Ten Year Career Reflections and Lessons
October is a special month for me, and not just because I love #SpookySzn. I started my first full time job at First Solar in October of 2014, ten years ago. And the same month three years ago (almost to the day), I left that company to start working with the DOE Loan Programs Office.
I feel incredibly proud of all the impactful projects I’ve worked on, the brilliant people I’ve met, and the amount I’ve been able to learn along this journey. In college, all I knew is that I cared deeply about helping to solve the existential crisis of climate change. It is a dream come true that I now get to work with some of the most knowledgeable and passionate people in the industry, along with the most creative entrepreneurs in the world, to help deploy innovative and impactful clean energy technology.
To reflect on this past decade, I wanted to share some of the most important lessons I’ve learned along the way. Some of these may seem corny, or obvious, but I share them because they are true for me and have helped me grow and expand my capabilities. I still have so so much to learn and am humbled daily by the complexity involved in decarbonizing our entire way of life. But these principles have guided me well, and I hope to keep adding to them as I progress in my career.
