Skilled Labor Series: Brittany Heller, Solar Industry Professional

This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu. This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure. Today's guest is Brittany Heller, Director of Program Management at HeatSpring. Last year, we kicked off this series by hearing from a field technician working on the installation side of the solar industry. And while there are many facets to the PV space, we couldn’t just end there. Today’s guest is a fascinating follow-up from that initial episode because Brittany’s background and experience as a female in a male-dominated field highlight a different side of the spectrum. From doing door-to-door to back office sales, solar construction, and most recently workforce development and democratizing training access to get more people working in the solar industry, she has a wealth of knowledge for women who are looking to make the switch and are not sure where to start. We met Brit through the Greenwork platform, and naturally invited our friend Sam Steyer to co-host the conversation. We find out how Brit felt a calling to work on something more meaningful in life and applied for a solar job on a whim, how solar policy shifts uprooted her and her now husband from Louisiana to Colorado, what it's like to transition from doing sales to doing solar construction projects, and the empathy she's built seeing both sides of the house, and ways to create a more inclusive future workforce in the skills trade arena. Enjoy!