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When a developer comes knockin about leasing ground, the farmer is negotiating something he has never done before, against people who do it every day. So Jeff’s group can analyze land parcels using the same tools developers do to help landowners better understand the value of their land to a developer. What increases that value is things like how close the land is to a connection point on the grid and whether or not there are wetlands or protected species. What raises that number is not too complicated, like how close you sit to a place the grid can take the power and whether anything on it is protected. “Landowners have way more power than they think,” he told me.

He is just as blunt about how developers give that power back, deciding on a project, announcing it, then defending it when the county pushes back. I have done community engagement in these areas and that is how it goes. He is fair about it too. Some do this well, and some are two guys in a truck.

That and much more in today’s podcast episode.

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Chapters

• 00:00 – Introduction

• 01:43 – What REFA does for farmers and ranchers

• 03:17 – The name, and how energy got politicized

• 06:41 – What the ground is worth, and what landowners can ask for

• 12:57 – How Jeff built REFA

• 18:38 – Membership, pricing, and advocacy

• 21:32 – Veterans getting into farming

• 24:20 – What's squeezing farmers, and renewables as a lifeline

• 28:08 – Regret, and why farmers trust other farmers

• 29:55 – Getting in without owning land

• 34:30 – Why developers lose rural communities

• 38:53 – Social license after the project is built

• 41:04 – Close, and why the messenger matters

Resources

People & Organizations

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - Newsletter - Podcast)

• Jeff Risley (LinkedIn)

  • Renewable Energy Farmers of America (Website - LinkedIn)

  • REFA Membership (Join)

• Other Individuals & Orgs Mentioned

  • Dahvi Wilson (Siting Clean)

  • American Solar Grazing Association (Website)

  • Farm4Profit Podcast (Website)

Policy & Programs

• USDA and DOE Solar Energy and Farming Initiatives, including the Farmer Benefit Plan (Department of Energy)

Company & Industry News

• Renewable Energy Group Champions Solar on Farms as USDA Presses to Cut Projects (DTN Progressive Farmer)

• Why Farmers Built Their Own Renewable Energy Association (Farms.com)

• Organization Formed to Help Landowners with Renewable Energy Projects (AgriNews)

• As Federal Support for On-Farm Solar Declines, Is Community Agrivoltaics the Future? (Civil Eats)

Related Project Vanguard Episodes

• Energy Reliability Isn’t a Talking Point with Ken Young (Listen)

• From Command Posts to Clean Power (Listen)

• Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It (Read)

We got into how that actually happened. It started as beer money from advertising lip balm, and it became something real once companies realized Sitreps could find trusted people fast, inside a community that already vouches for them. Max and Wyatt walk through where they fit that nobody else does, and why the volume play, a hundred bodies at a job site, was never their game.

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Both of them have hired and been hired, and they are blunt about what each side gets wrong. They will tell you about companies that drag out interviews for months and then lowball the good candidates, and about vets who assume their rank alone should open doors. The line that ties it together is one they say to clients all the time. Being cheap is expensive.

I had them on because I want that kind of high-grade military leadership moving into energy, not just the volume roles.

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Timestamps

• 00:00 - Being cheap is expensive

• 01:19 - Singapore and the semiconductor trip

• 05:07 - From a meme page to a veteran community

• 10:15 - Why the volume play was never the game

• 14:30 - Where they fit: defense tech and PE portfolios

• 20:05 - Speed to market

• 22:00 - Why Max and Wyatt joined

• 27:12 - Getting out: MBAs and the GI Bill

• 31:00 - The pig-waste startup that didn't work

• 35:47 - What companies get wrong about hiring

• 38:53 - What candidates get wrong

• 43:00 - Skin in the game

Resources

Resources

People & Organizations

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - Linkedin - Newsletter - Apple Podcasts - Spotify)

• Sitreps (Website)

  • Max Cormier (LinkedIn)

  • Wyatt Frasier (LinkedIn)

  • Kyle Eberly, co-founder (LinkedIn)

• Sitreps2Steercos, the community and newsletter (LinkedIn - Substack)

• SkillBridge, the DoD program Wyatt used in his transition (Website)

Company & Industry News

• CHIPS Act overview, the semiconductor policy referenced in the Singapore discussion (Website)

Related Project Vanguard Episodes

• Don’t Play Small with Marcus Barnes, NextOp Vets on energy careers for junior enlisted veterans

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Jim spent seven years in the Air Force as a launch weather officer at Cape Canaveral. Now he’s VP of technical support at Exus Renewables North America, where his team decides whether a piece of land can hold a project at all. That means telling a bank what twenty years of weather will produce when you’ve only got two or three years of data from the site. The bank stress tests your number against the worst year it can imagine. Jim remembers 2015, when the drought out west put California wind farms at 65 percent of their long-term average. Get that math wrong and people don’t make payroll.

This is what I mean when I say you can’t get by on vibes in this industry. The project produces or it doesn’t. That’s why veterans fit here, and Jim’s been hiring and mentoring them for years.

He says there are more projects right now than there are people and money to build them.

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Timestamps

• 00:06 - Cold open and welcome

• 01:25 - The PowerVets award and the guys in the field

• 03:06 - Turbine height, wind shear, and site suitability

• 05:18 - What Exus does, and how a polygon becomes buildable land

• 07:46 - Solar land use, agrivoltaics, and revenue per acre

• 11:26 - Who owns these assets: Everpower, pension funds, and hurdle rates

• 16:45 - Pricing the weather: met towers, P50/P90/P99, and bank stress tests

• 22:46 - A military family and the SR-71 crew chief

• 26:01 - Launch weather officer: 137 launches and shuttle ferry flights

• 28:21 - Data center demand and the interconnection bottleneck

• 30:53 - Why veterans fit: ownership, safety, and no getting by on vibes

• 33:33 - Turning Point USA and student-led organizations

• 37:15 - Advocacy without the trigger words

• 42:23 - Advice for veterans considering the industry

Resources

People & Organizations

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - Podcast - Apple Podcasts - Spotify)

• Jim Sardonia (LinkedIn)

  • Exus Renewables North America (Website - LinkedIn)

• American Clean Power Association (Website)

  • ACP PowerVets Veterans Leadership Award (Website)

  • PowerVets Veteran Program at CLEANPOWER (Website)

• Center for Energy Workforce Development (Website)

  • Troops to Energy Jobs (Website - LinkedIn)

  • Get Into Energy (Website)

• Student Veterans of America (Website)

• Pattern Energy (Website)

Company & Industry News

• Exus Renewables North America Closes $400 Million Facility to Meet Surging Power Demand

• Exus Renewables North America Secures Over $300 Million in Financing for Zia Solar Portfolio and Keystone Wind Projects

• Energy Industry Needs More Veterans as Demand for Skilled Workers Grows

Related Project Vanguard Episodes

• From Geopolitics to the Kitchen Table with Andy Davis

Transcript

Kevin Doffing: Welcome to Project Vanguard Podcast, home of the community of Veterans in Energy, where we explore the journeys of veterans leading in energy. We’re building American energy dominance through an all-the-above approach where energy security is national security. And our mission is to double the number of veterans working in the energy industry. I’m your host, Kevin Doffing. Today I’m talking with Jim Sardonia. Jim’s an Air Force veteran and meteorologist who spent years as a launch Weather Officer at Cape Canaveral, supporting space shuttle launches for NASA. Now, he’s the VP of Technical Support at Exus Renewables North America. And drumroll, he just won the first ever Power Vet Leadership Award from the American Clean Power Association. I don’t know how it took winning this award for Jim and I to finally connect, but I’m really glad we did. We talk about what it takes to make a project pencil, how banks stress test the weather itself. And why demand is outrunning everyone’s forecasts. Who actually owns these assets and how to turn wind data into a number a bank will lend against? If you’re a veteran wondering whether there’s room for you in this industry, Jim’s answer is this whole episode. Let’s get into it. Jim, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jim Sardonia: Absolutely. I appreciate the invitation and it’s great to speak with you.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah. You know, the first time we spoke, I was actually in Iowa as we were kicking off that chapter last month or so. And I was real excited to talk to you because you recently won an award through the American Clean Power Association. Can you talk a little bit about what that was? What did you do with the big cash prize?

Jim Sardonia: Yeah, I’m still waiting for that, but no. The award is the first inaugural ACP, it’s American Clean Power Association’s Power Vet Leadership Award. And based on the write up, they wanted to identify and recognize veterans and their contributions to the renewable energy industry. I was nominated by my company, Exus Renewables North America, which was a huge honor. We have you know, almost a dozen veterans in our company.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah.

Jim Sardonia: Itself and just be nominated by my company was a huge honor. And then we got notification it was a top five finalist at Clean Power in Houston was in the s crowd there when they announced and very honored and privileged to be standing and sitting next to my fellow veterans and accepted on everybody’s behalf. To me I like I told my folks here, this is a team award from my perspective for all the veterans here. We have veterans in the field operating our sites. They’re out there two in the three in the morning. Getting these turbines restarted in the middle of the winter with feet of snow on the ground and twenty below. So they’re the ones that motivate me, you know, to work harder in the back office here and make their job easier and better and work the best I can for Exus here.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah. And I’ve been out to the Exus offices. I love how there’s that ground mount wind turbine that’s in there. Yeah, the vertical. Yeah. I’ve had some friends that have talked to me about that, but it’s you gotta get a lot more height on top of buildings or whatever. G get out of the friction at the base.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah. And out of the shadow of the big building.

Kevin Doffing: And you’ve designed a lot of projects. So you know exactly probably the numbers behind the increase in efficiency as you get higher. Yeah. Well.

Jim Sardonia: Absolutely. That’s a huge part of our core business. And being on the technical side, we look at those conditions, the climatic conditions at each site, at each wind farm. You know, these turbines are getting massive. They’re going up to a hundred and twenty-five meter hub heights, you know, three to four hundred, three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet just at the hub height. That’s at the nacelle level. And then the blades are another eighty meters above that. So we’re really stretching into the lower levels of the atmosphere. We’re really extending high. Into that and wind shear is a big part of that element where you as you you go higher winds you typically increase in some cases they actually decrease and at unique like mountain passes in California or out west you get some very unique wind flow dynamics which we have to study that’s our job on the technical side is to study all these sites, make sure the conditions are suitable for good production, but also not to beat up these turbines. They’re designed to last 20 years, but if you have conditions that are really rough, turbulent high wind shear, they could beat these turbines to death in two or three years. So we’re looking at a balance between good production, positive revenue, projects that make money and produce well and can last for a lifetime. That’s what the

Kevin Doffing: That’s what I always liked when I talk to companies, you know, asset management companies like Exus is it’s not a hearts and minds things. It’s a dollars and cents. Right. People will be like, hey, you you say all the above. What about a coal plant? I’m like, do it. If it pencils, like do it. But good luck without some massive subsidies to make it pencil. And that has nothing to do with greenwashing or whatever. That’s just market economics, commodity pricing, just the market, yeah, like free markets. So take a step back.

Jim Sardonia: Yes. Yes.

Kevin Doffing: What would you say you do at Exus and tell everybody about Exus as a company? As y’all are hiring more vets and things like that. I love what y’all do.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah, absolutely. Exus Renewables North America is a owner, operator, developer, and builder of utility scale renewables, wind, solar, and battery storage. We’re basically A to Z. We Greenfield Prospect, we’re prospecting actively right now for new projects across the country. We’re looking at potential acquisitions of projects maybe further along in development or even operating assets. So we look at everything that is, you know, could bring value to the company to increase our pipeline, our portfolio. As I mentioned, we, you know, we’re a developer and a builder too. We have an EPC group and that’s the group I’m assigned to. I’m the VP of technical support in our EPC group. And EPC stands for engineering, procurement, and construction. My role is more in the E and the P part of that, the engineering and procurement. And then we have our another silo with an another vice president who’s head of construction. Once the project is developed and designed, and we have signed contracts to procure wind turbines or solar modules, then it shifts over to our active construction group. We have very experienced folks in our construction team that have built gigawatts, multiple gigawatts of projects throughout the country and even in other countries, Canada, North America. And my role on the technical side. So when we’re looking at a project, we need to evaluate that project. It usually starts out with just a polygon on a map. And from our development team, we’ll say, hey, what can we do with this land? We have to look at it from a geospatial perspective. We have a GIS team, GIS personnel on my team. We’re going to look at it as far as wetlands, railroad track transmission lines, roads, houses. Once you get a polygon of an area. It turns into what’s called a buildable area, which is a much reduced amount of area inside that original polygon. And it looks like Swiss cheese, but really with a lot of holes in it, I tell you. So where there’s a lot of constraints to build, especially wind, ‘cause they’re big devices and you know, you need to you can’t put wind turbines right next to each other because of wake effects and you don’t want too close to structures people are living. They do produce Exactly, shadow flicker noise.

Kevin Doffing: Shadow flicker.

Jim Sardonia: Solar’s a little different animal, but it’s very similar. Instead of, you know, little isolated wind turbines, you have just a flat area. The constraints may be a little different. It’s a very different process of construction. That land basically underneath it, if you know, there may be some great flat prime farmland, but that may not be a great piece of land for solar because you’re taking away the ability to do all that good farming for twenty years.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah. But also at the same time, especially as you’re keeping it in your family, you’ve now rested the land. Yeah. You’re gonna see some of the most productive land when that comes back into production. Or, you know, you do multiple things and you start grazing underneath. Exactly. I love Silicon Valley or Silicon Ranch. You know, they’re now figuring out with IoT devices how to run cattle underneath. I mean, sheep you can do in certain places, but there’s certain places sheep just aren’t as versatile everywhere. And with every kind of grass. I mean, I’ve had people explain it to me. I’m not a sheep guy, but I’m pro sheep. But, you know, I’m from Texas. So like big cattle country. And I mean, now that they’re starting to figure that out, you don’t have to have it way above the cow. You know, you just have to be able to flip it up and flip it flat. And now the cows have somewhere shady to go. There’s just a lot of like knock on benefits.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a whole branch called agrivoltaics, you know, which is deals with that. What can you do? How can we take advantage of what we have underneath these underneath these tracking tables and modules? So it’s an emerging branch in photo in PV and solar, but it’s I think quickly gaining ground. So we’ll see that.

Kevin Doffing: Well, I mean, you know, just from a landowner perspective, like how can I get, you know, more value and revenue out of the same commodity and parcel, right? Like, what is my what is my what are my what is my revenue per acre? Right? Whether that’s, you know, because the industry did this, right? Like you’ve been in long enough. So you’ve seen probably where the contracts with landowners went from, hey, we’ll pay you based on how many towers are there. But then as the towers got bigger and there were fewer. It’s shifted over to well, how much power are you producing? And I want to cut the revenue. Yeah. Not just a square footage lease.

Jim Sardonia: Absolutely. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And it it’s, you know, shifting, like you said, as these turbines get larger in the generator size, a megawatt size and the rotor diameter of the blades, like you said, there’s much fewer turbines that may produce the same amount in a given area. Here in Pennsylvania, obviously, you know, we look at old abandoned strip mines. It’s a lot of land where you can’t really do anything on it. If you’re driven out on some of the hilltops and plateaus out here, once they go through and strip that out, there’s not a lot of growth potential and we’re looking at that actively. There’s still good portions of land that can be utilized for solar wind where there’s wind and battery storage especially. That’s another area we’re looking at. We’re looking at data centers at Exus as well. As long as you have transmission, maybe some w water sources in the area, it’s a

Kevin Doffing: Yeah, power, water, land. Like that’s all you need. But the power and the water the are the hard parts.

Jim Sardonia: Exactly. Yes, exactly. Especially, you know, transmission, making sure these data centers have huge loads, demanding huge amounts and just bringing the power in to run these is a challenge in itself. Water, like you said, for cooling. You know, there’s new technology coming that doesn’t necessarily use as much water, but you know, that’s years down the line. But we’re seeing, you know, utility scale batteries really picking up in capability as you know, in the last few years and then we expect it to continue next. Short term, five, ten years or so.

Kevin Doffing: So, you know, a long time ago when I was working with y’all, one of the things I found really interesting, because I just think that like the profitability of the projects is really the accelerant on the industry. If you’re not making money, then like it was a nice try. Right. But where they do make money, go make more money. And that’s the fastest way to scale anything, right? Yeah. The whole EV subsidy tax credit thing, okay. But as soon as gas prices spike. Sales spike, right? Because it’s an economic driver and that’s what people are going to make their decisions off of. And I love how y’all are thinking about as an asset manager, hey, how do we like run this efficiently? Where does preventive maintenance versus reactive maintenance make sense in the long-term value creation of this asset? But can you talk a little bit about like who are your clients? Like who actually owns the asset that you’re managing? Cause I always thought that was interesting because you’d hear about these blue chip companies. But I never thought about there are companies like DESRI, D.E. Shaw Renewables, that have gotten into actually owning and operating. But I think they’re the only financier that does that. Can you talk a little bit about like a BlackRock and the John Hancock’s

Jim Sardonia: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I forgot to mention that’s really how Exus formed about eight years ago. There was a legacy company called Everpower Wind Holdings, which is pretty close to a lot of us. A lot of us worked at Everpower. Our CEO at Everpower is now our is our CEO here at Exus, Jim Spencer. A lot of folks I work with day to day were former Everpower workers, but Everpower was sold off like a many renewable companies, IPPs, you know, they’re held in maybe closed-end funds that have a lifetime and they mature. And then, you know, the holder of that closed end fund, they’re required to sell that company off. And back in eight 2017, 18, Everpower was sold. Jim Spencer and Deval Beludia formed Exus Renewables North America and it was started out as a third party asset manager. And that activity that is really how Exus has operated ever since from the beginning till for about six years until a couple of years ago. But they were so successful in growing that client base. Some of the clients began asking, Hey, do you have experience in building a wind farm for us or repowering a wind farm for us or doing the maintenance? And they knew we had the technical

Kevin Doffing: Great when customers are like, can you do more scope?

Jim Sardonia: Exactly. Exactly. It’s like your dream client, of course. You know, there were the technical we had the technical experience and expertise that more people were brought into Exus. I was given a call a few years ago and I said, you know, when do you want me to start? Type of thing. It was really, you know, just an honor to come back. When you can come back to a company where you worked with great people, their focus is moving things forward, building projects, expanding the company, get hiring good people. That’s the type of company you want to be in. But we have big clients. I’ll say I can s kinda say what industries are they’re in. There’s a lot of companies that own renewable assets, but they don’t have the technical expertise to operate it and maintain it. And that’s where we come in. There’s infrastructure funds, pension funds, there’s, you know

Kevin Doffing: For de-risked long-term revenue generating assets, which that’s what I’ve always struggled in Houston when people are like, well, this doesn’t look as good as an offshore well return. I’m like, well, yeah, but what’s the downside on an offshore well return? And they’re like, zero. I’m like, well, you don’t have that with you. This is a utility capital play, not a oil and gas play. Like they’re different capital and risk appetites.

Jim Sardonia: Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. And like you said earlier, we’re not a nonprofit charity. Renewable companies are not nonprofits. They have to make revenue to survive. That’s just the bottom line. And dependent on your investor, dependent on your client, they have very high hurdle rates for returns. They have very high requirements for returns to even approve of investing money for these projects. These projects are

Kevin Doffing: Absolutely.

Jim Sardonia: Hundreds of millions of dollars requires hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and they want returns. It’s their money. Yep. They expect solid, almost guaranteed returns. You can’t guarantee the wind or the sun, but you can find the projects. We’ve been able to find the projects and find the right combination of components, EPC contractors, builders to make the projects pencil. The rates are only getting higher, the investors, the banks are only want higher returns and the money that they are let borrowing or investing. And, you know, there’s a lot of companies out there, like I said, in the last five years, you know this, there’s been a lot of cash out there in the last five, six years. Yeah. You know, they’re looking for areas to deploy that cash. You know, cash doesn’t make that a lot, even for these super huge investors, but they want to find good investments. Some of them want a percentage of renewable projects in their portfolio to diversify. But we’re working with clients that look that invest in all kinds of things. You know, hotels, other solar, small scale solar like rooftop and CNI commercial and industrial. Yep. And all various sources. I’d say it’s always good to diversify your investments and that’s what these big companies and investors are doing with renewable.

Kevin Doffing: Well, and that’s one the things I always talk to people is, you know, the entire like portfolio approach to our energy base so that we’re not overly exposed to a single commodity in case there’s something that pops off in the Middle East. Yeah. Which depending on what day you’re listening to this, we may or may not be at war ceasefire or throwing bombs at Iran or somewhere else, right? I was in Iraq. Yeah. But I mean, there’s intermittency and different project operating risk with everything, right? There’s the commodity risk of a global commodity. Yeah. But there’s also weather variability and intermittency. And you have a meteorological background. Can you talk a little bit about like how has the industry dealt with that, approached that, and how has that risk degraded or just improved over time?

Jim Sardonia: Well, that’s a great question. And it’s a really a big part of our process in determining, you know, basically when we get a piece of land, we have a financial modeling team. They want to know how much is it going produce? How big can it be? How many megawatts can we deploy here? Assuming all the constraints and everything else. And what the variability is going to be. What is the uncertainty? Uncertainty is a key part of the energy yield assessment evaluation. There’s uncertainty from for when, for example, you may

Kevin Doffing: Mm-hmm.

Jim Sardonia: Have deployed Met Towers. You have to deploy some kind of measuring device to see what the winds are on site. Meteorological tower. Meteorological tower with yeah. Anemometers, wind vanes, temperature sensors. You’re characterizing the site with data on site because there may be a airport, you know, 20 miles away, but that has weather data from two meters, three meters off the ground, but 25 miles away, got not going to be at all

Kevin Doffing: Met Tower being meteorolog mm. I’ll get there eventually.

Jim Sardonia: Representative of a site on the ridgeline in Pennsylvania thirty miles to its east or something like that. So we need data on wind, especially it’s much more variable with wind. If you have to have data collection at the site. However, there’s uncertainty, the quality of the sensors you have, the height of the sensors, you know, these turbines, like I mentioned before, we’re getting up to a hundred and twenty five meter hub heights, the center of the rotor, but the blades extend even further. You really don’t have met towers that tall. They’re you know, 60 to 100 meter range just to get the bottom part of the rotor. And then we have to use calculations to extrapolate what we think the wind profile is. But the wind data itself, you know, the sensors are not perfect. There’s uncertainty there. You’re only measuring a snapshot of time. These wind farms are going to be out for 20, 30 years. We’re measuring a two, three year snapshot and we’re projecting that forward based on what we do is there’s global weather models out there that actually can predict. They’re called gridded global models. Any point on the earth, you can go back 30, 40 years and you can get a time series of what that model predicted for conditions at say 100 meters. We use the data and we overlap our on-site data with the long-term previous data set from these models and we try to project backwards about twenty, thirty years, what the overall average would have been. You know, now year to year it’s gonna vary quite a bit and it can vary more at some sites versus others. In the eastern, like in Pennsylvania, it doesn’t vary as much year to year, maybe five to seven percent year to year. But you have a long term average. They call that the P fifty. That’s your fifty percent probability. Right. California out west in some of the mountainous regions, they can vary fifteen, twenty percent year to year. So you have to capture that variability. And you capture that in what’s called, we calculate not just the P50, the 50% chance, the average. We calculate things called a P90, P99. And the P99 is you have a 99% chance of exceeding a certain value. So it’s a value. Let’s say your production, you expect it to be 200 gigawatt hours per year. Yeah. Your 99% tile, your P99 is gonna be the value where ninety nine percent of the years you’re gonna exceed that, but that’s probably about eighty percent of the P fifty. So that’s, you know, what is that? A hundred and sixty megawatt hours per year.

Kevin Doffing: This is just so you can over prom underpromise and over deliver with the investors, like, hey, like we know we can hit this number.

Jim Sardonia: Exactly. And they want to stress test. The banks will stress test against the low number. They wanna know if I have one year out of twenty that it’s P ninety nine level, we’re gonna be okay or in some cases they’re not okay. We can’t even meet our debt coverage. You know, that we borrow money. No.

Kevin Doffing: No, as a business owner, like am I gonna make payroll? Like that’s what’s always in the back of my h head whenever I’ve, you know, had payroll is like it all things considered, I wanna make sure I’m taking care of my employees because it’s hard to run a business when you don’t pay your employees. Good luck.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah, exactly. And there’s some years. Right. Exactly. There were some years too where two thousand fifteen time frame out and out west there was a huge drought and it’s extended over several years. There was a big El Nino, big drought, big high pressure dome over the west coast, and the winds were almost nothing in in the big areas like Tehachapi, which is the famous wind farm region in California, Altamont Pass in Northern California.

Kevin Doffing: Service your debt.

Jim Sardonia: These wind farms out there, they were sixty, sixty-five percent of what they should have been. They were sixty to sixty-five percent of their average P fifty. It was devastating some of the, you know, financially for some of those wind farms. If you get two or three years strung in a row like that, it could cause some, you know, major headaches or, you know, it could cause some companies to go out of business, honestly. They came back, which is that’s the nature of averages. You’re gonna come back. Yeah. There’s gonna be some years that are Well above average, but you string a few bad years together and that’s what the banks are testing. They want to know what that variability is. What’s that range?

Kevin Doffing: It’s like being a farmer. You’re gonna have some bumper crop years, but I mean, yep, to your point, there will be some droughts and what are you gonna do?

Jim Sardonia: Yep, exactly. And they have to be prepared for that. Obviously they prefer a low uncertainty where your P ninety nines and P nineties are very close to the P fifty, so but everybody That’s right.

Kevin Doffing: Guarantee. Well, Jim, so take us back. How did you originally get into the military? What was your driving? Did you see a t shirt, you had your dad did it, like what was that motivation for you?

Jim Sardonia: Well, Sardonia family, there’s a lot of history in the military. Mm-hmm. I had two great uncles in World War Two, one of them the Pacific Theater, one in Europe. My great uncle in the Pacific Theater drove Higgins boats, that’s the thirty-five foot landing craft on a couple islands. My great uncle was on day two at on Normandy and he was there for one day. He took a bullet and that was it. He was one of those that was a quick in Europe for a very short time. I’d hear stories. My dad was in the Air Force for over 20 years. And you know, I was thinking about this actually. I and I thought you would ask it. And the first memories that I ever had as a human, I was three to four years old. I remember my dad coming back from Vietnam. And sorry.

Kevin Doffing: No, you’re fine.

Jim Sardonia: But, you know, when that’s the first memory you have of your this cool guy in uniform coming through the door, you know, I was like, wow, that made a huge impression. And this was in how old were you? I was like three to four. It was 1970 to 1972. And he was, you know, in Vietnam. He was in the Air Force, but he was a crew chief for the SR-71 Blackbird, the reconnaissance. Big you greatest plane ever designed, still way ahead of its time, in my opinion. But he’d get deployed they the Air Force back then in especially in those units, they’d have ninety day deployments, a hundred and twenty-day deployments. He’d go to Laos, Thailand, and Guam. The thing I remember was he’d come back, he’d bring us gifts. I still have gifts from like Japan, you know, little things. It was just cool. So the first memory I have really, I was fifth child of num of six, you know, was him coming through the door. It was great. You can imagine, you know, your dad coming back and everybody’s we’re a family of eight at that time. So it was a big event. And then, you know, this was during the Apollo era too. So I actually remember the last two moon missions, watching that on TV in nineteen seventy-two. So those two, I’d say those two things had the biggest impact on me as far as from then on, I was like, I’m gonna join the military. You know, I really wanted to be in the air force, but I was open to really anything, to be honest with you. And I interviewed with the Navy. At one point, they wanted me to be in a nuclear submarine, but I was like, nah, let me talk to the Air Force and see what they had. You know, went to school. I went to a small school originally, Valdosta State College, and joined the ROTC program there. And then got my commission four years later when I graduated and, you know, went from there. And they gave me two choices in assignments. First one was a missile launch officer in South Dakota or go back to school and go to Florida State for my meteorology degree. And I chose the meteorology degree. So it wasn’t a hard choice for me.

Kevin Doffing: Nice. I love that. But then you weren’t done doing some of that. So when you got out, what were you doing? I feel like there was a three letter acronym that you followed up with.

Jim Sardonia: Well, when I got out I was on active duty Yeah. I was on active duty for seven years and my last assignment was at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. And the Air Force provides all the meteorological support, all the weather support for the launches for NASA at Kennedy Space Center, which is just north of Cape Canaveral, and the Air Force for all the unmanned launches that the Air Force does out there.

Kevin Doffing: Fourth.

Jim Sardonia: I was a launch weather officer. We supported as a active duty Air Force launch weather officer, we were primarily supporting the Navy ballistic missile launches off the test launches off the East Coast. Mm-hmm. There was a weather team that supported every launch. We supported every shuttle launch, Titan at the time, Delta at Atlas at those vehicles too. We supported those as deputy launch weather officers, whether we’re man in the radar, that we had a weather reconnaissance aircraft that would fly through the clouds and very specific criteria to launch a rocket. There. And I would did that for a couple of years. And then I had the opportunity. They they wanted to expand the role. They had three civilian launch weather officers there. And they needed a fourth one. And just timing was key. And, you know, I was working hard there and timing. So that it’s two things that I tell everybody. Timing is always key to what you do or how opportunities may come your way. And if you work hard, That just aligns. If the timing aligns and you worked hard, those opportunities may pop up for you. So they offered me to work as a civilian. So I separated and worked for both the Air Force and NASA and supported, went on for six another six years supporting over 137 launches, 22 space shuttle launches. I was a meteorologist for the ferry flights when the space shuttle was on top of the 747 and flew across the country. That that was a very weather-sensitive flight. They could only fly Up to about twelve thousand feet. It was depressurized. The space shuttle is very it could fly into space and through a launch process, but it was very sensitive once it everything was turned off and once it was on the ground. And if you flew across the country, you could not fly through a cloud. It would actually pit the tiles and cause damage. So we had to fly keyhole our way through clouds and storms through the across the country. They had refueling stop halfway through. So very weather sensitive operation there. Wow. It was a fun ones to be a part of.

Kevin Doffing: So you’ve been doing this for a while. You know, I’m interested. What do you see that other people are not paying attention to, especially as you’ve seen like cycles where like nobody was paying attention to solar, wind was coming up? You know, then battery one megawatt was considered grid scale. And now, you know, we have gigawatt. I’m really interested in new financial vehicles that actually are made for, you know, monetizing battery storage, because battery storage is a Swiss Army knife and it kind of fills in on things. But I don’t feel like there’s a full turnkey monetization, you know, financial vehicle that’s bespoke for energy storage yet. What are you looking at that you don’t feel like people are paying attention to enough yet?

Jim Sardonia: Well, and I’d say the last three to four years, the thing that nobody was really anticipating or looking at was this massive demand growth in data centers. That I was in been in renewables eighteen years. Nobody was predicting what we’re seeing right now as far as the expansion of data centers, the massive growth in these. They’re popping up everywhere. I was in New Mexico a month ago. They’re building data centers like in parts of the desert where nothing should be, you know, it’s there’s barely any pl Yeah, exactly. There’s barely any plant life in these places. But it’s good land, it easy land and they’re building them there. The load growth or the growth of in Virginia and and even Pennsylvania now, nobody anticipated or looked was forecasting this kind of demand for power. We’re seeing it, I think we’re straining, we’re putting a strain on the system right now. We’re seeing localized

Kevin Doffing: Easy permitting.

Jim Sardonia: Pricing that’s being filtered down to homeowners and businesses. And you know, you’re seeing rates, you know, going through the roof in some areas. I think we’re playing catch up. We may be playing a lot of catch up to try to counter that. Mm-hmm. You know, one big project in New Mexico, the SunZia project, which I know a lot of folks at Pattern Energy, that is a massive undertaking, but that’s the kind of things we need to address. If we’re gonna continue to build these massive data centers with this incredible amount of load. And demand and we need to big big infrastructure projects like that. We need big grid, you know, grid interconnection challenges have always been the biggest challenge. Even, you know, since I started fifteen to eighteen years ago, it’s always been interconnection. And it that’s a long time of that being the same problem. But we’re continuously playing catch up, it feels like to me, with the growth that we’re seeing across the state the country.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah. And I mean, you know, going back to what you said earlier, you know, why are veterans at Exus? And I think it applies everywhere else. Like there’s such a need because this is not something where you can get by on vibes. Right. Like your project is successful or not. Like there’s no arguing, did it produce power? Did you make money? It’s brass tacks, right? And I think that it fits well with the military culture of operational excellence, risk mitigation, not risk aversion, and you know, just getting things done.

Jim Sardonia: Right.

Kevin Doffing: Where have you seen Exus, where have you all been able to bring that in so that you are attracting like the best of the best in the veteran community to come in to that? It applies across the industry, but how is your company trying to set itself apart on that?

Jim Sardonia: Think we have a good balance between very experienced and highly skilled, proven leaders in the industry into our fold here. And then using everybody to mentor new people, we have an active mentoring program. We have a great intern program every year. We’ve hired interns from every year class that we’ve had. We try to build the younger crew that we have, but Just the fact that I think we’re very focused and targeted on who we hire that have a lot of experience. And it on the operational side, that’s where veterans fit great. On the safety side, as you know, it everything in the military is built on safety and protecting our source our resources and our troops. And there’s great fits in certain areas. I’d say maintenance, operations, safety. So it’s a combination of that. We have our sites itself. Most of our site managers are veterans. They bring that focus, they bring that discipline, that work ethic, leadership, they’re ready to tackle and they own it. You know, they own those projects. That’s the great thing. It’s not just a job to them. They own these projects and, you know, it they take it personal when, you know, if these projects aren’t operating as they should, or, you know, even if they’re operating great, they want it to operate better to move things on. So I think that’s our strategy, you know, overall. We have great resources here locally in Pittsburgh. There’s a couple several great universities, Pitt, CMU, Carnegie Mellon, there’s Duquesne University. So there’s a great local source of technology and young talent. And also we collaborate with CMU, Pitt, other organizations throughout the industry to, you know, further the science. That’s one thing. Further take the science further, make build these projects. Let’s, you know, move things forward and build these projects that that work great.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah. No, I think, you know, as we bring in more folks from the military, what we end up finding, at least in my experience, maybe this more based on who I am, you know, there’s a little bit more of a libertarian streak of pragmatism versus, you know, a political alignment, really, but just getting things done. But I love to see diversity of thought inside the industry. Yeah. One of the things I was impressed with is that you’re involved with. Turning Point USA. Can you talk a little bit about how you got involved with the organization? What does that look like for you? And just talk a little bit about that.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve been involved with them for a little while now. I would say it’s my personal values, how I align my personal values with that organization. I enjoy mentoring. I have three teenagers as we discuss, you know, getting ready for college, the values and just kind of general ideals of what the country was founded on, less government. That’s one of the core values of turning point, or one of the core. Goals of educating our younger population and folks in college. I enjoy the aspect of talking to our younger generation. Like you said, it’s not political, but it’s just we’re interested in moving things forward in a positive way. You know, when I was in the military, I felt like it was served. I felt like, you know, I was serving my country. I feel like I’m doing the same now in renewable energy. And like you said, energy is security to serve the community as well. There’s a lot of things I enjoy on that. And just trying to get the message across, the values at turning point is trying to pass on. I’m aligned with that. And, you know, with kids going into college, I just want to see, you know, multiple areas of thought, like you said, and it’s not just one sided. There should be the opportunity for other student led organizations. I love that it’s a student led organization. One of the big things, there’s a story right here in Pittsburgh, two miles away from where I’m sitting, a local college. Here in downtown, voted unanimously to not allow a turning point chapter. It’s a student le you know, student government associate you could look it up, but

Kevin Doffing: That’s what Student Veterans of America is. I mean, like it’s a student led organization on campus.

Jim Sardonia: And to me, being voted down unanimously based on ideals, you know, these aren’t ideals of what the country was founded on, less of government involvement, just what the ideas of freedom to me, you know, being in a family with three generations in the military and and, you know, from every war from World War Two to Desert Storm, that’s important to me is to instill a sense of patriotism in my kids and others, you know, if I can. I think that’s important. You shouldn’t hate this country. I love this country. And that’s I’m gonna proudly say that. And I’m not ashamed of it. I’m not ashamed to say I’m a member of Turning Point. Completely proud of that, really. And in the events, obviously in the last year, even reinforced that. Especially in the until recently, you know, there the chapters are being turned down. But I’ll say that was the first step. That’s the first battle, maybe, but the war’s not over. And if you look at Where that’s happened at other colleges across the country, almost everyone eventually became eligible and created a chapter. And I’ll just say to the local university where that happened here, you know, the cavalry is coming and don’t get discouraged to the the students there. There’s people working in the shadows and behind the scenes. And, you know, we’ll do everything we can to help out. You know, it’s it’s just a first step. Disappointment and You know, failure at first sh motivate you more to try to achieve what you’re trying to achieve.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah, I love that. I mean, like, listen, we do a ton of energy advocacy. I’m not getting into a left or right thing. I’m just trying to advocate for vet jobs, all the above, energy security. But I mean, like, I gotta talk to people about how to show up and speak up. And I mean, I’m not telling them don’t do anything. I’m telling them, listen, you just need to connect your military service, whatever your service was, to your industry experience. Right. Like, we’re not the biggest advocacy group because we’re targeting you know, 10% of the energy workforce that have military experience, right? So it’s there are other groups that are bigger than us, but this is the group I belong to and the group I like being with. It’s interesting in how it’s hard to get some people, don’t want to put their head up. You know, I got a buddy who, one of our new chapters, is like, listen, I just don’t want to get mixed up in it. I will do anything to help you get veterans more jobs. I am all in on that aspect. I believe everything we’re talking about. But that’s the only thing I really want to get involved in because I just feel like it’s so hot out there that I don’t want to do it. And I’m like, man, but that’s how we bring the temperature down, is just I keep having to go back and forth with other energy advocates. They’re like, what’s your key talking point? I’m like, being a good dude or gal, like just being somebody and talking to somebody. You know, when we’ve had to defeat like misinformation on solar panels, one of my guys was at an American Legion having a beer, and someone’s like, I hear that, You know, the water runs off it when it rains, it causes cancer. And my guy didn’t launch into like a 12 point thing and pull up a PowerPoint or cite a research paper. He’s like, actually, nah, that’s not true. And that’s all it took because he was just somebody that he was having a beer with that he trusted that knew, worked in the industry, and all the drama was gone. They went back to just having a beer. We just need to talk about what we do for a living. Like I’m literally going to talk to a major wind company. Cause they’re like our veteran employees don’t feel comfortable talking about their jobs with their neighbors. Right. As they’re powering their neighborhood, as they are doing this amazing critical infrastructure, frontline worker, just turning gears. You know, they could be just as easily working on a drilling room floor. Yeah. And they’re not comfortable talking about their job. It’s like the craziest thing to me.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah, I agree. I agree. It’s like I’m proud of what I do. Like you said, it’s not a left or right thing. There’s a lot of viewpoints in the renewable industry from what I’ve seen and the people I’ve talked to and, you know, work with throughout the years. You know, you do get stereotyped if you say, I work in wind power renewables. It’s like, you well, you kill bats or birds or whatever. But you know, when you explain, you know, this is how we work with that. And there’s some legitimate concerns for both, you know, wind and solar. Like I wouldn’t want a turbine a hundred two hundred feet away from my house with shadow flicker. Right. Going. If you see videos of that online or what

Kevin Doffing: I don’t want to pump jack my backyard, but I’m fine having it my property. In like everything in moderation.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, there’s Right. Exactly. And you mentioned standing up and being proud or just being assertive. You know, that’s one of the things that I’ve seen. You know, I’ve seen some veterans come in and they’re maybe a little better word, shy or afraid of standing up and speaking out or speaking up. And I said, just if you know there’s something where you can make an improvement, it’s the companies I’ve worked with, they are looking to move the company forward. If it’s an idea, if it’s a change in a process that makes things more efficient, brings in more revenue, you know, just gets a project done as you’re going through that development stage. I’ve seen 10 times more projects die in the development stage because they just don’t pencil. But yeah, you know, there’s a few that comes through. And if you can find a way to get those through, be willing to stand up. And that’s the kind of leadership I think a lot of companies are looking for. Just people that will own it, own their process or their function, their job function, their project they’re working on, and just trying to push things forward. You know, to me it’s not a job. We’re trying to make put something in the ground that’s gonna be there for thirty years. You know, my kids will see these layouts and these projects that I’ve worked on. And, you know, that’s something I want for them to see.

Kevin Doffing: Yeah. No marginal fuel cost, energy independence. Like whenever I go in and talk, if I know somebody’s hostile against renewables for whatever reason, I just talk about it without saying the trigger words. I talk about like being on an early stage of a technology curve, cost declines, you know, consumer preferences, capital returns, de risk long term. Yeah, like I can talk about renewables for seven minutes without saying the words. Yeah. And usually by the time we get around to it, they’re like, okay. Well, I d you know, I just haven’t thought about it that way. I’m like, well, then you’ve had some really bad salesmen come in here who are like pitching you the hearts and minds campaign without talking about the dollars and cents. What? Well, Jim, as we wrap up, you’ve been doing this for a while. You’ve been in the industry, you’ve built what, over seven gigawatts of projects. What’s your advice to veterans that are considering this industry? I think that almost a third.

Jim Sardonia: Yeah, exactly.

Kevin Doffing: Of the folks that listen to this, if not more, are active duty service members that are exploring this industry. Either they’re really want to get into it and they’re trying to figure out how, or they’re just kind of dipping their toe and then looking at it. What advice would you have for those that are evaluating this industry to know if it’s right for them?

Jim Sardonia: Well, I mean, the first thing I can say is that I’ve never been busier in my eighteen years in the renewables. And the next few years I think the outlook is outstanding and not just renewable energy, any energy industry. Just the growth, the demand for power is just skyrocketing. So in the next five, you know, six years we have so many projects that we there’s more projects than people and money that we can build. So I don’t see it getting to a point where there’s gonna be a slowdown at all. At all. It’s gonna continue. The thing to me to look for is look for companies that are very diverse. Even if it’s just renewables, look for a company that’s diverse. We’re doing wind power, we’re doing solar, we’re doing battery, we’re repowering sites, repowering wind and maybe even solar. We’re looking at data center power for data centers at certain areas. So if you know I’d be a little less confident if there’s companies just focused on one small area. Yeah. You know, we’ve seen a few companies go out in the last few years, but because of that, they were a little siloed into one area. And, you know, if one tariff hits, then it’s devastating. So there’s a lot of old wind farms out there that need to be repowered, that are being repowered. You know, that’s one great diversified area that we’re working on. So to me, those type of areas are those type of companies that have the diversification. Kind of figure out what you want to do. You want to be in the office, you want to be out in the field. There’s great operations. I see so many positions for operations managers and just people in the field, construction workers. There’s tons of activity, especially on the solar side. Solar requires a lot more people, a lot more numbers and people w during the construction phase. Wind requires fewer people, but more highly skilled, like these crane operators that, you know, only a few dozen can operate those. There’s certain areas in solar. You know, there’s a great I don’t know if I can promote a website, but it’s called get into energy dot jobs. Get into energy dot jobs. If you put your MOS in there, they will link your MOS to jobs that are available out there. So it’s a great that’s great.

Kevin Doffing: We’ve had them on the podcast. So that’s underneath that’s the Troops to Energy Jobs program underneath the Center for Energy Workforce Development. And John does coaching. It’s free coaching for any veteran that wants to get involved. You can go find that episode where we just talk about John and how he’s helping veterans through CEWD and the Troops to Energy Jobs do that. But getintoenergy.org, I think, website is a great. Platform where they have jobs, they have the MOS trainer and everything like that. Yeah. No. I mean, you know, one of the things we often get asked is like, hey, could you do this? Could you be a placement group? Could you be a recruiting? And I’m like, so many people are already doing that. Let’s not do what others are doing. Let’s do what needs to be done. And that’s where we do the community and the advocacy work because that’s the stuff that other people are not doing in our space that I’m excited to do.

Jim Sardonia: And just I I saw one of your other videos interviews before. Get on LinkedIn. There are so many sources. Get a LinkedIn profile if you don’t have one. Get a veteran that has transitioned to review a resume. You know, I’ll be happy to send it to me. You can find me on LinkedIn. I’ll be happy to help review. I’ve reviewed so many resumes from veterans and hopefully some of the things I’ve recommended help. Search out the leaders in renewable energy, which is funny. I typed in veterans. Are leaders in renewable energy that are veterans and your name popped up. You’re the first one that popped up. If you type that in Google, you’ll see your name and things like that. That’s important.

Kevin Doffing: For everybody that finds me. Well, and I mean, you know, that’s the point of why we have that Slack community. So, like if you’re listening to this and you do want to find some people, you can do that. But also, you just go to projectvanguard.org. You can join and you’ll get invited to our Slack community. We have a private Slack community with over 500 veterans that work in this industry. Introduce yourself. I guarantee you, we were just talking about with Andy Davis on a podcast episode that came out last week. Within a week, he had five meetings and three coffees. You know, with veterans in the industry. And it it happened like that. Like it’s a qualification or a vetting process that you’re on this platform. Okay, you’re a good person and you’ve already self-selected. You’re not going waste my time and I’m interested and can help you. So I mean it’s like just expedites on a peer-to-peer, decentralized, expedite way, because I love having these calls. I’m going to get murdered by our staff if I keep taking more calls with vets that want to get in and I talk about the same stuff. But all that to say, Jim, so great to have you on here. The time flies by. That’s always a good sign. Thanks so much for taking the time today with us.

Jim Sardonia: Absolutely. It was a pleasure talking to you and pleasure to be able to contribute.

Kevin Doffing: Awesome Jim. We’ll be in touch soon.

Jim Sardonia: Thank you.

He had more reason than most to think that way. As an Army Ranger, he parachuted into Iraq on the night of the invasion and later spent ten days in a firefight on top of the Haditha Dam, one of the largest power-generating facilities in the country. There was intel it would be blown to flood the Euphrates and trap American troops. His mortar crews were hitting the substations below. At the time, it was a mission. Years later, working for one of the largest dam owners in the world, he found himself giving public tours of hydroelectric dams and realized he’d been standing on top of one of these structures under fire long before he ever explained one to a crowd.

That full circle is the heart of this conversation, but it isn’t really the point. The point is what changed in how Andy sees the work.

His argument is simple: energy security stopped being a geopolitical abstraction for him and became a kitchen-table issue. People want the lights to stay on and the bill to stay predictable. Most of them have no idea where the power actually comes from or what the charges mean. He thinks the industry has a job to do there, and that most of these arguments are won or lost not in Washington but in a town hall or at someone’s kitchen table.

Kevin pushes on this from his own experience riding out hurricanes in Houston, where a small home microgrid is the difference between his kids streaming on their iPads and the neighbors huddled around a candle.

There’s also a straight answer here for veterans wondering how to break into energy, and it has less to do with credentials than you’d expect.

Andy didn’t plan any of this. He’ll tell you the best move he made was being willing to walk through a door he hadn’t planned on.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Andy Davis

• 01:39 - Welcome & Spotting Fellow Veterans

• 05:05 - His Work in Community Engagement

• 07:08 - Finding Project Vanguard

• 11:05 - Joining the Army Rangers

• 13:39 - The Combat Jump Into Iraq

• 16:31 - The Haditha Dam Mission

• 22:41 - From GI Bill Struggles to Politics

• 27:49 - Advice for Veterans Entering Energy

• 29:27 - Energy Security at the Kitchen Table

• 33:36 - Becoming a Project Vanguard Leader

• 37:19 - Closing Thoughts & Sign-Off

Resources

People & Organizations

• Andy Davis

  • Brookfield Renewable (Website - LinkedIn)

  • NYISO (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

• Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

  • Community Leader Fellowship (Apply)

• Other orgs mentioned

  • Atlantic Council Global Energy Center (Website)

Company & Industry News

• Section 247 Hydroelectricity Incentives: Brookfield Renewable Selections (Department of Energy)

• Solutions to the Energy Talent Gap Are Hiding in Plain Sight (Utility Dive)

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• How a Marine Lands in Energy Policy

• Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It

Related Substack Posts by Kevin

• Make Energy Boring Again

That discipline is how a retired Marine Corps major with twenty years in aviation ended up running Virginia legislative work for Advanced Energy United, a national trade association.

It is also why this episode is useful for anyone who is actually thinking about energy as a second career.

Jim spent his last active duty stretch on Capitol Hill as a congressional fellow in Senator Perdue’s office, then retired out of the Pentagon. He used SkillBridge to land at SunPower for twelve weeks during the pandemic, learning the industry from the inside on a DOD paycheck. His take on that program is direct: if a service member is six months from getting out and their command does not have a plan for them, that is a leadership gap.

The conversation gets into the work itself. Most days, Jim is in Richmond during the General Assembly session, working bills, educating lawmakers, meeting with member companies. Virginia sits inside PJM, the regional grid operator covering thirteen states and DC. Demand is climbing fast. Data centers, building electrification, transportation. The decisions that shape how the grid actually gets built happen in state capitals, not on cable news.

Jim and Kevin also dig into the harder question for transitioning veterans. What soft skills actually transfer. What the learning curve looks like. Why sales, policy, and project development are real landing spots, not just the technical trades. And what Jim wishes he had known when he was the one buttoning up his resume and asking strangers for a conversation.

The Solar Ready Vets program that helped Jim get placed has since been cut. That makes the question of where veterans find their next foothold in this industry less abstract, and more pressing.

Project Vanguard Podcast is produced by ClarityForge Studios.

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Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Jim Purekal

• 01:10 - Inside Advanced Energy United

• 04:42 - The Virginia Legislative Beat

• 05:51 - What’s Driving Virginia’s Demand

• 07:27 - The Day-to-Day Policy Work

• 11:27 - Why He Joined the Marines

• 15:25 - SkillBridge and Landing at SunPower

• 18:30 - Choosing Energy Over a Defense Contractor

• 23:04 - The Congressional Fellowship

• 25:43 - Preparing the Transition Early

• 29:28 - Advice for Veterans Getting Out

• 33:49 - What Energy Security Means to Him

Resources

People & Organizations

• Jim Purekal (LinkedIn)

  • Advanced Energy United (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

• Other orgs mentioned

  • DoD SkillBridge (Website)

  • Solar Ready Vets Network — IREC (Website)

Company & Industry News

• Virginia’s 2026 Legislative Session Delivered Major Clean Energy Wins — by Jim Purekal

• Virginia lawmakers seek to balance energy affordability, reliability in 2026 — VPM News

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• The Network After Service with Ken Webre

• Take a Risk on Yourself with Laura Gardner

That’s the gap Marcus Barnes works in every day.

Marcus is a Marine Corps veteran and the Energy Program Manager at NextOp Vets, the Houston-based nonprofit Kevin has long called one of the best junior enlisted placement organizations in the sector. NextOp focuses on the E3 to E7 sweet spot, the rank range where transition is hardest and the industry’s recruiting machinery is weakest. Marcus’s specific job is to take that pipeline of talent and connect it to oil and gas, utilities, and renewables.

The conversation gets practical fast. Kevin and Marcus walk through how NextOp actually works, how employers plug in without paying to play, and where Project Vanguard’s swim lane ends and NextOp’s begins. PV builds the peer network. NextOp does the placement. The handoff matters, and most veterans don’t know either piece exists.

The other half of the episode is the human side. Marcus gets out of the Marines after six and a half years, walks into a staffing agency, and gets told his job is called HR. He didn’t know what HR was. He’s open about how often transitioning vets assume free resources are for somebody else, not them, and how much that single mindset costs people.

His parting advice is simple:

Don’t play small.

If you know a transitioning service member, especially a junior enlisted one staring at a graduation date with no plan, this is the episode to send them. And if you’re an employer in energy who keeps saying you want to hire more veterans but can’t find the pipeline, the pipeline is in here.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Cold Open & Introducing Marcus Barnes

• 01:56 - Where NextOp Stands Today

• 05:03 - Why Veterans Fit Energy & Finding NextOp

• 06:56 - Networking and Telling the Right Story

• 11:40 - Reaching Bases & Transitioning Service Members

• 14:26 - Project Vanguard and NextOp Swim Lanes

• 17:31 - Sponsorship, Donations, and Funding

• 19:10 - How Marcus Ended Up a Marine

• 25:54 - What Transition Looks Like for Junior Enlisted Now

• 28:30 - How to Support NextOp

• 31:37 - Energy Security and Storm Response

• 34:15 - Don’t Play Small & Wrap-Up

Resoures

People & Organizations

• Marcus Barnes (LinkedIn)

  • NextOp Vets (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

Company & Industry News

• Veterans are ready to power America’s energy future, if we give them the chance

• Energy Workforce Fast Facts

• Kiggans, Houlahan Introduce Bipartisan VET Act

• How NextOp Helps Veterans Get Careers in Skilled Trades

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• Training the Energy Workforce with Nick Martocci

• Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It

• Take a Risk on Yourself with Laura Gardner

Related Substack Posts by Kevin

• Combined Arms of Energy

• Make Energy Boring Again

“I don’t think that it would go well for me to share my perspective. I love this industry, but nobody will like what I have to say.” I had one of my close veteran friends in the energy industry tell me this when I asked him to be on our podcast. He’s been working in solar and energy storage since leaving the Marines and has now started his own development company with some impressive financial backing. What perspective was he worried about sharing? It wasn’t his combat experience, it was his identity as a libertarian and his conservative views. He obviously hadn’t listened to the podcast, but I’ll give him a pass on that (I wouldn’t want to hear my voice either). But the fact that this successful industry executive didn’t want to be fully present is distressing.

What perspective was he worried about sharing? It wasn’t his combat experience, it was his identity as a libertarian and his conservative views.

Oil & gas is the essential backbone of our modern society and needs to be embraced and understood. Renewable energy is the fastest growing segment of the energy industry, and where I’m personally most excited to participate in the overall growth of energy in the coming decades as nearly everything gets electrified. We need both (and more) to fully execute a Combined Arms of Energy strategy and achieve true Energy Security.

I’ve noticed that when I ask folks what Energy Security means to them they can only talk about it in broad systems terms, but they often get tripped up on how to talk about it through their experiences. In the next dozen or so essays I’m going to try and lead by example in defining energy security through my personal experience so we can have other Project Vanguard members add their own stories to how our industry can talk about how energy security is national security. I think that this is a unique veteran perspective we can share with the industry, policymakers, and civilians. After all, I’m no expert in anything. But I have deployed and been successful in combat, owned an oilfield supply company for a decade, led one of the largest veteran service organizations in Texas building community among veterans, led sales for field services of utility scale operations and maintenance, and worked as the director of a think tank focused on the intersection of energy security and national security. I’m not that bright, but I have been busy. I’m not going to tell anyone what to think, but I am going to tell yall what I experienced. I hope that informs how anyone reading this thinks about energy security.

When I was in combat I loved being in the infantry, but that was only one aspect of what we called a Combined Arms philosophy. If I was going to go on a raid we also had air assets on standby, we’d prep an objective with artillery, cordon the area with tanks, assess targets using our intelligence assets, and we’d be supported by a mind boggling long logistics supply line. It took a diverse portfolio of operators and service members to execute a single raid. Our energy system is the same. It’s more secure with a diverse mix of energy generation assets. While this is something exciting and riveting to me, it also needs to be simple and unseen to everyone else.

It took a diverse portfolio of operators and service members to execute a single raid. Our energy system is the same.

Before I lay out all the aspects of energy security over the coming weeks, I want to start where I began my career in energy, my time as a light infantry platoon leader in Iraq. Two stories jump out at me when I think of energy security experiences when I was in Iraq. First, when I was living at OP Hotel in the center of the city with my platoon on overwatch of Route Michigan and a Tier 1 IED hotspot at its intersection with Easy Street and Apple. I was driving back into Camp Corregidor for a fuel run. On our way back after checking in Battalion, the guys and I were BS-ing when I heard something hitting the side of our up armored humvee. There was sporadic small arms fire from behind us. I decided we wouldn’t engage with our .50cal without being able to identify the source. But it struck me that we were burning gas, to go get gas, to run an oversized generator, to power a radio, coffee machine, and some lights. I don’t want an EV Humvee at an OP in the city. But man, a few solar panels would have been a way more secure solution. Especially looking back knowing that in Iraq 1 in 8 casualties were on fuel convoys. I can’t help thinking that we were so limited in the options we had for solving our own energy demands when I was in combat.

I learned about what scarcity does to people when I was in Iraq. During the Surge and the Sunni Awakening we had calmed things down in Ramadi where I was deployed, so my platoon was moved out into a surrounding village called Juyaba. There we moved into a large house in the area that we had been using as a forward operating base. I was living with an Iraqi army company, training the officers in charge of the unit and leading contracting with the local city council. I saw firsthand how the insecurity of the war had removed the economic opportunities afforded to the local residents. As we’d go out into the neighborhoods on patrol I’d constantly hear about the lack of access to electricity. The local substation had been a launch point for a lot of raids, so of course we’d blown it up. Several times. So the only way that they could power their homes was from diesel generators, but accessing fuel was extremely difficult. We’d source fuel for some of the homes, as there were mothers with young children that were trying to keep formula cold for infants. I had to watch as these people had to make hard choices with their children’s lives on the line. When I think of Energy Security I think of those parents and how their energy scarcity created so much insecurity in their lives. I don’t want to see that happen in America.

When I think of Energy Security I think of those parents and how their energy scarcity created so much insecurity in their lives. I don’t want to see that happen in America.

We need energy abundance, not scarcity. If you think this only applied to combat situations or countries far from our shores then you’re wrong. I’ve seen fist fights after hurricanes in Houston when gas stations run out and there’s long lines to get gas. There’s an old saying that every civilization is three meals from barbarism, well it also applies to our need for energy.

We need a Combined Arms approach that derisks our energy system by not being constrained by any single energy source. The wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine, and the market for global commodities in oil & gas isn’t always reliable. We need to invest in all of it or we risk our energy security, and thereby our national security and the safety of our families. Energy security is national security.

This is the first in the series of essays I’m planning to write. Here’s what you can expect to read in the coming weeks on this subject.

• Essay 1: Combined Arms of Energy (launch)

• Essay 2: Scarcity Creates Conflict (more Iraq stories)

• Essay 3: The False Binary (my O&G vs renewables experience)

• Essay 4: The Element They Won’t Defend (renewables needs O&G)

• Essay 5: The Element They Won’t Attack (nuclear)

• Essay 6: Resilience Starts at Home (my microgrid)

• Essay 7: The Lost Coalition (hippies, preppers, and pot growers)

• Essay 8: The Force We’re Not Training (veteran workforce challenges)

• Essay 9: The Community That Didn’t Exist (why project vanguard resonates)

• Essay 10: The Operations Order (the mission ahead)

As I continue this series feel free to reach out and share your own stories from the military and industry about energy security. I’d love to hear from you. Comment below or email me at kevin@projectvanguard.com

She started in postal operations, then switched her MOS to chemical warfare when she moved to Houston. After the military, she went into oil and gas, managing subsea drilling systems and complex field operations at TechnipFMC. Today she’s the CTO of Nova Source Power Services, leading technology for solar and battery storage.

That path matters here because Kevin and Laura both came up through oil and gas, and they get into why that background is an actual advantage in newer energy sectors. The operational discipline and the project management instincts carry forward. Laura also gets into what she’s seeing on the technology side: companies want the AI solution before they’ve fixed the process or the data underneath it. As she puts it, everyone skips the boring stuff, and that’s where things break.

But the thread running through this whole episode is Laura’s message to veterans considering the energy industry: you already know how to do this. You’ve moved from base to base, changed jobs on short notice, and figured it out every time. The structure is the same. The values are the same. It’s just a different boss.

Laura recently joined the Project Vanguard advisory board. In this episode she sits down with Kevin to talk about what she tells transitioning service members at career events, why leaving your comfort zone gets easier after the first time, and what the energy industry needs from people who’ve served.

Project Vanguard Podcast is produced by ClarityForge Studios.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Laura Gardner

• 01:38 - Meeting at CERAWeek & Oil and Gas Roots

• 04:01 - Digital Twins and Technology Adoption

• 08:22 - Moving from Oil and Gas to Solar

• 12:38 - AI Adoption and Skipping the Boring Stuff

• 15:15 - Joining the Military at 17

• 17:07 - From Postal Operations to Chemical Warfare

• 21:21 - Deciding to Get Out

• 26:00 - Veterans Transitioning into Energy

• 28:32 - Advisory Board & Community Leaders

• 29:35 - Take a Risk on Yourself

• 33:28 - Advice for Getting into the Energy Industry

• 38:57 - Rapid Fire & Closing

Resources

People & Organizations

• Laura Gardner, CTO, NovaSource Power Services (LinkedIn)

  • NovaSource Power Services (LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

Company & Industry News

• NovaSource Launches NovaVision AI-Enabled Platform for Asset Optimization

• NovaSource Selected as Long-Term O&M Partner for Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub

• NovaSource Partners with Doral Renewables for Mammoth Solar Project

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It

• From Sea Daddy to Mrs. Virginia with Lourdes Spurlock

• The Network After Service with Ken Webre

Related Substack Posts by Kevin

• Your Next Mission: America’s Energy Future

• Veterans in Energy & Infrastructure

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Frank Macchiarola has spent 20 years on the advocacy side of energy, first at the American Petroleum Institute and now as Chief Advocacy Officer at American Clean Power. He has worked both sides of the fuel spectrum and both chambers of Congress. When he says the divisions in energy used to be geographic, not partisan, he is speaking from direct experience. And when he says that shift is now the single biggest obstacle to building what the country needs, it carries weight that cable news commentary never will.

Frank is also the first non-veteran to sit down on this podcast. That was intentional. The advocacy and external affairs lane in energy is one veterans should know about, and Frank’s perspective on what actually moves policymakers connects directly to the grassroots work Project Vanguard is building.

One of the sharpest moments in the conversation is Frank’s case that renewables and oil & gas are not actually in market competition right now. Demand growth from AI, data centers, and domestic manufacturing is so large that every resource is needed. The political war between fuels does not match the reality on the ground. Frank lived that reality at API. He is living it now at ACP.

A former boss of his used to share an anecdote from a senator:

“I always vote with my favorite lobbyist until I hear from my constituent.”

That line sits underneath the entire conversation. Who shows up matters more than who has access. Veterans, landowners, frontline workers, local business owners. Those are the voices that stop a legislator in their tracks. Frank explains why, and what ACP’s Power Votes program is doing to put that principle into practice at scale.

We also get into what the external affairs career pathway looks like for veterans and why Frank’s best piece of career advice cuts against most of the guidance people hear during transition.

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Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Frank Macchiarola

• 01:41 - ACP’s Role in Clean Energy Advocacy

• 03:31 - How Energy Became a Political Football

• 06:59 - Energy Security as National Security

• 10:30 - Renewables and Oil & Gas Are Not in Conflict

• 13:35 - Why the Messaging Still Gets Mired

• 17:56 - Power Votes and Grassroots Advocacy

• 23:16 - Constituents as the Real Messengers

• 29:19 - Authentic Voices on the Ground

• 33:38 - Showing Up with Facts and Data

• 36:04 - Clean Energy’s Competitive Position

• 38:54 - External Affairs as a Career for Veterans

• 43:33 - Closing

Resources

People & Organizations

• Frank Macchiarola (LinkedIn)

  • American Clean Power Association (Website - LinkedIn)

  • Power Votes

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

• Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

Organizations Discussed

• American Petroleum Institute

• Farm to Power

• Conservative Energy Network

Company & Industry News

• Clean Power Adds Record 50 GW in 2025 as Surging Electricity Demand Accelerates

• ACP Clean Power on the Hill

• Clean Energy’s Ground Game: ACP Grassroots Strategy Session

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It

• Veterans, Policy, and the Hidden Energy Battlefield with Michael Dunn

• The Cost of Energy Chaos with Joshua Bice

Related Substack Posts by Kevin

• Make Energy Boring Again

• Veterans at ACP CLEANPOWER 2025

So she entered a pageant.

Not because she wanted a crown. Because she needed to relearn how to exist outside the military. How to dress for an interview. How to talk to people who didn’t get the joke. How to stop being the person nobody invites out a second time. Pageants became etiquette training, community access, and eventually a platform. She’s now Mrs. Virginia International 2026, and her platform is renewable energy, STEM, and veteran support.

That alone would be a good story. But this conversation goes further. Lourdes talks about what it actually feels like to leave a world where your coworkers check on you over the weekend and enter one where nobody asks how your three-day went. She talks about choosing a smaller pond on purpose, spending nine years at Newport News Shipyard building nuclear carriers before jumping into wind energy. And she makes the case that veterans don’t need more certifications to lead in this industry. They need to know what they bring and be willing to say it out loud in 30 seconds or less.

There’s a moment where Kevin asks what she wants to see happen with Project Vanguard’s fellowship over the next year. Her answer is direct: more women. Not as a talking point. Because she knows what it’s like to be the only one in the room and have nobody who gets it.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Lourdes Spurlock

• 01:30 - Legislative Days in Virginia & Oklahoma

• 03:47 - Social Media & LinkedIn for Veterans

• 05:25 - Getting a Screening Call, Not a Job

• 07:48 - Building a Network Through Community

• 09:13 - Mrs. Virginia International 2026

• 10:28 - From Navy Nuke to Pageant Stage

• 13:37 - Finding Mentors by Asking Why

• 15:38 - Sea Daddies & Navy Mentorship Culture

• 16:56 - Joining the Military & Newport News

• 18:54 - Find the Small Pond First

• 22:53 - More Women in the Fellowship

• 27:28 - Your Story Is the Product

• 29:28 - Advice for Veterans Entering Energy

• 33:21 - Don’t Be Scared to Be the Only Woman

Resources

People & Organizations Mentioned

• Lourdes Spurlock (LinkedIn)

  • Apex Clean Energy (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

• American Clean Power Association (Website)

Company & Industry News

• Apex Clean Energy Closes $2.79 Billion in Financing for Three Renewable Energy Projects

• Virginia’s First Onshore Wind Farm Under Construction in Botetourt County

• Valley of Valor: Lourdes Spurlock

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It

• The Network After Service with Ken Webre

• Building Energy From Experience with Jon Powers

Related Substack Posts by Kevin

• Veterans in Energy & Infrastructure

• Your Next Mission: America’s Energy Future

I sit down with Nick Martocci, a Marine turned Army National Guard pilot turned renewable energy trainer, to talk about the part of the industry people often miss: the actual workforce behind it. Not the slogans. Not the social media food fight. The work.

What comes through in this episode is how naturally veterans can fit into energy when the path is made visible. Nick lays out why the field feels familiar to so many former service members. Small teams. Safety. Mission execution. Logistics. Reliability. Taking care of the person to your left and right.

That matters because this is not just about helping veterans land jobs. It is about building a workforce that can keep critical infrastructure running, adapt to new technologies, and strengthen the systems the country depends on. Project Vanguard has been clear that veterans are trusted messengers and practical builders in this space, especially when the conversation stays focused on people, projects, and policies instead of political theater.

A few things make this episode worth your time:

• Nick explains why energy work, especially in wind and storage, can be a real long-term fit for veterans

• He gets specific about training, apprenticeships, and what companies actually need

• He makes the case that energy security is not just about generation, but about workforce readiness and protection of the grid

One of the strongest threads here is that veterans do not need vague encouragement. They need clear pathways, real standards, and people willing to lower the ladder once they’ve climbed it. That sits right in the middle of Project Vanguard’s broader mission to connect veteran credibility with workforce opportunity and American energy strength.

This episode is useful for veterans looking for their next move, for employers thinking harder about talent pipelines, and for anyone who says they care about energy security but has not spent much time thinking about who actually does the work.

Resources

People & Organizations:

• Nick Martocci (LinkedIn)

  • Technical Training Academy (Website - LinkedIn)

  • Infinite Fidelis Consulting (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

• Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

Company & Industry News

• Tower Training Academy’s Renewable Apprenticeships

Books & Articles Discussed

• Global Wind Organisation - Wind Training Standards

• Global Wind Organisation - Basic Technical Training Standard

• Online CAPM® and PMP® Certification Prep

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• The Next Tour of Duty Begins with DJ Husted

• From Baghdad to the Boardroom with Michelle Nicholson

Related Substack Posts by Kevin

• Energy Security: A Strategic Imperative in Uncertain Times

• Your Next Mission: America’s Energy Future

• Veterans at ACP CLEANPOWER 2025

The problem is that we keep treating a long-horizon infrastructure challenge like a short-term political argument.

In this conversation, Joshua Bice helps put a finer point on something Project Vanguard keeps coming back to: energy security is national security. Not as a bumper sticker. As a practical reality.

When Josh talks about the projects being built right now, he is not describing some clean-vs-conventional fantasy debate. He is describing large, real-world resiliency plays where natural gas, storage, renewables, interconnection, regulation, and industrial load growth are all colliding at once. That is especially true as AI drives bigger and more power-hungry facilities into the system.

The sharpest turn in the episode comes when the conversation moves from engineering to investment.

Josh’s point is simple: scared money does not invest. If policy swings every election cycle, capital gets cautious, timelines stretch, and the country loses ground on the very infrastructure it says it wants to build. That is not just a market problem. It is a national strength problem.

That is also where the veteran piece matters.

Kevin and Josh get at something bigger than workforce stats. Veterans tend to understand operational discipline, mission focus, risk mitigation, and long-term responsibility. In an industry that runs on reliability and trust, that matters. Project Vanguard’s broader case is that veterans are not just a hiring pool. They are credible messengers for a more grounded energy conversation.

A few threads run through this one:

• energy abundance without purity politics

• policy consistency as a condition for serious investment

• veteran credibility as an asset in public persuasion

The unresolved question hanging over the episode is the right one: can the country build a stable framework before politics keeps chasing capital off the field?

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction

• 01:37 - Project Vanguard Growth

• 07:52 - Energy Underground in Houston

• 12:50 - What Energy Security Means

• 14:08 - Why Veterans Fit Energy

• 17:27 - Partisanship and Policy Risk

• 18:38 - Veterans as Trusted Voices

• 19:39 - Josh’s Enlistment Story

• 23:05 - Getting Out and Finding Direction

• 23:52 - Breaking Into Energy in Latin America

• 31:11 - Follow-Through, Trust, and Reputation

• 32:39 - Advice for Veterans Entering Energy

• 37:05 - Final Thoughts and Outro

Resources

People & Organizations

• Josh Bice

  • rPlus Energies (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

• Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

• Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Website)

• North American Electric Reliability Corporation (Website)

Company & Industry News

• rPlus Energies Acquires 900 MW of Solar and Storage Projects in Ada County, Idaho

• rPlus Energies Secures Approximately $100 Million in Tax Equity Financing with Truist Bank for Pleasant Valley Solar 2

• US AI boom faces electric shock

• US utilities scale up grid-boosting tech to meet surging demand

Books & Articles Discussed

• Electric Reliability

• NERC Standards

They struggle because the structure disappears, the signal gets noisy, and nobody gives them a clear map for what comes next.

That is the real center of this conversation with Ken Webre, the Director of Business Development for W-Industries.

Ken has spent decades in the electrical and power world, but what makes this episode worth your time is not just his industry background. It is the way he talks about transition without dressing it up. When he came out of the Navy, there was no giant network waiting for him. No clear translation from military experience to civilian work. No obvious playbook. He leaned on family, figured it out, and built a long career in electrical leadership from there.

What makes that story matter now is that the problem has changed shape, but not substance.

Today’s veterans have more information than ever. They can search anything, join anything, take any course, chase any credential. But that can become its own trap. More options do not automatically create more clarity. Sometimes they just make it easier to get lost.

That is where this conversation lands squarely in Project Vanguard territory:

• trusted guidance matters more than generic advice

• curiosity beats posturing

• careers in energy become real when someone helps connect the dots

One of the strongest threads in the episode is Ken’s point that veterans should not lose themselves trying to fit somebody else’s mold. Show up. Be honest. Stay curious. Treat the work like it matters. That sounds simple, but it cuts against a lot of the bad advice people get when they are trying to build a second life after service.

This is also why Project Vanguard matters. Not as a slogan, and not as a feel-good veteran brand, but as a place where people can get real direction from others who have already made the jump. That fits the broader mission: veteran credibility, workforce opportunity, and practical leadership in an industry that actually builds things. That framing is consistent with Project Vanguard’s stated focus on veterans as trusted messengers and on connecting service members to energy careers.

The bigger question sitting underneath this episode is simple: how many veterans are still making major life decisions with too little signal and not enough trusted people in the room?

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Ken Webre

• 02:19 - Ken’s Role at W-Industries

• 03:41 - Energy Infrastructure, Not Ideology

• 07:23 - Listening, Sales & Learning the Business

• 10:22 - Louisiana Projects & Community Leadership

• 13:06 - Batteries, Transmission & Grid Resilience

• 17:36 - Joining the Navy & Early Service

• 24:38 - Transitioning Out & Finding Electrical Work

• 27:15 - Leadership, Motivation & Feeling Lost

• 29:57 - Project Vanguard, Curiosity & Trusted Guidance

• 32:37 - Honesty, Ownership & Why Veterans Succeed

• 34:02 - Louisiana Event, Slack Community & Wrap-Up

Resources

People & Organizations:

• Ken Webre (LinkedIn)

  • W-Industries (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

Company & Industry News

• W-Industries launches OASIS for Onshore Automation Solutions for Intelligent Systems

• W-Industries expands Houston footprint at Champions Park Business Center

• POWERGEN 2026 Conference Program

Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard

• Reality Always Collects the Bill with John Broschak

• Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It

• From QRF to the Grid: Why Veterans Belong in America’s Energy Mission

Related Substack Posts by Kevin

• Your Next Mission: America’s Energy Future

• Veterans in Energy & Infrastructure

• Coalition Sign-On Letter: Veterans for Energy Dominance

That is the center of this conversation with Jon Powers, the Co-Founder of Clean Capital.

This episode is not just a walk through one man’s resume. It is a look at how military experience can turn into energy leadership, and why that matters far beyond one career path. Jon talks through the road from Iraq to Washington, from Operation Free to CleanCapital, and how the national security case for energy became real to him long before it became a talking point.

What makes this one worth your time is that it stays grounded. Jon is not speaking in abstractions. He is talking about fuel convoys, solar on base, propane shortages, and the kind of practical energy problems that stop feeling theoretical the moment people’s lives depend on them. That is where the conversation gets its weight.

It also lines up cleanly with a core Project Vanguard idea: veterans are credible messengers in energy not because they have the slickest talking points, but because they have lived close to the consequences of bad systems and fragile infrastructure. Project Vanguard’s broader case is that veterans can help move the conversation past purity politics and toward energy security, workforce opportunity, and all-of-the-above realism. This episode gives that argument a real human spine.

A few threads run through the whole discussion:

• how service can translate into leadership in a new industry

• why energy becomes a national security issue long before it becomes a political one

• where veterans may be underestimating how valuable their skills really are

The part I would not give away too cheaply is Jon’s advice to veterans looking at the industry now. It is simple, but it cuts against the hesitation a lot of people carry when they leave the military and try to picture themselves in finance, development, or leadership roles.

If you care about veteran transition, American energy, or how serious people actually build second careers with purpose, this one earns the listen.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction & Jon Powers

• 01:31 - Kevin Johnson and the Early Network

• 02:46 - Operation Free and John Warner

• 10:16 - From Pentagon to CleanCapital

• 15:37 - Why Jon Joined the Army

• 17:05 - Coming Home and Path to Movies

• 20:10 - Working With Iraqi Youth

• 22:56 - How Middle East War Shaped Their Energy View

• 25:14 - Advice for Veterans Entering Energy

• 29:49 - Veteran Networks and Honest Translation

Resources

People & Organizations

• Jon Powers (LinkedIn)

  • CleanCapital (Website - LinkedIn)

• Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)

  • Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube)

• Truman National Security Project (Website)

  • Operation Free at Truman National Security Project (Website)

Company & Industry News

• CleanCapital Secures $300M HoldCo Facility with Infranity (Website)

• CleanCapital Acquires 64 Solar and Energy Storage Projects From Greenbacker (Website)

• US clean power groups turn to longer deals to finance growth (Reuters)

• Solar and storage accounted for 84% of new US power added in 2024, report says (Reuters)

Books & Articles Discussed

• Gunner Palace (Website)

• Veterans push for climate bill with new Operation Free coalition (Grist)

But the work lives somewhere else, out in the counties, across kitchen tables, inside contracts that feel longer than a deployment.

In this episode, Rickey Stuchell breaks down the side of the industry that decides whether anything ever gets built. The land side.

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Energy parks are the new chess move

Rickey describes a model that feels like a next-phase strategy: developers bundling generation, storage, and data center load onto the same massive footprint.

Not a single project, more like an ecosystem with fences.

Why not go purchase or lease 2,000 acres where they can build a solar farm or a wind farm, put battery storage on it, and then add four or five million square feet of data center. - Rickey Stuchell

What a land team really is (and why veterans fit)

Rickey breaks the land team into three roles, and it maps cleanly onto how veterans already think:

• Agents: boots on the ground with landowners

• Project managers: orchestrating the negotiation and the chaos

• Technicians: the document pros who keep everything correct (and keep everyone honest)

This is not a “paperwork job.” It’s relationship and pressure work, and you hear that in how he recruits. Sometimes he hires experience.

Rickey’s why is simple: helping vets find their next mission.

And the advice Rickey gives is the stuff that actually works:
Listen first. Learn the acronyms. Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself.

Final Thoughts

If you want to understand why projects stall, why timelines slip, and why the loudest online takes usually miss the point, this episode is for you.

The land side is where the work gets done. Rickey lives there, and he explains it in plain language, with the kind of calm confidence you only get from doing the job.

If you’re a veteran eyeing the industry, or a civilian who wants a clearer view of how this actually happens, go listen. And if you’ve ever had to earn trust across a table, you’ll recognize the skillset immediately.

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It is not. Or at least not only that.

It is about who understands systems, who can navigate policy, and who can bring unlikely groups into the same room.

In this episode of Project Vanguard, I talk with Michael Dunn, a veteran who stumbled into clean energy through necessity, curiosity, and a relentless habit of saying yes.

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Michael did not set out to work in policy or markets.

He joined the military to pay for school.
He entered consulting to find direction.
He moved into clean energy because it was one of the few spaces where mission, economics, and national security intersect.

Along the way, he discovered something most energy conversations miss:

Power does not shift because of slogans.
It shifts because of coordination.

The conversation explores why veterans are uniquely positioned to influence the energy transition, how policy quietly shapes every market decision, and why coalition building may be more important than any single technology.

At its core, this episode is not about career advice or clean energy optimism.

It is about leverage.

Who has it.
How it is built.
And why the next decade of energy will be shaped less by engineers and more by people who understand how systems actually move.

If you want to understand how power really flows through the energy industry, this episode is worth your time.

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Timestamps

• 00:05 – Why Veterans Matter in Energy

• 02:20 – Michael’s Entry into Energy Policy

• 03:20 – CELI and Fellowship Opportunities

• 05:20 – Working at Qcells, Policy in Practice

• 07:22 – Coalition Building in DC

• 12:00 – Dropping Out and Enlisting

• 14:26 – Military as Social Mobility

• 16:06 – Education While Serving

• 18:12 – Georgetown MBA to Energy Career

• 22:33 – Atlantic Council and Strategic Focus

• 27:50 – Advice for Veterans Breaking In

• 30:00 – Using Project Vanguard Effectively

• 34:57 – Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

Resources

Guest & Company

• Michael Dunn - LinkedIn

  • QCells - LinkedIn

Topics Discussed

• LG Energy Solution signs contract with Hanwha QCells to supply 5GWh ESS battery

• Atlantic Council: Veterans Advanced Energy Fellowship

• CELI - The Clean Energy Leadership Institute

They start with identity, not systems. With labels, not failure modes. With confidence about outcomes, without much curiosity about what actually breaks when demand spikes or assumptions fail.

In this episode, Kevin Doffing talks with John Szoka about energy from a less fashionable angle: how power systems really behave under pressure, and what that implies for markets, policy, and leadership.

It’s a conversation that refuses to pretend there are clean answers.

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The Throughline

John doesn’t argue that markets solve everything. He argues that badly designed markets fail in predictable ways, and we keep acting surprised when they do.

The discussion circles a few uncomfortable realities:

1. Power systems don’t care about intent.

2. Incentives matter more than slogans.

3. And tradeoffs don’t disappear just because they’re politically inconvenient.

What makes the exchange compelling is how often it runs against familiar talking points. Not by attacking them, but by asking better questions. What happens first when demand grows faster than infrastructure? Where do timelines slip? Who absorbs the risk when policy bets are wrong?

These aren’t abstract questions. They’re operational ones.

Here’s some of what we explore:

• Why reliability isn’t a value statement, it’s an engineering constraint
• How policy often assumes coordination that markets aren’t built to deliver
• Where conservative instincts about markets hold up, and where they don’t
• Why pretending energy transitions are frictionless creates political backlash later
• How ignoring system limits today just defers failure into tomorrow

At one point, John makes a point that quietly reframes the whole discussion: energy policy succeeds or fails at the edges, not in press releases. Truth.

Project Vanguard exists to surface conversations like this. Not to sell certainty, but to sharpen judgment.

This episode isn’t about picking sides. It’s about understanding systems well enough to stop lying to ourselves about how they behave.

If you’re tired of energy debates that feel disconnected from reality, this one is worth your time.

Listen closely. The value is in what doesn’t get oversimplified.

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In my latest episode of Project Vanguard, I sat down with Ken Young to talk about how the grid really works when it’s under pressure. Not the headlines. Not the culture war version. The systems underneath it all.

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We talked about why grid failures don’t come from one bad decision or one bad energy source. They come from stacked stress. Demand growth. Weather. Planning gaps. Timing. Human choices made years earlier.

That’s the part most people miss.

Reliability isn’t something you declare. It’s something you design for long before the crisis shows up.

Ken breaks down how energy systems are actually built to handle risk, why “either/or” thinking breaks down fast in the real world, and how today’s load growth is forcing hard conversations that can’t be postponed anymore.

This episode connects dots between:

• Why veterans tend to see energy differently

• Why all-of-the-above isn’t a slogan, it’s a system requirement

• Why the unglamorous work (planning, transmission, margins) decides outcomes

• And why energy security underpins everything else we care about

The grid doesn’t care about ideology.
It responds to physics, preparation, and execution.

If you want to understand what’s actually at stake as demand grows and systems get tighter, this is a conversation worth your time.

Give it a listen. And if it sharpens how you think about energy, share it with someone who needs a clearer picture.

Share

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Intro, Ken Young

• 02:05 – Apex role, project pipeline

• 04:26 – Why vets help vets

• 06:28 – San Angelo site visit

• 08:32 – Community pushback

• 10:41 – Permitting, misinformation

• 13:53 – Construction realities

• 15:34 – Leadership under uncertainty

• 16:48 – West Point, infantry path

• 18:25 – Post-Army transition

• 20:21 – Breaking into wind

• 27:42 – Scaling gigawatts of energy

• 29:50 – Tax equity, runway to 2030

• 38:39 – Load growth, building megawatts

• 40:45 – Career advice for vets

Resources

Guest & Company

• Ken Young - LinkedIn

  • Apex Clean Energy - LinkedIn - Jobs Openings

• Kevin Doffing - LinkedIn

  • Project Vanguard - LinkedIn

Transcript

Kevin Doffing (00:17.587)

That kind of honesty is all over this conversation and it’s why it works. Welcome to Project Vanguard podcast, home of the community of veterans in energy. Where we explore the journeys of veterans leading in energy. We’re building American energy dominance through an all-the-above approach where energy security is national security. And our mission is to double the number of veterans working in the energy industry. I’m your host, Kevin Doffin.

Kevin Doffing (00:46.008)

Today’s guest is Ken Young, a West Point graduate and former infantry officer. Ken is the CEO of Apex Clean Energy, a national independent power producer headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. Apex operates a portfolio of wind, solar, and storage projects that they have a deep development pipeline of, focused on getting these projects into long-term operations.

Ken Young (01:08.559)

office.

Kevin Doffing (01:09.346)

Kevin Doffing (01:09.87)

In this episode, we dig into what it actually takes to put projects online. Not in theory, but in real life. We also get into Ken’s transition story, how he initially chose the infantry and how he navigated the years after the Army when he fell a little untethered and how renewable energy gave him something familiar again. A team, a mission, and a place where he had purpose. Then we zoom out to this year. What is Apex focused on?

Kevin Doffing (01:37.686)

and why Ken sees this industry as nonpartisan, practical, and at the heart of American energy dominance. You’ll walk away with a clearer picture of what CEOs are optimizing for in this space, plus real, implementable advice for veterans who want to grow into senior leadership by learning the industry language, picking a functional lane, and earning the credibility they need to move up the career ladder. Let’s get into it.

Ken Young (01:53.774)

you

Kevin Doffing (02:05.25)

Ken, thanks for being here today. Really appreciate you making the time. I know you’re a busy man.

Ken Young (02:09.794)

Great to be with you, Kevin. Really happy to be here and potentially give some messages for veterans, cause near and dear to my heart and look forward to being with you. Thanks for having me.

Kevin Doffing (02:19.566)

Absolutely. Anytime I can get more infantrymen on here, it just makes the infantry in my heart a little bit happier, which means angry, but that’s happy in infantry.

Ken Young (02:30.008)

Good. I love it.

Kevin Doffing (02:32.194)

Well, so for everybody who doesn’t know already and they may not have read the bio, what would you say you do these days?

Ken Young (02:39.402)

I’m the CEO of Apex Clean Energy. We’re a national independent power producer, headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia. We’re about 400 people in all phases of the business and all functional areas. We operate a portfolio of about three gigawatts of wind, solar, and storage. And we have a very large development pipeline focused on continuing to put assets into operations. And we’re doing that across all phases of technology and all markets across the U S. So.

Ken Young (03:09.044)

I am extremely proud of our team and humbled to represent them here and elsewhere as we go about accelerating the shift to clean energy.

Kevin Doffing (03:18.178)

Yeah, no, mean, Apex has been such a great partner. I mean, I was just talking yesterday with Barrett and Lourdes from your team there in our inaugural community leader fellowship. So Barrett’s in Austin, Lourdes is there, y’all’s main office in Virginia. And those are two big states for us, you know, for the industry and for vis-a-vis our organization. Luckily, unluckily, Texas doesn’t have a legislative session this year, but it kind of feels like it, but Lourdes will be busy with the Virginia legislative session coming up here. So.

Kevin Doffing (03:47.928)

You know, thanks for letting me, know, second a little bit of their time and getting out and being the faces of veterans and energy.

Ken Young (03:56.128)

Yeah, our pleasure. Those two folks are great representatives of APEX, of veterans making a successful transition, coming from varied backgrounds, you know, from Navy enlisted on one side and then from a battalion commander in the infantry on the other side and both finding their way to renewable energy in very different scopes of work. And they’ve been extremely valuable members of our team. And we’re happy to support folks like that here at APEX and continue to push forward in concert with them.

Kevin Doffing (04:26.838)

Yeah, you know, the thing I’ve always found interesting in this work is that it’s not a hard sell for veterans, you know, in any industry, but especially in industry that they’re passionate about to say, Hey, how would you like to take a lot of extra time to help other veterans? know you’re not busy with your full-time job, family life, faith, community, other engagements, but it’s never been a really hard thing. Even you and I, when we first talked, talked about

Kevin Doffing (04:52.93)

you know, taking cold calls on LinkedIn to just, I’m a vet and I’m interested in the space. Great, let’s find a time.

Ken Young (04:59.042)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, that’s part of probably what some of us were looking for leaving the military. We left this community and one where we had a lot of shared purpose with other people. And I think some of us maybe at times have struggled. Obviously some have struggled more than others trying to recreate and find that community. I was lucky enough to find it about 19 years ago when I got into what was then the wind business. know, solar was not really a thing then it was used to heat your pools.

Ken Young (05:28.674)

So we’ve come a long way, but I knew as soon as I found renewable energy, I found a team. This is very much a team sport and we’re at a really cool intersection of business and purpose. So we’re not the Red Cross. know, we’re certainly not the military by any means, but what we do bring so much good with it. And so the fact that we get to do that with other high quality individuals really gave me something I was looking for is that that teamwork and purpose to do big things.

Ken Young (05:58.766)

with other good people. And that’s something that is extremely motivating and underscores really everything we do. I mentioned it earlier, you know, our purpose here since 2009, when Apex was founded, is to accelerate the shift to clean energy. And that sounds very simple, but I think it’s quite elegant. And when you get in there into the trenches and you’re, you’re out in the field doing the work and you’re bringing all these various functional areas together to put on a, you know, $500 million project, a billion dollar project.

Ken Young (06:28.202)

It’s incredibly rewarding to do that with smart, engaged, and driven people. And then to wring out all the good that comes with our business, decarbonizing the grid, helping the local community, creating jobs, creating a future for people, and then investing back into the local community with tax benefits, landowner benefits, et cetera. That’s very rewarding for us and allows us to do some good with our business.

Kevin Doffing (06:53.752)

Yeah, I mean, y’all were part of the Texas tour that we did in that pilot program in Q4 last year. And we were out your St. Angelo location and, you know, meeting Manny and the team that were out there, just getting to see all the cool tech with the batteries on site with, you know, the substation and the solar arrays. I mean, it was just really cool, you know, but then seeing what that’s doing in the local community and the community partners that are a part of that.

Kevin Doffing (07:23.158)

It’s just a great way to see how these energy and infrastructure organizations are embedded into, you know, it’s embedded into the organizations and the communities that they serve, but also like just how active they are. They don’t have to be, but they, choose to be.

Ken Young (07:39.168)

Yeah, we had the business development lead from the chamber of commerce come and speak at our fall meeting, our all hands meeting here in Charlottesville. And we’ve been able to establish a relationship very strongly with that community and the nearby larger city of San Angelo. And it is incredible what our tax benefits are doing for that local community. It was really rewarding for our team to hear how excited folks are about our projects. Now, I will say as you drive into the project, you might’ve seen their big

Ken Young (08:08.526)

piece of the plywood up that say, you know, apex sucks and things like that. I started my remarks there when we cut the ribbon on the facility by saying, Hey, I know what the neighbor says here. We’re far from apex sucking and here’s all the good we have with it. So yeah, there are detractors. There’s a national narrative going on. We work really hard to explain the benefits of what we’re doing, but also be transparent in the impacts.

Ken Young (08:32.843)

which are quite minimal relative to the opportunity for the local folks there. And if you could talk to our landowners, that’s generational land and the fact that they were able to make something out of there and do some good with what was passed down to them and move that on. had the great grandchildren there. It’s a legacy and it is incredibly rewarding to be part of that, see our team putting in multi hundred million dollars of facilities in order to enable all this.

Kevin Doffing (09:00.546)

Yeah, no, I think y’all have done a really good job there. I mean, I, the signs weren’t there when I was there in October. That would have been an extreme talking point if I’d seen that. But you know, we were in sweet water that same week and it’s so interesting to just see how these things are different. It’s one of the big drivers I see is like, not everybody’s doing the same job you are on community engagement. Not every company is doing the same job on workforce development, veteran talent funneling. So, I mean, it’s really great to shine a spotlight.

Kevin Doffing (09:29.774)

on the companies that are doing different aspects well, and then just building it, you know, it’s just TTPs, right? Tactics, techniques, and procedures. Like what are the best practices we can all adopt? Cause somebody’s doing it better than each of us in some other domain. Let’s aspire to be that. You know, we’ll be back out in 2026 doing this, kicking off with a gravel grind, which is a off-road bike. You can do like 20 or 50 miles through a wind farm up in Sweetwater on a Mesa, which is pretty cool. But there’s all these really cool things.

Kevin Doffing (09:59.52)

inside of these project areas that we just want to like aggregate the same way we’re bringing the veterans together, but landowners, energy workers, veterans, and you know, local officials just to build that community because I think that’s so powerful.

Ken Young (10:14.038)

Yeah, maybe just a few things there. So one is we are pretty intentional about getting our existing landowners and community stakeholders out to projects, but also our future landowners. those that are in the development phase of projects, having yet started construction, we try to tour them on adjacent or nearby projects so they can see and understand the scale of these projects. And then ideally they can see.

Ken Young (10:41.538)

While there’s a lot of vitriol and a lot of misinformation, and I’ll come back to that. work very hard on that. They can see that once these projects are installed, they do largely blend into the community. So if it’s a solar project, we try to be thoughtful about setbacks, edge rows, and you know, not being extremely visible wherever we, possibly can be. If it’s a wind project, I always point out there’s a reason that these turbines are painted white. They’re supposed to blend in with the blue gray sky.

Ken Young (11:11.434)

And they’re like old soldiers. fade away as General MacArthur said. And I’ve worked in dozens of wind facilities around the world and been associated with them. And 99 point something percent of the time, once you’re a year into operations, everything calms down, everything fades away. it’s as long as you’re a prudent operator, which most everybody in our spaces these days as the industry has matured.

Ken Young (11:38.188)

these projects blend in and they’re part of the community. And then the benefits start to flow. The tax benefits, the landowner payments. Maybe I’ll swing back though to the, to how hard we work on community engagement. And this is something we started, you know, around the time I joined the company, it was a big emphasis and it’s one of the two largest constraints to putting new capacity online. And that is getting a licensed stop rate in the local community, getting a permit either from the state or local authorities.

Ken Young (12:05.71)

And then all the things that go with it. are a bunch of other approvals that we need along the way. And so we think the best approach to do that is educate, demystify, and be transparent. And as much as we can, we try to blend in and be part of the community. There’s another aspect that is heated up over the last 10 years, and that’s the advent or the proliferation of social media. And so the speed at which misinformation can travel.

Ken Young (12:31.22)

is just increases every day, not to mention the national landscape of vitriol and all these things that are happening. So we think it’s important to stay the course, try to be calm, try to get our message out there, try to lead and influence where we can to what we know as managers and executors of this business is a very good thing for most of these communities. We also try to take signals from communities when it’s just not something they’re going to have. We try to be thoughtful about that. How can we adjust? How can we move?

Ken Young (12:59.298)

We’re also cognizant of not giving up and being resilient and trying to win the day. So that is, I think a very important part of our work, being local of the community, by the community, for the community has helped us gain permits and approvals to move forward with construction, which is admittedly a difficult period for that community. There’s a lot going on, but once we get through it, you know, then we’re, on into the other side.

Kevin Doffing (13:25.142)

Yeah, that was one of the things when we were doing the tour, we looked at one site that was currently under construction and it was just so hot to kind of go in and start talking about how great things were. Yeah. I mean, it was with anything. mean, like you look at, know, exploration production. mean, when you’re first drilling and you’re, you know, laying the civil work and you’ve got trucks and frac trucks going up and down the water trucks up and down, up and down. mean, like it’s, it’s disrupting if you haven’t had that in.

Ken Young (13:35.911)

It’s a tough environment. Yeah.

Kevin Doffing (13:53.804)

that small rural town that or you know, you’re not even in the town, you’re outside of the small rural town. It’s a lot of traffic that you’re not used to. And so, you know, it’s something you got to get through or, you know, get used to in some ways.

Ken Young (14:07.544)

Yeah. The good thing about renewable energy for the most part, these projects go up very quickly. know, they are taking longer now than they used to. think that’s the scale of what we’re doing, but also the supply chain and trade issues of the day. But more than not, we can build these projects kind of in one season or one full year, spring to fall. And then so a little bit of rip the bandaid off, know, suck it down. If you will get through it, we do compensate, you know, all folks, all the impacts directly to construction and then move forward. So.

Ken Young (14:37.39)

Yeah, I think the same thing goes on with the permitting. The longer that communities linger and allow for, you know, this kind of negativity to seep in, it’s only harder. Right. If you’ve kind of decided the right thing to do for the community is move forward on a wind or solar storage facility, you know, allow for voices. That’s leadership allow for dissent. That’s what we expect of our elected officials. But when you’ve decided.

Ken Young (15:03.51)

and the board is going to make that decision. Certainly they need to be educated. They need to learn about what renewable energy is and how it’s going to impact their community. But once they’ve decided, move it forward, that’s a leadership lesson we all have from our time in various positions.

Kevin Doffing (15:17.57)

Yeah, I remember being in sector and, you know, battalion commander can’t see what we’re doing and just getting yelled at on the radio. I don’t know what you’re seeing, but you need to make a decision right now. No decision is unacceptable. You need to do something.

Ken Young (15:34.678)

Yeah. I always liked the, and there’s probably not a great phrase, but I always liked the one of in the absence of further orders attack. Yeah. You know, if you’re sitting still, you’re going to suffer. So, you know, just move and then you can regroup at the next opportunity.

Kevin Doffing (15:48.94)

Yeah, what was the thing, know, like, violently executed plan will beat a perfect plan any day.

Ken Young (15:54.804)

Right. That is exactly right. Yeah. And that’s a little bit of development. The development is there’s some science to it. No question, you know, around sighting and engineering and how we manage wildlife and environmental impacts. No question about that, but there’s a lot of art to it and there’s a lot of leadership and influencing. And I’ll take it back to Barrett, who you mentioned earlier. That’s no, no coincidence that he’s found success in the development world coming out of a place where he had a very senior leadership position in the army.

Ken Young (16:22.68)

He’s been at this for a couple of years now. He’s finding success because of that, you know, art and science blend, you know, from his previous leadership experiences.

Kevin Doffing (16:30.702)

So when you were thinking about going into the military, mean, what was it that you wanted to get at this? Was this a forever career? Was this a good for now? I you went West Point. So that wasn’t a, I’m 19, just got out of high school, and I think I want to do something. Like that required some forethought.

Ken Young (16:48.288)

It did. I figured out in about eighth grade that I thought I wanted to go to one of the service academies and I ended up at West Point and about 30 minutes into being there, I was questioning that long decision-making process. And maybe up until two and a half years there, I was still questioning that. I did get a chance one of the summers to spend some time out in the army. That really changed my mindset. spent a fair amount of time with a bunch of high quality non-commissioned officers.

Ken Young (17:17.358)

And a lot of them happened to be in the infantry branch and said, these are the people I want to be around. And this is what I want to do. And if the main effort of the army is the infantry, I want to be, you know, main effort. So, you know, kind of last year and a half or so shot for that, saw it as, you know, maybe not a road less traveled, but a harder path. And, you know, I’m grateful for those formative years, certainly looking back only with a perspective of nostalgia.

Ken Young (17:46.124)

Not all complaining I did back a long time ago.

Kevin Doffing (17:51.224)

You know, you told me something one time. I remember it because your dad was in the military, wasn’t he?

Ken Young (17:56.47)

My dad was in Germany in 1960 to 62 during the crisis there and the closing of checkpoint Charlie and heightened tensions. He was only in two years. He was drafted, did not necessarily want to be in the army and then had a lifetime of stories to tell. you know, I picked up on those as a kid and I had a little uniform and it would march around the house. And so it wasn’t surprising that the military was going to be part of my go-forward.

Ken Young (18:25.326)

I think maybe back to your question, once I kind of matured through, okay, this is going to be my life’s work. And as I got closer to graduation and was a young Lieutenant, platoon leader, it was for me about the experiences I was having. know, am I continuing to have growing experiences? And, you know, it was really a spot in time. There was never a grand plan to be this or that, or, you know, this rank or this position. I, like, if I’m going have a great experience and it’s going to be something that’s fulfilling.

Ken Young (18:54.326)

rewarding and one where I can help others. I’ll continue to drive on. So maybe to put a pin on it, the longer I saw and the more I saw of the majors that I interacted with, I said, I don’t know if that’s where I want to be longer term. And it looks like more of the same now, unlike you and many others listening to this, I’m a bit older. And so I was in the pre nine 11 army. And I think, you know, in fairness, I certainly didn’t have any desire to, I’m not a warmonger or anything like that, but

Ken Young (19:23.008)

I was in graduate school. got out of the army in 2000. I was in business school in 2001. And for me, it was an impact. I kind of felt a little, a little lost. Like what am I supposed to be doing? I was in the Indiana national guard, tip of the spear there, keeping up the Michiganders and Ohioans out of Indiana, but a little bit of remiss and things I had trained for through school and five years active duty of I’m kind of missing my purpose here. I don’t think that was satisfied.

Ken Young (19:51.434)

I worked through some, I’ll call the lost years, five years of jobs that were good, good jobs. I learned a lot about business, but not really finding a home. And I don’t think that kind of purpose and the things I was missing were found until I got into the renewable energy business. And then it just smacked me in the face. Like, this is it. This is what I was looking for. I didn’t know what I was looking for. And I was super grateful that I had found the power business and specifically renewable energy.

Kevin Doffing (20:18.286)

How did that come up on your radar?

Ken Young (20:21.09)

So interestingly enough, it was one of these military recruiting folks who had placed me somewhere else. And the CEO of a small startup wind company had a long background. was a Navy ROTC surface warfare officer and had been in the wind business previous, but it was also a long time GE power person. these leadership programs that they have. In fact, if you go back in time, his first call to the recruiter, said, I want a Navy nuke with an MBA.

Ken Young (20:49.134)

So I want somebody that knows power systems, but it isn’t a complete nerd and can function. so they hired somebody like that. They hired a couple more people. I didn’t really fit that mode. I’m dumb infantryman, but could do a lot of different things. And there were a couple more guys like me that had some experience, maybe business school. They hired a number of officers, mostly straight out of, most of them are coming from Iraq and Afghanistan right out. And they went right into our development business.

Ken Young (21:18.374)

And I’ll call it forward deployed to the project areas and did a really great job. And most of those folks are still around the industry and have found success. You know, this is going back 18, 20 years ago. And so still in touch with many of those folks. And, you know, they just did a really good, where do need me boss? Okay. We need you out in Western New York, upstate New York, Texas. And off they went and blended in and led and influenced, you know, signing up landowners, getting permits, learning the business. So.

Ken Young (21:47.82)

Yeah, I came in and was a jack of all trades, master of none, and had the opportunity to kind of jump in. So I’m extremely grateful. Somebody that had an eye on knowing that military talent could transition if given an opportunity and some time and a proper scope. So I had that opportunity.

Kevin Doffing (22:03.918)

Nice. Yeah, I remember you and I talking about previously, what are your thoughts on veterans either getting their MBA during their time in or after?

Ken Young (22:15.566)

Yeah. I mean, either way I went full time. didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I wanted to jump into. So I felt it was a very rewarding time for me. went to university at Notre Dame and I’ve said, you know, I went to West Point duty on our country. went to Notre Dame, God country, Notre Dame. So again, institutions, there’s probably a lot of Notre Dame haters out there, but I think institutions that are about something bigger than themselves. And that’s something I’m attracted to. And so.

Ken Young (22:44.482)

I had a great experience, kind of got the basics while I was there and kind of figured out what I was maybe going to do. But again, I didn’t quite find it. But I think also part-time is a fine way to go, either while you’re in the military or while you’re in your first job out, if you can manage it around other demands, no problem. And looking back, that could have been something for me. I don’t regret my time at all. It was very much a good transition for me and the right move.

Ken Young (23:11.04)

Honestly, I never thought I’d go back to school again. I wasn’t the best student at West Point. I like to joke that my first semester there, I made the Dean’s list, but it was the wrong one. It was the one where he knew me by my first name and asked Ken, what are you still doing here? thought we took care of that at the semester. again, maturity, time, learning the value of the good education I was receiving kind of eventually plugged into that. But yeah, really grateful for the full-time opportunity.

Ken Young (23:38.68)

but part-time is a good viable option. do think for folks that can, it’s a good spot to go because, you know, we’re coming at things from a more leadership perspective, you know, this very large military organization, getting a grounding in the language of business and the various areas, you know, is just adding to your toolkit as you move forward. Not necessary by any means, you know, several folks will be successful going out, but.

Ken Young (24:06.356)

If there’s opportunity there, would encourage folks to take a look at that.

Kevin Doffing (24:10.114)

Yeah, I kind of dismissed it when I got out and, you know, took over a business that I’d kind of grown up working with my dad and an oil field spy company. And a couple of years ago, I went back and got my executive MBA and the whole time I was thinking like, yeah, this is okay. mean, like I went to the hospital one time for stress because I didn’t understand this aspect of like and A and yeah. And well, there’s this time I almost like blew up the company doing this stupid thing. And luckily I survived. I’m like,

Kevin Doffing (24:37.902)

I learned those things really the hard way. There could have been an easier way to learn some of these things and then applied them a little bit more rationally. So yeah, now I, I’ve rewritten my opinion that was very outspoken for over a decade on that. Yeah. Should have used those benefits to go take a knee, get some of that doctrine that, you know, I always heard as an officer, that’s why I’m here. I’ve got a little bit of doctrine. Now let’s get some practical experience with the NCOs and this makes a really great fighting force.

Kevin Doffing (25:07.928)

And that’s one thing I do wish now that I had taken advantage of.

Ken Young (25:10.956)

Yeah. And I mentioned my age before, so I didn’t have the benefit of the GI bill. It was, we’re going to pay once. then the 9-11 GI bill affords opportunity. And so maybe just this point on community and team, that’s something I found in business school, still in contact with those folks. I graduated 2002, so 24 years ago and still in contact with a great set of colleagues, really enjoyed the kind of broad brush of folks I met there that were, you know, in a similar transition, albeit different.

Ken Young (25:40.494)

from mine, but also met some folks from the military there. And I know even at Notre Dame and elsewhere, the military veterans groups within the business schools are very well organized now, much more than they were back then, obviously given the global war on terror. And then in just advancing to some folks we have at Apex that are taking part-time or executive MBA courses and degree programs, I hear from them all the time, like, I met this peer group that they’re coming from all walks of life. And that’s probably the most beneficial.

Ken Young (26:08.44)

thing in and around the curriculum is having mature discussions about various cases and applying those back to your home station or to the work that’s at hand.

Kevin Doffing (26:18.574)

Yeah. My advice to MBA still is your job is to get familiar with concepts, not fluent. Yeah. Your real job is to build your network because you will never have this time to do this again. And your job is to find someone in your class that’s going to change your life. And you don’t know if that’s going to be a staff member or a professor, someone in your year, someone out of your year, out of your program and in the full-time or part-time or executive. And you just need to go network your butt off.

Kevin Doffing (26:47.116)

without falling behind on the team assignment or, you know, getting yourself kicked out. That’s kind of what we’ve done in Project Vanguard, right? It’s a peer network of veterans that work in this industry and it’s there to help people get in. If they haven’t already find new pathways, if they get laid off, they find they want to get into operations from finance or vice versa, whatever that is. You know, I try to describe our impact models basically.

Kevin Doffing (27:12.77)

The conversation we’re having is all the messaging and explaining to people so they understand more, you know, which leads to building that network and bringing people together. That leads to jobs. And now we have this big bench. We go turn them out to speak up for our industry, which leads to, you know, conversations like this, which leads to a bigger network, which helps people get jobs, which means we can get more people out and it just keeps going and going.

Ken Young (27:37.698)

That’s great. I love it. Great advice and really appreciate what you’re doing here. Let’s keep it.

Kevin Doffing (27:42.222)

Kevin Doffing (27:43.063)

Thanks. Yeah. So what are you looking forward to? You know, we’re at the start of 2026 right now as we’re recording this. What does this year look like for you? What do you have to get done to be successful a year from now?

Ken Young (27:56.792)

Yeah. So for Apex, it’s really clear. Accelerating the shift to clean energy means putting projects online. And so, you know, we’re not accelerating the shift until we receive that first megawatt hour out the door. And then we get these projects into long-term operations. That is the best thing we can do to drive the value of this company. And so we’re focused on that. So we have never had a portfolio of assets ready to go as we do this year. So.

Ken Young (28:25.92)

A mix of wind and solar and a little bit of storage that’s emerging. our aim is to put on about two gigawatts of projects this year. We try to do that every year. So this is a scaling business. How do we best scale ourselves into long-term operations? So that sounds like a two gigawatts. What does that mean? That means about eight projects all across the country, diversity of technology, different regions, big projects, is scale.

Ken Young (28:54.664)

And it takes a village. takes every single person pulling their own weight, coordinating with their left and right flank internally, and then influencing externally with vendors, lenders, partners, local community, key stakeholders to bring these projects across the line. So massive, capitally intensive business. And then we’re poised to execute. So we finished a good year last year and around all the things that went on in 2025.

Ken Young (29:23.042)

And all the announcements and true socials and tweets. I think we’re even more poised to continue to deliver this year across the board. So our teams at the ready, their focus, I like to say to them, this is the go to war team. You know, let’s, let’s lean in and get after it. So we have a number of projects that are already in the closing shoot and by closing shoot for us, that means closing our project financing. need to bring financing partners along with us to help carry the load on the investments into these projects. So that’s.

Ken Young (29:50.766)

You know, for those that are less familiar, that’s tax equity, part of our business. And then just straight debt lenders. And then we have some projects that’ll be folding out over the course of the year, try to smooth out our operations, smooth out our delivery of projects, but add to our operating base.

Kevin Doffing (30:06.126)

So I remember, gosh, I mean, it was six years ago. I remember one of my friends who’s a CEO for a developer was lamenting the tax equity because they’re like, listen, we can still get capital from the same providers, JP Morgan, whoever, at lower cost of capital. If we didn’t have this complex debt equity structure that looks like equity but walks like debt, that’s kind of going away because of the OBBB. And I think the industry’s kind of rated.

Kevin Doffing (30:36.106)

see the tax credits and tax equity sunset, maybe not the cliff that was imposed. What do you see like in the second half of the year and next year? I mean, is it still going to be the same ramp up and it’s just going to be go, go, go and underneath the hood, the financing pieces will look different or do you think projects will look different in a year, year and a half?

Ken Young (30:59.786)

Now for the time being, they’re going to look very much the same. so as an industry through the American Clean Power Association, we participated, I participated personally on Capitol Hill for months and months, bringing stakeholders along. We participated after the legislation was passed. And during that period where there was guidance in question from treasury to come out with the same guidance. So the premise of is there life after tax credits? Yes. We subscribe to that. yeah.

Ken Young (31:29.01)

And I think the industry is there and for the reasons you mentioned, it’s, it’s complex and it’s not as simple. And, know, it is time for us to stand on our own two legs and we’re well ready for that. But given the complexity of the day and how long it takes to put these projects together, moving the business case to something that was different right in the middle of contracts that already signed, it would have been chaotic. It would have cost more projects than we’re already.

Ken Young (31:56.14)

you know, that had already been caused last year around permitting and other issues. So that’s why we fought for stability. We’ve been working on these projects for years and years and years. In certain cases, we’ve signed contracts. The business case is either baked or half baked. So as I look at the reconciliation or the one big, beautiful bill, as it related to clean energy, it was let us finish what we started. And I think that’s what Congress voted on. Let’s finish what we started without pulling the rug out.

Ken Young (32:21.568)

And that was actually signed into law and then underscored by the treasury guidance and how we qualify for the tax incentives. So for us, that meant, okay, we have stability in the short run. That’s going to take us out through the end of 2030. Let’s execute under that paradigm. Because that’s where everybody is. And as we get closer to the end of 2030 and the tax credit sunset, then let’s start to adjust our cost paradigm and our, our price paradigm. So how do we all contribute to profitable projects?

Ken Young (32:51.552)

where all the key stakeholders, the off-takers, the vendors on the service side, the engineering, procurement, construction companies, along with our original equipment manufacturers, those making turbines, modules, battery systems, lenders, all can participate and can all share in the growth of renewable energy. And that’s, that’ll have to adjust over time, but doing that in a moment with, you know, these large institutions could have been really detrimental to the business. So.

Ken Young (33:19.892)

We were good to see the short term and short term is three or four years in our world. Yeah. You know, and stretch it out to 2030 and then we’re off in a new paradigm. So I think you’ll see more of the same. You’ll see people trying to execute what they have at the ready. These projects they’ve honed in the development phase for years and years. I think what you’ll also see is where we’ve been is being cautious about large capital allocation. So when do we buy wind turbines? When do we start services?

Ken Young (33:48.726)

And that goes to all the announcements we’ve seen around, you know, really lack of support on the permitting side or other federal actions to impact our business. Thankfully, we don’t need a lot from the federal government. know, offshore is its own thing. We don’t work in that, that area. So they’re managing that. I appreciate what the actions they’re taking in the short run here to get back on to executing the projects that they’re already out there. But when you talk about private lands.

Ken Young (34:17.525)

which is for Apex, 100 % of our projects, we hardly need anything from the federal government. And for me, what you do on private lands and what you do in a local community is very much American. know, let the local community decide. And that’s a very conservative principle. And if local community decides that, know, wind or solar storage are good for their community and we’re on private lands and we’re being thoughtful around neighbors and all the things that would go into a local ordinance or into

Ken Young (34:46.606)

You know, just good prudent practices. I don’t see any problem with that. see that as growth and capitalism and you know, American. So that’s where we are, but it does impact our business from a capital perspective. We need to pause and make sure, you know, there’s not a gotcha. And in most cases, we don’t need a whole lot. So if there’s not a gotcha, we will allocate the capital when we’re fully de-risked and we’ll, move into that. And maybe I’ll just add, look, we’re developers at heart. We’re going to take the most risk. So we’re going to invest.

Ken Young (35:16.538)

And we’re going to continue to invest in developing projects because this renewable business over my 20 years, really cyclical, we’re up, we’re down, and we’re getting to a place where we’re really mature. Yeah. But we need to bring lenders along with us and we need to bring manufacturers along with us. And those are people that have different, a different set of investment criteria, a little bit more conservative in certain parts, but we also need manufacturers making investments years ahead of when we need to call on that demand. So, you know, they need some stability.

Ken Young (35:46.336)

And so that’s what we’re after as much as we can. think we can, we can do our part by bringing projects that are at the ready and continuing to prove that it’d be nice to have some, some help from the government to settle things down. But you know, this is where we are.

Kevin Doffing (35:59.502)

Yeah, no, I mean, I think a lot about, you know, when I was in Iraq, you know, I remember I was talking to Seale, you know, we were attached with and we were doing some stuff and, know, speed is their form of security, right? They’re silent. My guys were more like young puppies with paws too big. Like we’re kicking over everything, you know, great guys, but, you know, they’re like, ah, man, what are we going to do? I’m like, going take that guy who’s a poor meth head. That guy’s a former gangbanger. You know, this guy like, you know, ate a box of rocks before we got out here.

Kevin Doffing (36:28.046)

And we’re going to put down security and we’ve got this whole thing locked down and we can do whatever we need to inside this perimeter that we’ve just set up in city. And you know, stability and certainty and patrolling is a great form of security. And it’s a great way to run an economy and have a business. Like once you know the rules of the game, that’s why I love like split administration and Congress. Like where one party does not have full control because they kind of get locked up and it’s like, okay.

Kevin Doffing (36:57.666)

I may not like all the rules, but I know the rules aren’t going to change anytime soon. Now I can just get to work, maximizing profitability on whatever it is I’m doing inside the constraints of the rules that are set for the next X years. And I think that’s, that’s going to benefit this industry. Cause the thing I love about our industry is it’s the fastest growing segment of the energy industry. I just love energy and spent my first 10 years in oil and gas, which if anyone who thinks the solar coaster is a crazy ride to be on,

Kevin Doffing (37:27.224)

Try being in the boom bust cycle of oil and gas where they almost want to roll up the sidewalks in Houston during a bust. mean, just imagine the fourth largest city in America going, we’re screwed. Like, it’s a whole different feeling.

Ken Young (37:42.574)

Well, maybe just to kind of tell you where we are and you think about Apex started in 2009, right after the financial crisis, that seemingly was a terrible time to start a wind business. were walking away from development at a quick pace. And so we decided to start and looking back over history, that was a great time to start a wind business. And so we see this is a great time to run into development assets. so, you know, obviously from the execution and deploying our capital, obviously certainty is what.

Ken Young (38:10.83)

we are after as an industry, as a business community. Maybe I’ll just add one more point too. I, and I was back to the Americanism and, you know, good for the local community and all those things, but I don’t know this notion and maybe there’s some fault on our industry for, you know, swinging a little too far to the democratic side or what have you. Look, we sell electrons. We’re in the power business. This is not a partisan issue. This is about economic growth.

Ken Young (38:39.328)

It happens to be in the form of renewable energy, which has some other nice side benefits that we talked about earlier. And one way I mentioned it to my friends or family is like, this is not the face of woke. You know, I am not, that’s not who I am. I want to be a thoughtful, considerate leader. want to be respectful of everybody. I want to be respectful in our local communities in which we’re working and we want to try to find a match wherever we can. But you know, I think the industry and through American Clean Power Association has tacked more to the middle.

Ken Young (39:08.63)

of trying to be non-partisan, non-political. And so I think we need to continue to do that. We also need to stand up for what is right and how we can best move forward this industry. So I’m happy to plug into it. And we just have so much, this demand from these hyperscalers for the moment is seeing us through and it is incredible and just an insatiable appetite for power. And the good news for us is we’ve invested into it.

Ken Young (39:35.882)

And 93 % of all new power coming online the last couple of years is coming from renewables because we have built out our supply chain. We’ve invested in these projects and we’re at the ready to deliver. So let’s get on with delivering it. And so that’s what we’re excited about this year at Apex in 2026.

Kevin Doffing (39:51.788)

I think that’s great. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t take the time, you know, while you’re here, Ken, to really talk about before you have to go, because I know you’re busy, is, you know, what kind of advice you have for veterans that are dialing into this, right? Like, so you’re the first CEO we’ve had on here. I guarantee you there’s somebody sitting in their barracks, looking at getting out, looking at this industry and going, okay, how do I become a CEO? I mean, like, I remember I was that, you know,

Kevin Doffing (40:19.768)

person who didn’t understand what it meant to be a CEO and just had this like stars in your eyes of like, I’ll get into the private sector. And of course I want to be CEO. Who wouldn’t want to be CEO? Not really thinking through the practicalities, the commitments, these kinds of things. I always ask, what’s your advice for veterans? But more specifically for the people that have that really top of the mountain aspiration, what is your advice for those veterans?

Ken Young (40:45.514)

Yeah, I’ll start a little earlier than that. When you’re thinking about making a transition into this industry or really any other, you need to put in the work. I’m a worker. So that’s what I know. But to think that you’re going to transition and all these leadership skills, which I fully subscribe to and I fully underwrite are just going to immediately transition. Yeah. You got to get people on board with that. You got to come in and prove your metal. So first is as you’re thinking about making a transition, put in the work.

Ken Young (41:15.198)

Learn, read, listen, you know, connect with people and come to those meetings prepared as much as you can. And you might be way off base, but for me, when I meet someone that’s like, have put in the work, I’ve talked to this person, I’ve talked, I’ve read this book, I’m in this journal. And they might be wildly off base because you don’t know until you’re in the arena, but it shows that there’s a want. And this is something they want to be a part of that. think that’s critically important. You’ve got to put in the work. Second is nothing’s going to be handed to you.

Ken Young (41:45.122)

So, you know, continue to network, find people, find openings. always said like, renewable energy is much easier as a profession than it is to get into renewable energy. You know, while we’re creating jobs and doing all these things, the jobs are at times hard to come by. There’s somebody already doing that job. You got to look for growing enterprises and be willing to, I hate to say it this way, but be willing to take a step back to take a step forward. And I have moments in my career where I’ve done that, but you know,

Ken Young (42:13.932)

You’ve got to get, to speak, the civilian population on board with what you’re going to bring as soon as you learn the language and the tools and techniques and procedures of the business. very specific advice, pick a functional area. know, learn the business from an aspect. So most of us that come out as, as officers are coming out as generalists. So we sell general management and I was lucky enough early in my career to get a functional area. It’s called asset management.

Ken Young (42:42.574)

for us, means business management of our operating projects. But really it meant I could jump into lots of things given the formative state of the company I was with. But my strong advice is don’t come out and be a generalist because you don’t know the general nature of our business. You know, you don’t know if the turbine blades go in the air or they go in the ground. And so pick a functional area and learn everything you can about that. And then be willing to come in and right seat right, if you will.

Ken Young (43:09.784)

connect, learn, know, Barrett coming out at a very senior level position. I think I’ll just speak about some of our private conversations. The future is very bright for him. He’s a very smart, capable leader. I told him early in his time here, said, the future is bright for you. You need to go get your badges and tabs. You need to go to the schools. You need to learn the language. You need to put in the work. You’re not going to be credible as a senior development leader. If you haven’t carried the bag.

Ken Young (43:37.582)

You know, and so, you know, we have the benefit as, as young officers of going to schools and, know, getting out there with the platoon and doing, you know, rolling up the sleeves and that creates credibility and leadership. You don’t just pop out to be a senior muckety muck of development by not having been out there and learning business. And that gives you some credibility. You have to do that for 10 years. You know, you need to be able to show, okay, I have this leadership experience, but I’ve also gotten this practical experience. Now I’m measuring the two together.

Ken Young (44:07.086)

And that’s a pretty powerful combination. So, you know, he’s, he’s on his path of badges and tabs and schooling and carrying the bag and tracking through the woods, you know, a couple of deployments in there, if you will. And, uh, you know, he’ll come out the other side as a, as a very senior leader. I trust that’s for us, you know, down the line, but if it’s not for us, it’ll be, it’ll be somewhere else, you know, no question about it. So that’s my advice, put in the work, pick a functional area, learn all about it, kind of find your direction, find your purpose. And then.

Ken Young (44:36.674)

work like hell to find a match.

Kevin Doffing (44:39.318)

Yeah. And to another thing to just, you know, get Baird to work. is our Austin chapter lead. So if you happen to be in the Austin Texas region, he’s putting together happy hours and different meetups while we’re there.

Ken Young (44:50.222)

He’s a great guy too. And yeah, he’ll really tell you about his transition and where he is on his journey. Yeah. Future is very bright for him and he would be a great person to connect with.

Kevin Doffing (45:00.512)

Or you could be like he and I yesterday and we just were talking about kids for 20 minutes, our own kids, not other people’s kids. That would have been weird. Well, Ken, listen, I really appreciate you making the time for this. You know, I appreciate your support of the mission here with Project Vanguard and look forward to, you know, just collaborating more and seeing this industry grow. And, you know, our mission is to double the number of veterans in the industry. We want to get to where one in five energy workers are veterans. And I think this is a good step in that direction.

Ken Young (45:28.13)

I love it, Kevin. Thanks for all you’re doing to support the industry and veterans alike and trying to find this match. And to all those veterans out there, welcome, come on in. I mentioned, this is a place where I found purpose and I found a home and it hasn’t been without challenge. We’ve moved all across the country and back again, but you know, I’m so proud to work in this industry. I’m very proud to work here at Apex and represent our wonderful team. And I would love to have more veterans in our space for all the quality attributes they bring.

Ken Young (45:57.612)

and all the go forward that it can help our industry continue to grow and thrive. So thanks for what you’re doing and thanks for having me today.

Kevin Doffing (46:03.552)

Awesome. Thanks, Ken. I appreciate it. Thanks for tuning into the Project Vanguard podcast. If this episode sparked something for you, share it with someone who’s ready to think differently, whether it’s about an all-the-above energy approach, how energy security is national security or the veteran workforce in our industry. If you believe what we’re building, a quick review goes a long way. You can do that wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, keep up the fire.

One decision, one résumé, one magic network connection, then the new life locks in.

In the newest Project Vanguard episode, Kevin Doffing and John Broschak say the quiet part out loud: transition is a rough road, and the people who do best are the ones who stop waiting for perfect conditions and start building real momentum.

John’s path runs through the Navy nuclear pipeline, into the utility world, into leadership, and into coaching veterans who are trying to do the same kind of reinvention without losing their identity in the process.

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The nuclear mindset is not just technical, it is trust

John’s early career has one of those lines that makes civilian life feel strangely soft around the edges.

You’re operating a nuclear reactor with 16 year olds, I think they’re all 18 year olds, but 18 year olds with their hands on.

That responsibility does something to you. It calibrates your standards. It also shows you what real systems look like when failure is not allowed.

And it comes with a lesson people forget when they argue about energy like it is a team sport: the job is to make the system work. Not to win a comment section.

That is the Project Vanguard lane. Less ideology. More execution.

Transition is not a vibe, it is a campaign

Kevin frames it in a way that every veteran immediately understands. You can’t run a mission on wishful thinking.

your happiness is equal to reality minus your perception of reality.

That is not motivational content. That is a warning label.

If your perception is “one phone call and someone places me,” reality is going to collect that debt fast.

John says it even more plainly:

Yeah, this is going to be a rough road.

So the question becomes: what do you do with that truth?

You plan like an operator, not like a tourist.

Your story is a tool, learn to carry it

John’s advice is not “network harder.” It starts with something more fundamental: own your value and be able to communicate it.

Number one is confidence that you have value to offer. And get comfortable with how you’re going to tell your story, how you’re going to project that value proposition.

This matters because hiring managers rarely get the “ideal candidate” on paper. They are making a bet on impact, speed to contribution, and whether you will actually stick around long enough to be worth the onboarding burn.

Your story is how you help them justify picking you.

And no, it does not have to be dramatic. It just has to be clear:

• what you did

• what that proves about how you operate

• how that transfers to their world

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Growth often means letting go of status

One of the more underrated themes in the conversation is how easy it is to get trapped by the prestige of being “the person” on a niche program, even if it stops being the right fit.

John describes stepping into a new utility responsibility and learning fast, including the less glamorous parts of the nuclear world, like waste storage and the practical limits utilities face.

Underneath that is a bigger point: sometimes the next move looks like a lateral step or a “less shiny” title, but it is actually the route to broader capability.

That is how careers get built in the real world. Not in a straight line. More like switchbacks.

Coaching is not therapy, and it is not consulting

John also talks about coaching in a way that will resonate with vets who hate fuzzy language but still want to level up.

It’s different than consulting. It’s different than advising. It’s different than therapy. It’s its own unique skill set.

That distinction matters because a lot of veterans do not need inspiration. They need clarity, translation, and a plan they can execute without pretending everything feels great.

Final Thoughts

When that support exists, transition stops being an identity crisis and becomes a skill-building season.

If you take one thing from this episode, take this:

The energy industry does not need louder takes. It needs more adults in the room. Veterans are built for that, not because we are perfect, but because we know how to show up when the conditions are messy and the mission still matters.

So keep your expectations honest, keep your story sharp, and keep moving even when it feels slower than you wanted.

That is not a consolation prize. That is how real careers, and real national capability, get built.

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Nothing here is new ideology. It’s execution.

Over the last two weeks, grid operators, regulators, and politicians have all circled the same issue from different angles: who pays for growth, how fast it connects, and how reliability is protected while it happens.

From Project Vanguard’s perspective, this is less about headlines and more about tightening the rules of the engagement.

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US green energy growth is proving hard to kill - Financial Times

The FT’s core point is not optimism, it’s inertia. Even after a sharp political shift in Washington, the underlying trajectory of the US power sector has not flipped. It’s not about picking winners and losers, it’s about battlefield conditions and maximizing force projection (regardless of the technology source).

“Despite a sharp adverse shift in federal policy — the growth is expected to come from renewables. The EIA predicts US solar generation will increase 46 per cent in the next two years. Wind power — hit by a welter of legally contentious government barriers — is still forecast to grow by 12 per cent.”

The article anchors that claim in demand growth first, not ideology.

“Advances in battery technology and deployment are also helping to address the biggest weakness of solar and wind power: intermittency. The US had 45 gigawatts of utility-scale battery storage installed at the end of 2025 — up from 26GW a year before.

That might seem small when set against the US grid’s total generating capacity of 1,300GW. But the battery boom means that stored solar power is now meeting a significant proportion of US electricity demand growth even at night, as a new report from think-tank Ember explains.

And the trend is set to continue, with another 22GW of new battery capacity expected to come online this year, according to the EIA.”

Operator takeaway: This isn’t a story about politics winning or losing. It’s a story about what the grid keeps selecting under pressure. Solar keeps showing up because it can be built quickly. Batteries keep showing up because they solve a real operational problem. Gas remains a reliable part of an all of the above American Energy Dominance strategy.

Utilities under pressure: 6 power sector trends to watch in 2026 - Utility Drive

Utility Dive’s takeaway is straightforward: utilities are being squeezed from all sides, rising demand, cost pressure, and regulatory uncertainty, and are adjusting how they plan and operate. They are also coming into the crosshairs politically since rising bills have their names on them.

“Major policy changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which axed most subsidies for clean energy and electric vehicles, are forcing utilities, manufacturers, developers and others to pivot fast. The impacts of those changes will become more pronounced over the coming months.

Market forces will also have their say. Demand for power has never been greater. But some of the most aggressive predictions driving resource planning may not come to pass, leading some to fear the possibility of another tech bubble.

At the same time, each passing day brings more distributed energy resources onto the grid, increasing the opportunities — and expectations — for utilities to harness those resources into a more dynamic, flexible and resilient system.”

The six trends:

1. Large loads dominate planning

2. Renewables keep growing, even under policy headwinds

3. Flexibility becomes a near-term solution

4. Utility spending faces tighter scrutiny

5. Electricity prices keep climbing

6. Storage shifts from optional to standard

Operator Takeaway: This isn’t a reinvention year. It’s a filtering year. Big loads are being screened harder, flexibility is becoming a requirement, and anything that raises costs without improving reliability is getting questioned. Teams that plan for curtailment, storage, and cost discipline will move.

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PJM and FERC closing the gap - Reuters | K&L Gates

PJM’s board outlined how it plans to handle AI-driven load growth without sacrificing reliability. The emphasis is on conditions, not denial.

“PJM Interconnection said it plans to require new large power users to either bring their own power generation or enter into a connect and manage framework subject to early curtailment.

Earlier in the day, the White House urged the largest U.S. electric grid to conduct an emergency power auction to protect against rolling blackouts as energy demand from data centers grows faster than the country can build new generation plants.

PJM’s measures include improving load forecasting and expanding the role for states, fast-tracking interconnections for state-sponsored generation projects, launching a backstop procurement process to address near-term reliability needs and reviewing PJM’s markets to better support investment.”

At the same time, FERC told PJM its existing tariff framework for co-located generation and load was not workable.

“FERC found PJM’s tariff to be unjust and unreasonable because it lacks clear rates, terms, and conditions of service for co-location arrangements.

PJM, which operates the nation’s largest electric grid across 13 states and the District of Columbia, has struggled to plan for and manage the significant increases in power demand from data centers. This order may prove to be a pivotal development for data centers: It potentially opens new pathways in PJM for integrating large loads with co-located generation. By directing PJM to clarify interconnection procedures and create new transmission services, FERC is enabling cost-effective project configurations that can accelerate development timelines, maintain grid reliability, and support innovative business models for both data centers and generation developers.

In regulatory parlance, a co-located load is an electrical configuration where an end-use (retail) customer load is physically connected to the facilities of an existing or planned generation facility”

Taken together, this is part of fast moving world that RTO/ISO have been thrust into in the last year.

Opeartor takeaway: This is not a slowdown signal. It’s a rules clarification phase. Co-located generation, conditional service, and staged firmness are becoming standard tools, not exceptions.

Cost allocation is moving upstream to the load - Financial Times

The push for emergency auctions and long-term contracts that force large loads to underwrite new capacity is about one thing: shifting risk.

“The administration along with governors of states including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia have urged PJM — which serves more than 67mn people in the US north-east and Midwest — to hold a power auction in which big data centre operators bid for 15-year contracts to build new power plants.

Such contracts could support the construction of about $15bn worth of new power plants, with tech companies paying for them regardless of whether they use the resulting electricity, a White House official confirmed.”

This isn’t about punishing tech. It’s about preventing cost socialization from becoming politically untenable.

Operator takeaway: Expect more “load pays” structures. That favors disciplined builders and operators who can execute to contract terms over long timelines.

More Power That’s Faster and Fairer (Roundtable) - Energy Capital Podcast

This is a great Texas-first energy podcast, and this episode marks a shift in format as the show moves into a new chapter with new hosts and a roundtable-style discussion. I’ll always be a big fan of Doug Lewin and what he’s built. It’s great to see the platform growing, even as he moves onto a new chapter with Google.

The conversation stays grounded in Texas realities. Load is arriving faster than the grid can plan and build, and the hosts focus on what that means for reliability, transmission, and cost allocation in an energy-only market. Data centers are part of the story, but the real focus is speed and uncertainty.

It’s a strong listen if you want a practical, state-level view of where grid debates are heading next, without getting lost in national talking points.

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