Shane Reagan is a a TIP alum and a rising senior at North Carolina State University who’s studying electrical and computer engineering. “Long story short, “he says, “I saw Iron Man and I said, He’s the coolest character ever to come across pop culture—I want to try to be as close to him as possible.”
Shane’s working on that dream this summer as an intern at Northrop Grumman, but we spoke to Shane about what he did last summer: a trip to install solar panels in low-income neighborhoods, which taught him how important it is to go out of your way to start a dialogue with people from other cultures.
Tell us about the trip.
NC state, along with many other universities does the alternative service break for spring break. I’d heard about them my freshman and my sophomore year in college, so I looked at the trips that were being offered my junior year, and sure enough, there was this Solar Spring Break trip, which sounded super fun and right up my alley. Our trip went to Atascadero, California, which is in the central valley about halfway smack dab in between San Francisco and LA.
The whole week we partnered with a nonprofit organization in California called Grid Alternatives. They install solar panels to low-income houses. They pay for all of these panels from the state’s renewable energy fund, which is funded through taxes. That way they can give all these solar panels for free to all of the home owners. It’s really an amazing organization, because we learned while we were over there that installing a solar array saves the home owners between 75 and 95 percent on their monthly electric bill.
The whole week was us spending time and shadowing Grid Alternatives. It was basically a week in the life of a Grid Alternatives employee. We did all sorts of the operation, then in the last half of the week we actually installed two arrays on two houses side by side.
What was it like to be on the roof installing the solar panels? Was it incredibly hot?
You would think that, but we actually were lucky enough to have beautiful weather while we were there. It was basically 70 and sunny.
But being on the roof and installing all these solar panels was absolutely amazing. Of course, you know, they have all of their safety precautions. I can’t remember the technical name for them, but they have these things they call yo-yos. They’re basically harnesses that they fasten to the roof that you hook into your harness. You walk up and down the roof, so that if you were to fall off the roof, you wouldn’t go flat on the ground. We’re hooked into these the whole time, and then we basically have a fireman’s line to slowly and safely load the solar panels up on top of the roof.
But even before installing the actual solar panels, we had to do all of the preparation work. Plus these roofs were shingled, so we had to go underneath the shingles. They have plates with fastenings that you have to install that lets you put in the guard rails that the solar panels sit on. We were installing all of those day one. Then day two was we outlined all of the rails with the trunk cable which carries the current. It actually is hooked up to the service box on the side of the house and then runs electricity to all of the panels.
Then, as you might expect, the coolest part of the whole thing was when the solar installation supervisor checked everything was good and he went over to the service box and he flipped it on and he said, We have power!
What’s the thing you remember most about the trip? What did you take away from the experience?
It was definitely the first day that we worked with Grid Alternatives, when we did outreach. Grid Alternatives is responsible for finding their homeowners. They target low-income families for whom these savings would change their lives. We drove about an hour down the road to, I think it was Santa Monica. We split into pairs and our job was to pretty much advertise Grid Alternatives to the families and tell them what an amazing nonprofit they are and what they can do to help the families. We’re going from door to door trying to basically sell Grid Alternatives, but also reinforce to them that the solar panels are all free.
That whole experience was really enlightening because half the families couldn’t speak English or it was a child that answered the door. We struggled to try and communicate. For those who could speak English, it was a matter of making them not scared of what appears to be a solicitor. We’re trying to enforce that we’re not selling anything. Basically trying to send the message of what Grid Alternatives does and trying to get the families to be able to accept this wonderful opportunity.
That whole experience is really enlightening because it makes you think, Wow, not everything is so easy. These people were scared of a potentially big company that could hurt them in a very bad way, or thinking, Who are these strange people at our door? We were trying to overcome that communication barrier.
Has that experience impacted you in any way?
Yeah. I have traveled abroad before, and I really do like being culturally aware, but that experience also reminded me in an important way that I don’t have to go outside my country to see such difference in culture or communication. Basically no matter where I travel it’s important to be culturally aware. That’s what I really like to take away from that experience: in the future, whenever I travel or whenever I’m doing, say, a mission trip, making a conscientious effort to communicate with the people where I am staying and learning what they enjoy and how I can start a conversation with them. Just be accepting and to try and start a dialogue with people of different cultures.
Leave a Reply