Super excited to be here for the first virtual Solar Summit, 2021 baby, trying to deal with the pandemic and people are looking for jobs. That's what this is about. What's the industry about? What do people need to do to start being a part of this movement and a part of this industry? A little bit about myself. I didn't finish high school. I didn't go to college. I had a kid in my teens and I built, you know, three businesses. I've always been into sales. I've always been passionate about what I do. My first company was a home security company. I opened when I was 24. At the time, I had two kids. Married my high school sweetheart. We have four kids now and two grandkids. I was talking to the gentleman earlier. I was doing door-to-door sales, knocking, saying, hey, you know, are you looking to protect your home? Can we put a sign in your yard for a dollar a day? We can keep the bad guys away, get you a free system. And I built a business on that because I believed in home security. I was passionate about home security. We all know we've had, you know, our doors knocked by home security people over the years.

They're not knocking the doors as much now. A lot of people in solar and other things are knocking,

but that's how that whole movement was in the 90s and early 2000s. And I was a part of that. I was

excited to be a part of that. It was fun. But then it got stagnant. Everybody was doing it.

You know, it became more video automation. and I saw this opportunity to be a part of something

that was game-changing, that could change our planet, that can change our mindset, that can

really create some kind of independence, right?

Having a home security system is great, but having energy independence is something else. And so I got into the solar game in 2015, took all the money that I made from the other two companies and stuck it in the business. And me and my business partner, Kevin, we weren't on payroll for 22 months. No paycheck. And then I had to sell my house. At a nice house in paycheck and then I had to sell my house at a nice

house and Lake Norman I just sell that house and put that money into the business

wife was mad I got the stink eye from her kids were upset like we're moving off

the lake why are we downsizing dad what's going on this isn't the end of 15 going

into 16 our first year of business and

I believed in what we were doing I believed in owning our power I believed in taking things and not quitting

you know and not quitting on our people and when we finished 2015 we did about three million in sales

our first year but we lost a million dollars and in 2016 we did about 14 million in sales

and lost over a million dollars again and that money's got to come from somewhere and so that

money came from myself putting money back into the business not getting paid November 2016

finally started getting a paycheck things started to turn. We started to see the movements. We started

in North Carolina start to evolve. And we realized during this time that solar just wasn't

Democratic, right? In fact, most of our consumers are Republican. We've done surveys. It's time and time

again, the Republican. People don't know that. But it's not Democratic, it's not Republican. It's American people don't know that but it's not Democratic it's not Republican it's American right it's free

enterprise it's opening new businesses it's creating new jobs it's creating

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