Maine solar installers join forces on workforce development

Maine is in a unique position in the country. According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, baby boomers make up close to 28% of the state’s population, while trending at 22% nationwide. A big chunk of Maine’s workers is now retiring, and no industry is immune to job vacancies. The solar community is capitalizing on recent population shifts to train a new batch of electricians for the betterment of the entire industry.

ReVision Energy (No. 82 on the 2024 Top Solar Contractors List) has been installing solar in Maine for over two decades and began preparing for workforce shortages in 2018. That’s when the company developed its Dept. of Labor-registered four-year ReVision Electrical Apprenticeship Program (REEAP), said Brie O’Malley, director of the company’s training center.

“There were projections of how many electricians were needed to meet our climate goals, overlaid with the number of electricians who are retiring without succession plans. As an older state, our electricians are even older,” she said. “We looked at the pace of folks coming out of community colleges and technical programs vs. the gap between electricians needed and retiring, and how to get creative to fill that gap. One of the clearest ways to do that is to grow your electricians at home.”

REEAP provides 8,000 hours of paid work experience and pathways to state licensure. ReVision also has an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), so apprentices are vested in the company before even reaching their journey license. O’Malley said it’s been a great program to get more people interested in solar as a career path when they may not have considered it before.

“We’re building a place where people feel belonging from a lot of different backgrounds. It’s less about where you’re looking to bring people from and more about what you’re creating for people to come into and feel like they belong,” she said.

Maine Solar Solutions (No. 208 on the 2024 Top Solar Contractors List) is also setting up programs to retain qualified hires, no matter their backgrounds. Jacob Bradley, head of field operations, relocated to Maine from California in 2019, and said — perhaps influenced by population shifts during the pandemic — more “nontraditional” workers are getting into the industry.

“Since I’ve been here, most of the candidates that we get are not even from within the construction industry. They’re from all over — a number of teachers, professors, firefighters, line cooks, you name it. All different walks of life are attracted to our industry,” he said. Because of that excitement but relative lack of experience, Maine Solar Solutions started its own informal apprenticeship program before more recently receiving Dept. of Labor approval.

“When we have a new hire who’s brand new [to solar], we take them from the ground up and teach them all the skills. We set expectations around time,” Bradley said. “At their second-year mark, they should be able to get a limited residential electrician’s license, which is pretty massive. A large percentage of residential contractors in Maine have that license and operate their entire company off it.”

Rather than only considering their own business futures, the Maine solar community is collaboratively building up its industry. ReVision started a pre-apprenticeship program through a local adult education program and invited like-minded companies like Maine Solar Solutions to help. There have recently been increased numbers of refugee and asylum populations finding homes in Maine, and many already have electrician and construction experience. ReVision’s O’Malley said more than 60 people applied for the first pre-apprenticeship program, and the solar community is helping work through language barriers and bureaucratic roadblocks to get more qualified candidates into the industry.

“We want people to have jobs. We also want more solar. We want to take as many opportunities to grow [the industry], but we can’t do it alone,” she said. “There’s so much to be done that I don’t think we can be selfish [with employees]. We have to approach this as a community.”

Maine’s solar industry has a supportive governor and policies in place to help grow community solar and other segments. Building a capable workforce is a win for the whole state.

“There are now a lot of companies trying to make their way into the market. Before, it was just a select few folks doing solar in Maine,” Bradley said. “It’s a close-knit solar community. We work together.”

This story was featured exclusively in our 2024 Top Solar Contractors issue. See the issue and full list of top U.S. solar installers here.