Tucson to Florence

Today I made the drive up from Tucson (accompanied by my brother Dan) to Florence, AZ, a small town with a population of about 17,000 halfway between Phoenix and Tucson off Highway 10. I had an 11:45 appointment at Allwest Energy, Inc., a solar and wind company that works out of both East and West Valley. They are expanding southward (hence the Florence office), and on their website they explicitly mentioned job openings for solar installers.





Luckily enough, after faxing over my resume and application, I received a call from Sally Evans at Allwest yesterday, while sitting through a lecture with Dan at the U of A in his 'Great Debates in Astronomy' course. And the appointment was set to meet with Dave Haycock, president of Allwest, a trained electrical engineer with a long history in PV installations. What is even more awesome (which I found out later through conversation) is that he lives completely off grid 28 miles from the Florence office, and 40 miles from the nearest supermarket.

My brother and I arrived early in Florence, but that's the norm in job interviews -- always happens when you give yourself ample time to ensure an early arrival. I walked into the office at 11:30 am, and met Dave, who had some business to still attend to (noting that he did not spend a lot of time in the office). After he dealt with a few things he was very friendly and talkative, and soon enough we were heading to a job site nearby, which was an awesome opportunity. Dave implied that he wanted me to see first hand the physicality entailed with this work, and sure enough we were on-site at a residential install in a matter of minutes. I got to head up on the roof and check out the array, and also met Mike, a team leader who had a long work history as a framer and now worked at Allwest.

After checking out the job site Dave, Mike and I went out for lunch. They mostly talked business but I was able to sneak a few words into the conversation, and it was a great time. One of the most interesting facts that I learned were about "green-switches," which Dave said he was going to try and bundle with solar installs. They are essentially programmable switches in the household that turn of phantom-loads from all appliances that are power-ready and drain energy in standby mode (i.e. cable box, coffee maker). These programmable switches can be flipped when you go to sleep or leave your residence to save energy and $. Good stuff.

We all was said and done Dave basically made me an offer based on my experience with FDC, the lighting wholesaler, and my PV Installation course at SUNY Ulster. The only drawback, as he noted, was geography. I had been planning to relocate to Tucson but may have to move further North seeing as Allwest is not that far south yet. But, regardless, I have a great window of opportunity, which I will most certainly mull over. Full-time work installing solar panels in the desert sun in Arizona. Life is good :-).