobody said Harbor Freight yet. And there there's certain trades

in certain areas of the country where I pretty well know what

the answer is going to be. So yeah, exactly.

Yeah, if you're framing, there's a lot of Makita's in the framer,

right. Or yeah, yeah.

So that's, it's funny, I just grew up with the wall.

My dad had the wall. Like that's what we, that's what

I, you know, so I went through my apprentice on my 2 journeymen

that I learned with all through coming up as an apprentice.

They all, you know, used a wall. So that's where it was.

Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you guys.

I really appreciate the time and the information.

I learned a lot today and I'm going to have to dive in a

little bit more and learn a little more about solar because

I've learned that maybe the education I had was not well

founded. So I, I really appreciate you

guys taking the time. I appreciate your wisdom, your

insight, and I wish you the best.

Yes, you too. Thanks, Eric.

Thanks for having us on. Awesome and thank you guys for

joining us here on from the ground up show.

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sure you click that auto download download button.

It really helps us out moving up in the algorithms as well as

five star reviews and comments. Until next time, keep grinding.