{"id":92377,"date":"2020-11-23T07:10:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T12:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/\/?p=92377"},"modified":"2021-03-12T08:55:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T13:55:18","slug":"contractors-corner-sunshine-solar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/\/2020\/11\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractor&#8217;s Corner: Sunshine Solar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More women are entering the solar workforce every day, but some areas of the industry are still underrepresented. According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesolarfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Solar-Diversity-Infographic.pdf\">The Solar Foundation<\/a>, women only make up 26% of the solar workforce. In a largely mechanical and construction-related field, it is nice to hear of a woman-led solar installation subcontractor out of Georgia: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sunshinesolar-llc.com\/\">Sunshine Solar<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In this episode of the Contractor&#8217;s Corner podcast, <em>Solar Power World<\/em> woman and editor-in-chief Kelly Pickerel talks with Emilie O&#8217;Leary, CEO of Sunshine Solar, about her experience working in a male-dominated segment. She started the company in 2016 because she knew solar was a space she wanted to be in.<\/p>\n<p>A portion of the interview is below, but be sure to listen to the full podcast for even more insight, including O&#8217;Leary&#8217;s beginnings at Pickerel&#8217;s alma mater Kent State University, how the company approaches hiring in different markets and what social media means to a growing company. A bonus conversation with <em>SPW<\/em> senior editor Kelsey Misbrener is also included.<\/p>\n<p>Find the Contractor&#8217;s Corner podcast on your favorite podcast app.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/931668805%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-mRMlu52i4yM&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=true&amp;show_comments=false&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div style=\"font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc; line-break: anywhere; word-break: normal; overflow: hidden; white-space: nowrap; text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 100;\"><a style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Contractors Corner by Solar Power World\" href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/solarpowerworld\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Contractors Corner by Solar Power World<\/a> \u00b7 <a style=\"color: #cccccc; text-decoration: none;\" title=\"Contractors Corner: Sunshine Solar\" href=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/solarpowerworld\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/s-mRMlu52i4yM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Contractors Corner: Sunshine Solar<\/a><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><strong>Sunshine Solar is a woman-owned business in the very heavily male-dominated mechanical side of solar. What is your experience leading a company in the construction industry?<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-92380\" src=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-2-500x325.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-2-500x325.jpg 500w, https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-2-368x238.jpg 368w, https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-2.jpg 770w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>There are definitely challenges working in a primarily male dominant industry. Coming from a corporate world getting into construction, there&#8217;s definitely a lot more rough edges. But I do feel being a woman-owned business, we have a leading edge in the solar industry. I feel like I come with a fresh set of eyes so I may see things differently or approach things differently from a woman&#8217;s perspective. The good thing is I love to spend time out in the field, and we do hire women so it&#8217;s nice to see them out there doing a great job. I definitely want to see more women in leading roles in the solar industry. It&#8217;s challenging, but I think we&#8217;ve got a lot of opportunities ahead of us.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Have you worked on any special projects lately?<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-92379\" src=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-3-500x325.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"325\" srcset=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-3-500x325.jpg 500w, https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-3-368x238.jpg 368w, https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-3.jpg 770w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>Our latest specialty project is at NREL in Golden, Colorado. It&#8217;s a project specifically for Nextracker. They hired us to build a small system for wind capacity (load testing) because if anyone knows about Golden, Colorado, this area at NREL has the highest wind. There&#8217;s going to be about 400 test points on this system. It&#8217;s an awesome place to work. It&#8217;s beautiful with the mountains and everything. Our staff is learning all about the system and the wind capacity, so that&#8217;s definitely a unique project for us because we&#8217;re not building it for energy production. It&#8217;s specifically for wind capacity testing.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>What are some areas where the solar industry still has room for improvement?<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>The solar industry is booming, and I feel we need to educate and promote this industry to the younger generation and let them know that this can be a career. We have a local high school that we&#8217;re working with, and we had three guys from the high school that went out after their online schools and they loved it. They&#8217;re helping us build a carport for a major corporation in their backyard. If we can educate the younger individuals, whether they&#8217;re in high school or they&#8217;re going into trade schools, I would just love to see curriculums that focus on this industry and start guiding them into the space.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-92381\" src=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"770\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-1.jpg 770w, https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-1-500x325.jpg 500w, https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-1-368x238.jpg 368w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More women are entering the solar workforce every day, but some areas of the industry are still underrepresented. According to The Solar Foundation, women only make up 26% of the solar workforce. In a largely mechanical and construction-related field, it is nice to hear of a woman-led solar installation subcontractor out of Georgia: Sunshine Solar.&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1401,"featured_media":92378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1720,3004,1713],"tags":[],"class_list":{"2":"type-post","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Contractor&#039;s Corner: Sunshine Solar<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"More women are entering the solar workforce every day, but some areas of the industry are still underrepresented. According to The Solar Foundation, women\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/\/2020\/11\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Contractor&#039;s Corner: Sunshine Solar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"More women are entering the solar workforce every day, but some areas of the industry are still underrepresented. According to The Solar Foundation, women\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/\/2020\/11\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Solar Power World\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SolarPowerWorld\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-23T12:10:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-03-12T13:55:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-featured.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"770\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kelly Pickerel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@solarkellyp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@SolarPowerWorld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kelly Pickerel\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/\/2020\/11\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/\/2020\/11\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/\",\"name\":\"Contractor's Corner: Sunshine Solar\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/\/2020\/11\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/\/2020\/11\/contractors-corner-sunshine-solar\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/sunshine-solar-featured.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-23T12:10:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-03-12T13:55:18+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/\/#\/schema\/person\/6f941a69e40d7cb71df74979910822c6\"},\"description\":\"More women are entering the solar workforce every day, but some areas of the industry are still underrepresented. 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