I follow the solar industry across the world pretty closely (Google Alerts and LinkedIn are great at delivering the news directly to my inbox), and as much as I’m a solar policy wonk (which is typically what I focus on), occasionally a story crosses my desk that has nothing to do with policy that I feel compelled to share with you.
In this article, Andrea Ball outlines the interesting story of Ramsey Bissex, a remarkable 17-year-old from Westlake Hills, Texas, who built a solar panel as part of a project to earn his Eagle Scout rank in the Boy Scouts. Ball writes:
To become an Eagle Scout, candidates must perform a service project that displays leadership skills and benefits a noncommercial organization, such as a church, school or charity.
Unlike most Eagle Scout candidates, however, Ramsey didn’t find a charity and then work out a project around that — he knew from the beginning that he wanted to build a solar panel. Then he went out and found a charity that could use it. Mobile Loaves and Fishes provides housing for the homeless in the Austin area in mobile homes, which was the perfect site for Ramsey to use the panel he built with around 30 of his scouting colleagues.
As described in the article, Ramsey appears to be an electrical engineer in training. He knows more about the process of translating solar power into electricity in his little finger than I know in my entire body and he’s using his skills for the betterment of his community. I just know there’s a company out there who will hire Ramsey for their team — I believe that would be making an investment in someone who may just do some groundbreaking research into the solar industry. He’s already off to a great start.
Now a housekeeping item:
As you can see in our featured article today, Solar Power World has launched a podcast series called Solar Speaks, which will drop into your inbox every Wednesday. This as an opportunity for you to hear some of the hottest newsmakers in the solar industry in their own words. The result is that we will be looking for interesting stories to tell each week (the first one is with Andrew Johnson, executive director of the Tennessee Solar Industries Association (TenneSEIA) about the fight against a law that would have raised taxes on the industry 6000%).
The podcast is available for subscription on I-Tunes (go to the I-Tunes store and search Solar Power World. Then hit the subscribe button — it’s free. Then you can listen to us anywhere — in your car, on your job — wherever your MP3 player will take you.
If you have an interesting story you think we should tell, let us know. You can contact me at fandorka@wtwhmedia.com or Associate Editor Kathie Zipp at kzipp@wtwhmedia.com.
This is your opportunity to give voice to the industry. Let us help you do that.
