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Team Member Highlight – Mark on the #1 Question to Ask Yourself Before Going Solar

By July 11, 2018 No Comments
Team Member Highlight Mark Frederick

Mark’s Position: Operations Manager

Fun Facts: Mark has several personal creative projects he likes to work on during his downtime at home.

What Mark says to someone who is thinking about going solar: “Be open to it. There are so many resources and organizations that will help you find good information about solar. It could end up saving you a lot of money and it really is beneficial for the environment. It makes you feel good when you’re producing clean energy.”

Mark was the first employee at Pick My Solar. He joined the co-founders, Max and Chris, int he early days. With an education in Environmental Science, Mark was looking to get into cleantech and Pick My Solar stood out to him.

Initially, he applied for a position that he wasn’t a perfect fit for. But Max and Chris liked his initiative and offered him an internship to see if there was another good fit somewhere in the company. After a week, they asked him to join the team full-time.

This ability to zero-in on and nurture potential in people is a recurring theme with Pick My Solar. Vision, insight, and growth are part of this company’s vernacular, and have been ingrained in the fibers of the organization from the start.

From Employee #1 to Operations Manager

Mark has grown within the company, initially helping to design and engineer PV systems and develop cost-benefit analysis reports for customers. Now, as the Operations Manager, Mark manages a team of engineers. His day-to-day focus is on quality control and ensuring that everything is running correctly for the software and development teams.

The Most Exciting Things About Working for Pick My Solar

Witnessing something that he created help streamline processes or build the business gives Mark satisfaction. “Seeing the impact on not only my own workflow, but on the people around me and the success of the business–that gets me excited.”

What Mark Didn’t Know About Solar Before Working in it

“I was also surprised to see the state of the industry itself. It’s a little better now, but it was really kind of like the wild west. It just seemed like there were some very shady businesses that were trying to con a lot of customers and give the technology a bad name. I think that’s why we started the company, to try to change that, making solar technology more accessible and putting a positive spin on it.”

He’s optimistic that transparency and integrity will continue to grow within the solar industry as a whole because:

  • The technology has improved while prices have fallen
  • Inexperienced and predatory companies are dying out
  • Companies who are invested in educating their customers (rather than just selling to them) continue to grow

Does Solar Make Financial Sense for You?

Mark says that one of the major benefits, that really clicks with people, is the advantage of never losing power again with solar and battery storage. It’s a sense of control for something that used to be completely out of your hands.

“I mean, we’ve all had that, right? Where you’re watching a movie or something and all of a sudden the power goes out. And there’s just nothing you can do. The thought of never having to deal with that again is really appealing.”

Mark says the number one question to ask is ‘how much are you paying per kilowatt-hour now versus with solar?”

“If you were to get a loan with solar, for example, you might be paying around 7 or 8 cents per kilowatt-hour. Something like that. So, does it make sense where you are right now?”

Would you like to meet more Pick My Solar members? Let’s introduce you to Patrick and Will.

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