Solar Spotlight: Meet Our Senior Director of Project Development

At AC Power, we pride ourselves in having a team of individuals with diverse passions and rich lived experiences. We see this as a unique strength that positions us well to keep our finger on the pulse of the industry and deftly adapt to the ever-evolving energy transition.

In these pages, we will regularly be highlighting the people who make up our team so you can better know us as we strive to reenergize communities, one brownfield at a time. This week, we're talking to Senior Director of Project Development Gina Wolfman.

What motivated you to pursue a career in this field?

When I look back, there was no rhyme or reason while I was working my way through the industry, but now I know that it's because I was supposed to end up here doing exactly what I'm doing.

I started working in the field actually doing the cleanups of all these sites, and then learned about how to do the environmental planning and permitting for development in general, and then shifted that into brownfield traditional development, and then ended up in greenfield renewable development. I was like, I'm kind of done with this all the environmental work. It's great, it’s rewarding, but what more can we do with these sites?

So I said, let me just learn how to do solar. I know nothing about it. I talked my way into the position. And then after three years, I wanted to start a greenfield solar development division at [the company I was with], and it wasn't an option at the time.

Annika found me, and here I am. It’s interesting because I learned regular development before doing brownfield development. And then I learned regular greenfield solar before coming here and doing brownfield. And I just feel like this position requires everything I know and all the experience I have from every step of the way.

What aspects of working in the solar sector do you find most fulfilling and rewarding?

I like the bigger problem solving. I can't explain it. I love the engineering, I love the permitting, all the different pieces of what we do.

It's using everything I've learned in my career, and not a day goes by where I say, why did I do that? That never came in. Everything I've done comes together in this position, so that's really satisfying. But then also, the sites that I worked to clean up and get remediated, we're putting the best possible use on them again. So it's decades of working on really nasty cleanups, and then having the opportunity to put renewable energy on these sites just comes full circle.

One other thing: I love that every site is a new puzzle, and each site has its own challenges. And it's just, for me, really rewarding too because I'm a problem solver by nature.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone considering a career in the solar industry, what would it be and why?

I would say be flexible. It's the solarcoaster. You have to be able to pivot. You need to think outside of the box. Tap into your creative side if you have one. That's really important. Balancing the art with the science is critical.

What’s a fun fact about you that most people at AC Power might not know?

Well, I have some dorky ones, but I have to say that the most fun one for me (now that I've gone through two knee surgeries this year) is that I have 43 of my 46 high peaks completed for the Adirondacks, and I'm going to wrap them up this year.

If you weren’t working in solar energy development, what would be your dream job?

It's the other fork in the road that I didn't take when I decided to go to law school, which was environmental education.

Part of me would love to think, well, I have a PhD, and I would teach college level environmental science courses. But I think that elementary and high school are so important, secondary ed, because that's where it's going to be, the next generation.

I think really getting to school-age kids would be amazing. I don't know if I have the patience for it, that's another question. But if we're going back thirty years and I have all that energy, yeah, I would love to be teaching kids.

I'm going to say one more thing. This is my other big plan and dream. I dream about developing school curriculum and it would just be called “Adaptation,” and it's about how we adapt to the world that's changing. Like, it's happening, and we're not stopping climate change. It’s not about the damage we’ve done and can’t reverse, but it's figuring out what do we do. Like, where are we going to grow our food? Where do we live? I’d love to teach young kids and encourage them, give them hope about how to live.

What’s most important to you about working at AC Power?

I mean, the mission is a given. I think it’s the culture and the like-mindedness of everyone on the team. We share a passion for what we're doing, and that's important. And also the collaborative and integrative way we work. We're not siloed. I don't think it's just because of our size. I think that just the nature of the work and the way we choose to go about it is very collaborative and intentional.