Women in Energy Careers | Preparing the Next Generation for the Energy Transition with Erin Twamley | EP155

So we wanted kids to kind of see who are the people behind some of these jobs and careers. And knowing that most of our energy right is coming from fossil fuels today. So kids need to kind of have this basis of, we're in an energy transition and to transition. We are coming from something and going to something else. So we wanted to make sure that we talked about what that looks like and where those fossil fuels and technologies are coming from, and how they're helping to also change the future.

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Today on the Clean Power Hour, women in energy careers, I'm Tim Montague, your host Welcome to the Clean Power Hour, please check out all of our content at clean power. hour.com Give us a rating and a review, especially on Apple and Spotify and tell a friend about the show. That is the best way to spread the word about the Clean Power Hour and the energy transition writ large. Today, my guest is Erin Twamley. She is an author and educator and a passionate feminist bringing more and more people into the energy transition. Welcome to the show Erin.

thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here with you, Tim to talk about the energy transition in our future.

Yeah, really happy to have you on the show. You know, The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by Denowatts. If you're a solar PV asset manager or performance engineer, you need better data and better business intelligence. With Denowatts, digital twin benchmarking technology, you get more accurate, efficient, and faster performance measurement results. The fourth generation Deno recently completed a technical review by DNV. You can download the report at Denowatts.com, that's D E N O W A T T S.com. Now back to the show. I like to say that human capital is one of the limiting major limiting factors in the energy transition, we need more people to build all this stuff. And of course, that takes skilled trades people. It takes engineers, it takes financiers, it takes bankers and tax experts and project managers and all kinds of people, right? We need a million electricians, literally a million electricians, there are more electricians retiring that are coming in to the trade today. So we have our work cut out for us. But you've written a lovely series called everyday superheroes. And one of those is women in energy careers. So tell us about the series. How did you get interested in this? And then women in energy careers? What's the story? Thank you.

Thank you so much, Tim. I'm excited to be here. I think, you know, my focus today is really on how do we engage you right? You mentioned we need a million electricians while the youth are going to be our future electricians. And when I say youth and talking about 10 year olds, and most 10 year olds know how to flip a switch, whether it's on their game console, their TV, their computer, they might be even driving into school and an electric bus or an A battery powered car. But I can promise you that they're probably struggling to really understand what's happening in terms of the power and the energy that is in their life. Right? Most of them just don't think beyond flipping a switch. Most of us adults don't think beyond just flipping the switch. So I think what's super important about reaching our future potential, which in the energy world, we're trying to decide, what does that look like, right? How are we going to be powered? Who is going to power our planet? I think it's important that we engage youth and we start to engage them now, which is kind of why we focus this series which features all women, real life women, we refer to them as superheroes. So these are going to be modern day examples of people who are solving some of our biggest problems. As you mentioned, many of those are in the energy world and sector. So I'm excited to dive into some of those people today.

Very cool. Yeah. I, I love it that it's about real people, not historical figures. I mean, real living people. And I mean, they're both they're both very important. We all stand on the shoulders of many others. Sometimes we Americans forget that. We have this fantasy of pulling yourself up by the book. bootstraps which really is a phenomenon that does not exist behind. So yeah, you know, I'm I'm very constructively critical of our educational system which is tends to be lost in the 19th century really like, it's very focused on books and numbers and dates and and it's an it doesn't do a very good job of preparing our young people for the real world bottom line. You know, just look at the trades for example, we, we downplay the trades as a secondary option as a less desirable career somehow. And yet, not everyone is cut out for college. And even once you go to college, if you get a degree in liberal art, you're you're many times lost at sea, because there aren't tangible careers for you in the real world. History is very important, but we don't need that many historians, we need electricians, we need engineers, we need people to build the clean energy transition and and to staff all those gigafactories, et cetera, et cetera. So anyway, what is what is your gateway I guess, to this world? And you know, you mentioned Girl Scouts, for example, or the Girl Scouts, teaching young people about the real world? Because that's another place are those kinds of organisations have a role to play in preparing our young people?

Definitely. So I think what's important to remember is that within the education world, this phenomenon of STEM, the science, technology, engineering, and Math has been, you know, around, it's fairly new, if you look at our education system for one. And then if you look at how we classify jobs, so particularly when we're talking about STEM, we're talking about engineers, we're thinking about PhD level researchers, right? We're thinking about kind of big vision strategy jobs in a lot of ways, or we're thinking about coding jobs, and very specific technical jobs, right, that relate to either robots or computer science. And I think what's neat about energy, especially in the education world, is Energy provides this kind of this real world connection, and also lots of real world problems that you can bring right into your classroom. And you don't need technology, you don't need to know how to code you don't need to have the best math skills, right? We need people who can be hands on problem solvers. We need people who do like math, we need people who are designers and artists who think about what does a solar farm look like? How far apart should solar panels be? Where should solar farms be built? Are they in deserts? Are they in cities? Right? So we need a group of individuals who think outside of this kind of traditional stem lens, if you will, which I think our education route, in some ways has kind of pigeon holed energy to be specific to STEM careers, which is really why in our book series, we highlight real women and we highlight real quick careers. So we highlight powerline technicians, and they're actually both apprentices. So they haven't completed right there. Their full degree yet, but they're in the middle of that. And they're getting that hands on experience, we actually highlighted finance manager so that students can see, hey, all of these big energy problems actually. And projects need people who understand that who like math who want to know about investments, and it's important that kids see who these people are, and know what these career names are. So like you're saying, one of the most important tools that we can give educators educators from industry is what are the names of these jobs, so that teachers are familiar with concepts like solar installers, wind technicians, powerline technicians, so that across industry and classrooms, we're using that same vocabulary, so that when we're talking about future and we're making those connections, it's relevant from the time that you're at least 10 years old and beyond. And I think that's one of the most powerful tools we can give educators in industry is a little bit more insight into what's happening in the industry.

Yeah, I'm sure it's not easy. You know, if you're a third, fourth fifth grade teacher, to you know, I guess have a working knowledge of all the options out there. So I don't necessarily put the blame on teachers. I put the I put the blame on the system that is preparing teachers though and running schools and like, we really do need to double down on the practicalities of, of life. And there are, there are so many wonderful careers to be had. But it's it's like we're preparing kids for for this, but the world needs this. And to be, you know, for a visual analogy there, and we just don't have, we don't have the resources to employ people in that full spectrum. You know, I, my own parents are guilty of this, they were like, do anything you want, right? Do what you love. And, and so I just let my imagination run wild. And I went off and studied ecology, which was wonderful. But when it came to finding a career in ecology, I realised that I really wasn't, I wasn't suited for that career as an academic. And the opportunities were so few and far between. And that just wasn't my cup of tea, I would have been better off getting an MBA then than a master's degree in forest ecology. Now, the ecology background is useful, and it gives me a perspective on on things that other industry professionals don't have. And you know, I've found my way, but I'm also extremely creative and tenacious about forging a path. So, you know, I think many people end up working at Starbucks, and, and then being miserable. And, and that's no good, either. So, you know, I don't know, do you have a perspective about how we can better prepare teachers?

No, I think teachers, we are working on preparing teachers from both the teacher perspective, but as well as a federal agency perspective. So National Science Foundation, Department of Energy teacher, like National Science Teachers Association, we are all working towards how do we talk about careers at a younger age? So one of the things that has happened in recent administrations is that career in technical education, which is really what you're talking about, Tim in the education world, is how do we talk to kids about careers? And what does that look like? And and who does that? And how do we map that CTE programmes have been traditionally focused on Middle School and above, and so we just haven't had the focus on talking about careers in an elementary school level. And now that has been expanded to reach down to fourth and fifth grade levels in numerous states, right. So the other thing you have to look at in education is that there are different states who are leaders in this area, and there are states who are probably lagging behind, right, and what the successful states have been doing is partnering with industry, on making sure that nonprofit and after school organisations are also playing a role in the education of our children. So as much as we want to talk about classrooms, 95% of a kid's education happens outside of a classroom, which is why we have partnerships with Girl Scouts of America, we have partnership with the After School Alliance, because we want to reach kids, where they're getting educated, which is also through books, which is why we do a book series because kids are picking up nonfiction books now more than ever before. So we're trying to reach students where they're at as well and kind of supplement and support what teachers are teaching. If you look at the next generation science standards, which many states and districts still follow. Energy is a core component of what these teachers are teaching. And so it's great to see that we have a thread that looks at energy from an interdisciplinary approach. So for you non educators, that means don't just teach about the science of energy, you need to teach about the economics of energy, you need to teach about the engineering of energy now on a more of an expansive look. So I think what's important is that we need to know that careers in energy are diverse, and we can support teachers through a variety of ways in learning about those, but there's important roles of other organisations out as well that can help us get to that future that we're looking for.

What states are doing this, right.

So I think some of the leaders so California, for example, actually provides free energy curriculum and workforce development training. and professional development for teachers through a nonprofit called the Energy Coalition. So California has been a large leader in this New Jersey with the offshore wind, wind developments that are happening in the New England area between New Jersey and Massachusetts, they have been leaders, I think in the geothermal space, I want to point out Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, they are actually with the transition from natural gas to individual geothermal heat pumps, looking at statewide levels and school levels at what does this look like? And what are the skills and the needs. And that's actually a lot of collaboration between local utilities, who are actually having to convert their customers from natural gas to individual heat pumps, for example. So I think there are states that are leading, if you look at the south, right, we typically see the South as a region or the south east as a region that is lagging behind will some of the largest factories are going to be built, that are supporting our renewable energy systems in the future, right? Just look at Georgia. So what's it what's an exciting time is that there's so many opportunities, and I think what students and teachers need to know is that we're deciding what this energy future looks like now. And we need people as you said, to play a role in that, whether it be on the electrician side, the finance side, to the research and development side. And so just being clear about all those different pathways is really important and critical.

So many, so many things to unpack here. But let's talk a little more about your book. And, you know, how did you decide what types of careers and what individuals to shine a light on and feature and give us some examples of those?

Yeah, so everything superheroes, women in energy careers, I'm one of the co authors, I've got two awesome other co authors, so just want to give them a shout out. We worked with a variety of both industry partners and nonprofit partners to kind of come up with a matrix, that's the easiest way to put it, of what are the careers we need to know about? And how do we highlight the diverse both on ramps and off ramps in those careers. We also knew that we wanted to highlight people who were never in energy before, and maybe were new to energy. Because if you think about some of these careers, like solar installers, they're relatively new in the last decade, right 20 years or so in terms of the numbers. So we knew that we wanted to make sure that we were highlighting people who were in jobs that they didn't know existed when they were kids, for example, we also knew that we wanted to highlight careers that have apprenticeship style approaches for learning, we knew that we wanted to highlight people in our national laboratories, who play an important role in us understanding at a systematic, you know, US level scale, what our future potential and energy looks like. So we had a kind of a complex matrix. If you look in the book, we actually have 34 different careers represented. And those careers are across the sector from wind, solar, geothermal, we have someone working in plastics we have, you know, you name it, you can find it in the book, and there are more Careers Out There, right that we could be highlighting. So we're excited for the third book in this series to highlight some more energy related careers, and excited to see what stories we can help bring to life, especially as how we drive in the future is changing.

So you mentioned co authors, who are the co authors.

Yeah, so Joshua Sneiderman. And Katie Mae in art are two of my co authors, we were illustrated by Ottawa Hernandez. So she actually took all 34 Women's real life photographs and illustrated them. So you will find full page illustrations of all of these real women. And these are illustrations that show what you would do in this job. So we actually have a solar installer, like installing solar, someone who works on dams, she's actually pictured at one of the dams she works on, for example, we have you know, battery scientists who is actually in her little laboratory working on batteries. So we wanted to really depict for children, what you do in these careers so that whether they could read about it, they could actually see it because that's one of the other challenges with kids and even adults is we don't actually understand fully sometimes what people in these careers do. Right. What does the wind tech that technician do? Right? Why do they climb to the top of that wind turbine you have to have some I'm understanding of how a wind turbine works and what they're looking at. So we have kind of all of this broad level detail and process out there.

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We are. So if you look at it, the first chapter is who are energy superheroes? And one of the things we need kids to know is what's the difference between energy, electricity and power? And how does our grid work? Right? We have a geologist, for example, who works on carbon sequestration. Right? So what is that technology? What is that? What does that mean, she actually works for and the state of Illinois and is injecting liquid carbon back into the earth, right? So we wanted to kind of cover that, hey, there's all these wide variety of careers, right, and sectors that are interested in changing what our energy future looks like, we have a power plant operator in Oklahoma, her power plant mostly is coal and natural gas. But she has been that operator for years, she's from that area in Oklahoma. So we wanted kids to kind of see who are the people behind some of these jobs and careers. And knowing that most of our energy, right is coming from fossil fuels today. So kids need to kind of have this basis of, we're in an energy transition and to transition, we are coming from something and going to something else. So we wanted to make sure that we talked about what that looks like and where those fossil fuels and technologies are coming from, and how they're helping to also change the future.

You know, I think of let's just think about power plants, right? There's the development phase, you have to secure land, you have to get permits, you have to go through a whole series of environmental assessments. And then there's the construction phase, and then the commissioning and operations and maintenance is did again, I'm just intrigued by this concept of really breaking that down. Is that was that the approach?

Yes. So we talk all about that. So we feature a project manager, what does it look like to actually develop a site? Right? What does that mean? What are the steps you have to take? We talk about the environmental scientists being part of that process, and what they're assessing and how they're assessing, we talk about civil engineers, and the construction side, you know, what are who are the people they work with? What are the careers and those people that are on a team? So they all kind of reference each other, if you will? Have you know that energy product projects aren't completed in a kind of isolation, right? It takes a group of people for those projects, to one, as you said, Get designed, constructed and then operated and maintained. So we feature a solar farm operations manager, for example, what's her job? What does it mean to examine sensors? What does it mean to be a meteorologist and work for an energy company, for example. So we highlighted variety, like I said, 34 careers. And you know, we're very proud of being able to highlight all of these different careers. And then most of these superheroes, their real life, women, they're going out and meeting with real students. So that second component is that we're having them talk to students in classrooms, in libraries, we actually have five superheroes talking to 3000 Elementary School teachers next week. So we are really excited to be kind of bridging and sharing these real life stories directly with teachers and students to kind of spark that curiosity and interest in energy.

Very cool. So is, is being an educator a, an author, a full time career for you are how are you making living these days?

That Is my full time career and has been for about the past nine years. So I have other books I've written one called capturing cow farts and burps, which is all about methane gas and bio digesters. And what do we do with organic waste as one example, to engage those first graders, and what I kind of use my educator lens for is thinking about how to support teachers and how to just bring them kind of nuggets of information, because what I will tell you is that teachers are experts, and teachers will take this information and run with it. And what is amazing is that I've had teachers reach out to me and say, Hey, we've just created these, you know, anemometers, in my class, thanks for your book, it was amazing to bring a hands on project with a book. So I also like to empower educators to view this book as a tool as a resource, something for your classroom library, something to kind of spark that next level interest. We also have great partners like the KidWind project, and the National Energy Education Development Project, they actually do hands on training, specifically professional development for teachers. And they are using this book as a resource to help teach teachers about energy careers. And so through them, were able to reach a larger number of teachers directly.

So my nagging concern here, I think this is amazing. And I congratulate you, and thank you for your work. My nagging concern is tick tock and short videos which have taken over the world and young minds and their short attention spans. Children want to spend their time on their tablet or their device if they can. And what are your thoughts about that? And are you translating your books into other formats?

This is probably one of the most common questions we get right? How do you take these interviews that you have done and you've written so beautifully and make them a one minute video? Right? So on the horizon, we are looking at this kind of supplemental resources, videos being one of them as a way to engage students, typically, our audience, you know, is elementary school. So they're eight, they're nine, they're 10, which means parents have kind of tight control over what kind of content they're consuming. So we oftentimes, though, for this middle school level, this cusp of fifth and sixth graders, they want to hear these interviews. So that is something that we're discussing with our superheroes, right. As I mentioned, these are real women, these are their real stories. So I think the possibilities are endless in terms of the format and how we can share them. And I do at least foresee some of these careers and the stories being shared in videos in the future.

Yeah, I mean, it occurs to me that, that you have a great opportunity to bring these characters onto video, and have them you know, interact with the viewer. It's not easy, right? Especially the interactive part. It's easy to make a video, but it's hard to make it interactive. But certainly technology is is there to support that. And I just think it would be great for young people to have more exposure to what's what are the what are the opportunities I had, and more clarity about what are my affinities for what's going on in the world? And where, where there's a need? It's one thing to be interested in history. Sorry, historians to pick on you so much, but But how does that, you know, apply in the real world? Certainly, there are some real world applications, but we need a million electricians and and some of those historians could have other skills and interests if they were exposed to to them when they were young people. So I just think, you know, I remember, you know, yeah, there are these days when they bring parents to school to do show and tell about, you know, this is what my mom does. This is what my dad does. And those are good, but they're a tiny fraction, right of the classroom time. And, and then it's back to the textbooks and the in the in the lesson plans. And, and, you know, I just, I just wonder like what percent of our content in our in our K 12 educational system really applies to the real world. And it concerns me by What else do you want to share with our listeners about your work? And how can our listeners help you? I guess?

Well, if you want to share real life stories, and we call them superpowers, which are really the skills that we need to power our planet with kids in classrooms, you can go to stem superheroes.com, we've got a great partnership with the kid wind project, where you can help us put this resource into classrooms, libraries, or even train a teacher, like Tim mentioned, right, you want to make sure that those electricians are there when we need them. So help us train teachers so that we can teach them about the possibilities in energy. And the most important thing that we I always tell listeners is that if you have a story and energy, figure out how you want to tell it, if you want to tell it to your own family's school or classroom, if you want to tell it to Girl Scouts, if you want to tell it in a tick tock video, because that works with you or your social media guru. Or if you want to share it in a children's book, however you want to share your story, the world needs to share your hear your story, in energy, because that's how we were going to change how we power our planet. And that's how really we're going to change who is powering our planet. So the renewable energy industry is still largely male, it's still largely white male, and we need to make sure that we have participation from other individuals and folks from different backgrounds and communities as well, which is why we are really highlighting kind of women and energy and what role they can play in the future.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree, it's, it is great that the Clean Energy Industries writ large have, you know, really started to make a concerted effort to recruit and retain women and people of colour. It's both and. And I myself, I love having women and people of colour on the show. And they are hard to find, right? So. So it's it's, it's it's a two way street. One of my concerns in this on this subject is hiring practices. And recruiters are looking for people that have experience in their industry. If you're a wind company, you're looking for people with wind experience, if you're a utility solar developer, you're looking for people with utility solar development experience. And I'm going, that is just so crazy, right? Because you're not going to find the people the people aren't there yet. That's a burgeoning industry. You have to you have to look outside your industry, find people who are capable learners, and curious and fast on their feet, and recruit for the raw talent, not the resume per se. I served as a recruiter for five years, including tech recruiting in and being a corporate recruiter. And it just It boggles the mind that here we are in 2023. And some of the HR practices are, are very antiquated. But what, what else do you have to say to our industry, the clean energy industries, to corporate leaders, to energy professionals, and to educators,

I would say, um, along this line of, you know, hiring practices, find local partners, there's community colleges who are doing great work all over this country. And community colleges want partnerships in industry, and they are a great avenue and partnership for the energy industry. And I think oftentimes, they're overlooked, right, compared to other local institutions, like at the university level, for example. And I think to industry, what's important is for you to share your own stories within industry, I think that doesn't happen often enough, either is that industry doesn't highlight the employees who are working and changing the face of energy and what that looks like. So highlight your own stories, and also reach out into the local communities where you're making investments or building new projects. And I think industry is getting better at doing that, and getting local communities on board. And that doesn't mean just for the construction side or the development side, but actually for the operation and the maintenance of these projects.

Yeah, so many, so many stages of project development and infrastructure development are really You're in a pinch. So The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by Denowatts. If you're a solar PV asset manager or performance engineer, you need better data and better business intelligence. With Denowatts digital twin benchmarking technology, you get more accurate, efficient, and faster performance measurement results. The fourth generation Deno recently completed a technical review by DNV you can download the report at Denowatts.com, that's D E N O W A T T S.com. Now back to the show. Well, I want to thank you for coming on the show. Please check out all of our content and clean power hour.com Give us a rating and a review on Apple and Spotify. And please tell a friend about the show. That is the best way that we can speed the energy transition. I want to thank Erin Twamley for coming on the show. How can our listeners find you Erin,

the best way to find me is going to stem superheroes.com You'll find information about me my book series my work as an educator, we'd love to share your stories. If you have stories to tell, please reach out, looking forward to helping to speed the energy transition by ensuring that the careers stories and superpowers of those in the energy transition are being told to our young children.

Well said, I'm Tim Montague, let's go solar and storage. Thank you so much. Hey, listeners. This is Tim, I want to give a shout out to all of you. I do this for you twice a week. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time. I really appreciate you and what you're all about. You are part and parcel of the energy transition, whether you're an energy professional today, or an aspiring energy professional. So thank you, I want to let you know that the Clean Power Hour has launched a listener survey. And it would mean so much to me. If you would go to clean power hour.com. Click on the About Us link right there on the main navigation that takes you to the about page. And you'll see a big graphic listener survey, just click on that graphic and it takes just a couple of minutes. If you fill out the survey, I will send you a lovely baseball cap with our logo on it. The other thing I want our listeners to know is that this podcast is made possible by corporate sponsors. We have two wonderful sponsors today, chin power systems, the leading three phase string inverter manufacturer in North America and Denowatts, a performance monitoring platform for utility scale solar. So check out CPS America, and Denowatts. But we are very actively looking for additional support to make this show work. And you see here our media kit. With all the sponsor benefits and statistics about the show. You know we're dropping two episodes a week. We have now over 320,000 downloads on YouTube. And we're getting about 45,000 downloads per month. So this is a great way to bring your brand to our listeners and our listeners are decision makers in clean energy. This includes projects executives, engineers, finance, project management, and many other professionals who are making decisions about and developing, designing, installing and making possible clean energy projects. So check out clean power hour.com both our listener survey on the about us and our media kit and become a sponsor today. Thank you so much. Let's go solar and storage