In July of 2021 the pacific northwest endured a record setting heat wave with temperatures in Portland reaching 116F on July 28th. The 116 temperature broke the previous day's record-setting high of 112 degrees. The previous day's high had broken the 108 degree-record set the day prior, which broke the previous high of 107, first set in 1965. Salem also saw a record high, hitting 117 the warmest temperature since the city started keeping weather records in 1890.
Later that summer in August, my family and I took a camping trip up to Lake Quinault in the beautiful Olympic National Forest in Washington. The Olympic National Forest is one of the most wild temperate rainforests in the world, boasting massive conifers, some of the world's largest trees, and the lush and ancient Hoh Rainforest. As an amateur arborist, as soon as we entered the park I was struck by the damage I observed in the forest due to the heat earlier that summer. The leaves of deciduous trees were blistered and yellowed. The conifers were browned like they had been roasted in an oven, because they had. It was no surprise when wildfires ravaged the kiln-dried forests throughout the western U.S. later that fall.
I've been concerned about climate change since 2005 when I decided to take action by applying to Babson College's Entrepreneurship-focused MBA program. In my application essay, I wrote about the growth coming to the clean energy industry over the next 20 years and the opportunity to utilize the good parts of capitalism and business to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and our impact on the climate. I didn't know it at the time, but this concept has since been labeled social entrepreneurship.
As I left Babson College I launched an education business called HeatSpring focused on training building professionals on clean energy technologies like geothermal heat pumps, solar PV, passive-house and green buildings. At this time I couldn't even talk to customers about climate change because it was too political, so I was mostly quiet about my underlying mission and focused on educational innovation.
I learned how to code and helped develop an online training platform from scratch to deliver our courses. We found that we could reach more students, offer courses at lower cost and that we could actually offer better educational experiences online than in person. Students could stretch out their learning over weeks instead of crammed in a hotel conference room for 3 days, they could rewind and rewatch videos, skip around to topics they needed help on and receive instant feedback from knowledge checks and quizzes.
For nearly 17 years from 2006 to 2023 I helped bring innovation to the clean energy training market, building one of the first organizations to offer online training for both the IGSHPA Accredited Geothermal Installer and NABCEP Entry Level (Associate) PV credentials. I was recognized by Business Week as one of America's 25 most promising Social Entrepreneurs and also selected for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's Zero Net Energy Task Force. Over this time I helped develop hundreds of online courses across a broad range of topics for an audience that grew to over 100,000 members.
In 2023 I sold HeatSpring, after a long process of raising money with investors and faced with the prospect of losing control of the company and its moral and ethical mission, I decided to sell my ownership and leave the business.
An exit is supposed to be every founder's dream, but honestly selling my first company kind of sucked and I was left feeling depressed and hopeless. After some soul searching and a deep educational dive down the machine learning rabbit hole, I launched Waivolt, an open startup and Oregon benefit company with a goal of using my skills and knowledge to bring further innovation to the solar industry. I am incredibly lucky to have found success doing what I love while helping the planet, but I also recognize that come from a privileged background and had many advantages that enabled this all to happen.
My mission now is to give back which is why I have created Waivolt's 0 to Solar Hero Program to provide Free NABCEP PV Certification Training to anyone who needs it. Now more than ever, the world is in need of solar professionals. Climate change is an urgent threat to the future of humanity. The recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars for the installation of solar in the U.S. I have seen firsthand that solar companies have full pipelines, but not enough workers to install, design, commission, and maintain these systems. We urgently need tens of thousands of skilled workers to meet the demand. Further, the Electrify Everything movement is estimated to require millions of skilled workers.
I believe in the promise of technology, having watched the innovation, reduction in cost and gains in efficiency in tech like solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles over the past 20 years. Another technology I see helping directly is artificial intelligence and I have invested heavily both personally and financially in developing educational AI tools for Waivolt. I still believe in working with only the very best human expert instructors and courses developed by IREC Certified Master PV Trainers, but AI provides some incredibly powerful tools to help further reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of education.
That's why I have developed Wai Chat, an AI trained on the technical aspects of solar, NABCEP Job Task Analyses, the National Electric Code and exam-taking strategies. Wai Chat can now be a personal tutor who is an expert in solar, guiding students through courses, answering questions and helping them prepare for certification exams. Waivolt also uses AI to analyze a student's performance on practice exams and custom-build new exams based on areas of the NABCEP PV Associate Job Task Analysis where that student needs more work.
As I sat with my children in Olympic National Forest, surveying the damage in what was supposed to be a lush rainforest undeserved by human development, I realized that the urgency had reached a new level. There is no more time to wait, we must act now for our children and for generations to come. The tide of public opinion has certainly turned and I can now be more public about my true mission. The need is urgent and the stakes are dire, but I continue to believe in the power of human ingenuity. AI is just another in a long line of technical innovation that can be used as a tool to help us in this great challenge we face.
I hope you will join this mission and act on climate.
Later that summer in August, my family and I took a camping trip up to Lake Quinault in the beautiful Olympic National Forest in Washington. The Olympic National Forest is one of the most wild temperate rainforests in the world, boasting massive conifers, some of the world's largest trees, and the lush and ancient Hoh Rainforest. As an amateur arborist, as soon as we entered the park I was struck by the damage I observed in the forest due to the heat earlier that summer. The leaves of deciduous trees were blistered and yellowed. The conifers were browned like they had been roasted in an oven, because they had. It was no surprise when wildfires ravaged the kiln-dried forests throughout the western U.S. later that fall.
I've been concerned about climate change since 2005 when I decided to take action by applying to Babson College's Entrepreneurship-focused MBA program. In my application essay, I wrote about the growth coming to the clean energy industry over the next 20 years and the opportunity to utilize the good parts of capitalism and business to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and our impact on the climate. I didn't know it at the time, but this concept has since been labeled social entrepreneurship.
As I left Babson College I launched an education business called HeatSpring focused on training building professionals on clean energy technologies like geothermal heat pumps, solar PV, passive-house and green buildings. At this time I couldn't even talk to customers about climate change because it was too political, so I was mostly quiet about my underlying mission and focused on educational innovation.
I learned how to code and helped develop an online training platform from scratch to deliver our courses. We found that we could reach more students, offer courses at lower cost and that we could actually offer better educational experiences online than in person. Students could stretch out their learning over weeks instead of crammed in a hotel conference room for 3 days, they could rewind and rewatch videos, skip around to topics they needed help on and receive instant feedback from knowledge checks and quizzes.
For nearly 17 years from 2006 to 2023 I helped bring innovation to the clean energy training market, building one of the first organizations to offer online training for both the IGSHPA Accredited Geothermal Installer and NABCEP Entry Level (Associate) PV credentials. I was recognized by Business Week as one of America's 25 most promising Social Entrepreneurs and also selected for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's Zero Net Energy Task Force. Over this time I helped develop hundreds of online courses across a broad range of topics for an audience that grew to over 100,000 members.
In 2023 I sold HeatSpring, after a long process of raising money with investors and faced with the prospect of losing control of the company and its moral and ethical mission, I decided to sell my ownership and leave the business.
An exit is supposed to be every founder's dream, but honestly selling my first company kind of sucked and I was left feeling depressed and hopeless. After some soul searching and a deep educational dive down the machine learning rabbit hole, I launched Waivolt, an open startup and Oregon benefit company with a goal of using my skills and knowledge to bring further innovation to the solar industry. I am incredibly lucky to have found success doing what I love while helping the planet, but I also recognize that come from a privileged background and had many advantages that enabled this all to happen.
My mission now is to give back which is why I have created Waivolt's 0 to Solar Hero Program to provide Free NABCEP PV Certification Training to anyone who needs it. Now more than ever, the world is in need of solar professionals. Climate change is an urgent threat to the future of humanity. The recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act has unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars for the installation of solar in the U.S. I have seen firsthand that solar companies have full pipelines, but not enough workers to install, design, commission, and maintain these systems. We urgently need tens of thousands of skilled workers to meet the demand. Further, the Electrify Everything movement is estimated to require millions of skilled workers.
I believe in the promise of technology, having watched the innovation, reduction in cost and gains in efficiency in tech like solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles over the past 20 years. Another technology I see helping directly is artificial intelligence and I have invested heavily both personally and financially in developing educational AI tools for Waivolt. I still believe in working with only the very best human expert instructors and courses developed by IREC Certified Master PV Trainers, but AI provides some incredibly powerful tools to help further reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of education.
That's why I have developed Wai Chat, an AI trained on the technical aspects of solar, NABCEP Job Task Analyses, the National Electric Code and exam-taking strategies. Wai Chat can now be a personal tutor who is an expert in solar, guiding students through courses, answering questions and helping them prepare for certification exams. Waivolt also uses AI to analyze a student's performance on practice exams and custom-build new exams based on areas of the NABCEP PV Associate Job Task Analysis where that student needs more work.
As I sat with my children in Olympic National Forest, surveying the damage in what was supposed to be a lush rainforest undeserved by human development, I realized that the urgency had reached a new level. There is no more time to wait, we must act now for our children and for generations to come. The tide of public opinion has certainly turned and I can now be more public about my true mission. The need is urgent and the stakes are dire, but I continue to believe in the power of human ingenuity. AI is just another in a long line of technical innovation that can be used as a tool to help us in this great challenge we face.
I hope you will join this mission and act on climate.
