Episode 17 features an interview with Colleen Butterfield. Colleen works in the green energy industry where she helps HVAC companies adopt green technologies with the goal of making environmentally friendly energy more affordable for the consumer.

The episode kicks off with a humorous discussion about insufferable LinkedIn influencers, Rory and Greg's brushes with reality television fame, and support group for people who have been abducted by aliens.

The bulk of the episode focuses on Colleen's career in green energy and her pervious job working at a green energy nonprofit. The three discuss inexpensive and practical ways individuals can reduce their energy consumption, their own experiences with green energy and homeownership, and how DIY and punk rock influenced their perspectives on the environment.

Mentioned in this episode:

ESL ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL - SEPTEMBER 9TH THROUGH 20TH

THE ESL ROCHESTER FRINGE FESTIVAL, THE MOST ANTICIPATED FESTIVAL IN THE REGION, WILL ONCE AGAIN EXCITE AUDIENCES WITH NEARLY 650 PERFORMANCES SEPTEMBER 9TH THROUGH 20TH . FROM COMEDY, DANCE, AND THEATRE TO JAW-DROPPING SPECTACLES ACROSS THIRTY-NINE VENUES ALL AROUND ROCHESTER. DON’T MISS AMAZING PERFORMANCES IN THE SPIEGELTENT INCLUDING THE WORLD PREMIERE OF CIRQUE DU FRINGE: CLAWS OUT, SHOTSPEARE, KIDS FRINGE, AND MORE. AND DIRECT FROM ITALY, SPHERE, A MIND-BLOWING OUTDOOR SPECTACLE FREE AT PARCEL FIVE SEPT. 19TH AND 20TH . ROCHESTERFRINGE.COM.

Lunchador Podcast Network

Check out all the shows on the Lunchador Podcast Network at Lunchador.org

Joe Bean Roasters

Use promo code Lunchador for 15% off your order! https://shop.joebeanroasters.com

Connections with Evan Dawson

Connections with Evan Dawson - Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Connections

I, I just wanted to say, Colleen, this has been awesome to, to catch up with you and you know, it's so cool to see what you're doing and be, you know, like connected obviously through the social media, which is great and also terrible at the same time.

And also like being on LinkedIn too.

Like, like this whole social landscape is weird in a professional way.

So it's like, that's like a whole different hellscape, which, you know,

LinkedIn, I feel like, you know, there's for me there's a love hate relationship.

I, I had a very interesting experience last, last week.

A woman just like randomly reached out to me who lives in my same small town and she was like, hey, I just like came across you.

I thought it was so funny that, you know, we're both in the same industry and we live in the same town.

Like just wanted to connect and say hi and I was like, I'm glomming on to you immediately.

Like it's so hard to find community here.

And I was like, can we get coffee tomorrow?

Like, who are you?

And we went and had coffee.

I mean, LinkedIn sucks in a lot of ways, but I love when people are just like going to shoot their shot and they're like, hey, I need help.

We live in the same town.

Like, let's connect.

Yeah, in a lot of ways it is an absolute hellscape on there.

But when people are just themselves and like authentic and not trying to be some weird career influencer, it's like great.

You know, that's what social media and those kind of sites should be.

Not, not just self promotion.

But yeah, so I like the, I

like the LinkedIn career influencers.

I like looking at their posts and profiles the same way.

I think my wife likes watching the Real Housewives of various wherever's.

Wow.

Salt Lake City is the best.

That's the best.

Oh yeah, that's a good one.

No, I've watched all.

I know nothing about those.

I've watched all of them vicariously through my wife.

All the Bravo shows I'm up on, I can keep up with any conversation.

Yeah, the current one that is Love is Blind is a big one right now.

Oh yeah, we watched that too.

I have not watched it but like I'm getting some play by play.

So.

I've always wanted to do a reality show about a library but it would like the ethics of it.

You wouldn't be able to do.

But man, we get so much weird stuff happening and interesting people, people coming through.

In fact, one time.

Do you know 90 Day Fiance.

One time they filmed an episode where I work and I had to like, sign all these forms.

And they were like, the producer called and they're like, hey, we've got this couple they live in, one of them lives in Rochester, you know, have you ever heard of 90 Day Fiance?

And I'm like, oh, holy shit.

I know all about 90 Day Fiance.

And they're like, hey, we see you have an English as a second language class.

Can, you know, this like, couple show up and we'll film them.

They're just going to be in one class.

And I couldn't get the non profit that does the class to sign off on it.

And I was like, listen, I really wanted to make this happen.

I really wanted to see our library on 90 Day Fiance, you know, but they just, you know, there's an enrollment process.

The enrollment period's already ended.

I'm really sorry, but if there's any other way, you know, we got this other conversational English class.

Maybe they'd be game.

And they're like, you know what?

This isn't a problem.

Can the teacher just show up someday?

And we'll pay actors to portray people learning English as a second language while our student actually doesn't know English, sits there and will record them.

And even that I couldn't get them to buy into.

They're like, not a problem.

We'll just pay an actor to portray a teacher teaching a class full of actors.

And I was like, how much of this is actually real?

No, no, it kind of ruined.

But I did get to see my library on tv, which is an American.

I want to see myself on tv.

Wow.

Were you one of the paid actors?

I wanted to be.

And I thought about inserting myself into it, but I didn't think it would.

I didn't think I could pull it off.

They didn't have a casting call at the library.

No.

But the couple did get into a fight in the library, an argument.

And I was like, that fight was probably fake.

That was a fake fight.

Just like they went to a fake English as a second language class.

I probably need to cut all this because then the producers of TLC will never come back to my library for.

For my reality show, which I'm going to.

You got to pitch it to him.

Yeah.

I did not know that.

That is great.

I did know that there was like, there's a show.

There's a woman that comes into the coffee shop and.

And she was on.

There was like, MILF Manor is the name of a show.

I haven't heard of that one.

Yeah, so that sounds so made up, but I'm sure it's real.

Oh, they've.

Well, the reason I know it exists is because they reached out to us at the coffee shop to film something there.

And I was like, yeah, no, we're not doing this because whenever people ask to do that, they say they take up a small amount of space, but they take up so much space and time and we have a small space.

So I said, no, I'm sorry that we can't do that.

And they went to another coffee shop.

They allowed them to do it.

And it turns out that one of our regulars was on the show and we found out and some of our.

I haven't watched it, but some of our team has watched it and they just like.

They love her.

They're just like, this is great.

When are you going on again?

They like talk to her about it all the time.

She loves it.

It's like wild.

Yeah.

I don't think I could have gotten my board to sign off on an episode of MILF Manor being at the library, but I do think they would have been okay with.

They were okay with 90 Day Fiance.

Hey, you know, you win some, you lose some.

Yeah.

We also served as a backdrop for this, really, this documentary which I'm told is still coming out, but I don't know when it's coming out of this woman who lives in Rochester.

She was abduct.

Yeah, she was abducted by aliens.

And she runs a support group out of the library.

It's not affiliated with the library.

She just uses our space to run a support group for people who have also been abducted by aliens.

And they popular.

Is it?

Sometimes they get like 70 people when they have like a guy come in.

Like one time they had this Air Force guy from the Canadian Air Force who was going to come in and he was like relatively high ranking and he's like, yep, aliens are real.

I know they're real.

I don't have any documents to prove it, but you're gonna have to take my word for it.

We all know they're real in the air for the aviation industry.

And no one takes you seriously if you talk about it, but so she runs this support group out of the library and the New York Times did a profile on her one time.

So there's like this whole New York Times piece about her and her experience, which I kind of.

I don't know if I'm sold on the alien thing, but, you know, it was it that.

That is Also coming.

So we are a nice backdrop for.

For an alien support group documentary.

The public library.

What a time.

Just the libraries are great.

Yeah.

She said her group hasn't been doing well lately though, because she thinks she's getting too much competition from, like, people's attention getting pulled into other conspiracies which are probably a little bit more legitimate, involving, like, I'm assuming, Jeffrey Epstein and our current administration.

No, my conspiracies.

Yeah, hers.

I just feel like they're not racist.

Like so many conspiracies just turn into a weird anti Semitic thing at some point.

But the alien abductee one, I feel like that's fairly wholesome as far as conspiracies go.

I support it.

I am.

I'm.

That's.

I'm.

I love that it exists.

All right, so today.

God damn.

Edit that already.

Let's just call it a day.

We're done.

Great job, guys.

So we have Colleen Butterfield joining us today on our podcast.

And you know, before we jump into things, I would just like you to introduce yourself and tell us, you know, what you do professionally at this stage in the game.

Sure, yeah.

I, I get asked this a lot and it, I feel like it varies every time I respond, so I guess we'll just see how it comes out today.

Currently, I work for a consulting firm.

I will, I will leave the name out, but we do a lot of things, but essentially at the end of the day, everything we do is with the goal of reducing energy usage, which doesn't sound super duper thrilling, but for us, we're, we're a mission driven organization.

So.

But what I do in particular, I am something called a national account manager.

There's a lot of jargon like everywhere, but I work specifically with H vac and water heat manufacturers.

And so the programs that we run are incentive based.

So you might be more familiar with, you know, if you went into like an appliance store and bought an Energy Star appliance, you could fill out a little form and send it in and maybe you might get your rebate like six months later.

We do a different style, so we work directly with the folks that manufacture the equipment and we give them the incentive to upsell the high efficiency equipment and do what they know how to do best and how to sell their equipment.

And yeah, it sounds boring, but the day to day is really fun.

I get to work with a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life and it's all just relationship based.

I'm not a technical person.

There's.

We have plenty of those, but that's not me.

So anyway, I'll leave it there.

I could babble about it forever.

But that's what we're here to babble.

But what I'm hearing is that you can help us save a little bit money in energy.

Yes, that.

I mean yes, people are less excited about saving kilowatts, but very excited about saving money.

So there you go.

We try and put it in that, in that context most of the time.

So as someone that I.

So we moved out to Canandaigua, which is on the Finger Lakes almost two years ago.

A little over two years ago.

Two years ago now.

The second month we were in this new home, the water heater broke.

Amazing.

Great.

The other really cool thing about this house is that it is came with solar power, which is amazing.

And we're on a well water system.

So ready for the apocalypse kind of.

I don't really understand because we still, we don't have banked power.

Like it just goes back into the ground.

There's no battery.

Yeah, yeah.

So like I looked into getting a battery and those things are so, so expensive.

So I'm exploring fig, trying to figure that out.

But that's a, that's a down the road thing at this point.

But it's also figuring out well water, how that works with hot water heaters now and all this other stuff.

So yeah, it's interesting.

The learning curve is crazy.

So yeah, it got thrown into the deep end.

So.

And as someone that like buys, has bought a home, has done some of this work, you don't know so much of this stuff, like H vac stuff and all of these little things that are talked about in this sky ways of life.

It all interconnects and it's wild.

And that's why we don't really like the style of expecting the homeowner to know everything and to be able to do that work themselves, it's just ridiculous.

So we leave it to the professionals that know how it works to manage all of it and to, you know, they can take that incentive money and reduce the price to, to you, to the homeowner and you don't have to think about it.

But yeah, it's like an intangible thing.

Right?

You just flip the switch and it's supposed to come on.

But that's not always how it works.

Definitely not.

No.

Well, this was I guess a missed opportunity on my part because my, my younger brother installs solar panels for one of our region's More, more popular solar power companies.

And so I've picked up like a lot of, kind of the technical aspect, not a lot.

I mean, I can't, I can't do anything myself, but I've picked up enough of it that I could at least fake it for the purposes of a 45 to maybe 90 minute podcast.

And then I've also had an awareness of just like some of the incentives that were available through New York State and also sometimes the federal government, which are sadly now not really there anymore because of the times we live in.

Do you.

So you work more like with the commercial end?

So like, are you like subsidizing the equipment or the service for the installer so that the.

They can pass on the savings to the consumer who's having it like put into their home?

Yeah, we, well, we do a little bit of everything.

We have commercial programs.

So when the equipment ends up in a commercial setting, like a business, and then we also do residential, and it just depends on where.

Like, we do have a program in New York.

We have, I think we're in 22 different states, but just depending on the region, the design can change.

So sometimes we're working directly with contractors and helping to educate contractors.

And a lot of this is new technology, like heat pump, water heaters are the big thing.

And that's not even new.

Like I say new, but they've been around for a really long time.

But new technology takes so long to be adapted into the mainstream especially.

And I'm not, I do not want to throw contractors under the bus like they do amazing work, but you get used to a specific technology and so to have to all of a sudden learn something brand new and be an expert at it and know how to install it, how to, how to fix it when something inevitably goes wrong and then, and then have to learn all these different incentive programs which come and go.

It's a lot.

So we typically don't even work at that level.

We call it upstream.

So you have, it's like this triangle, right?

You have your manufacturers up here and there's only a handful of those.

And then you have distributors down here and there's more of those.

And then you have thousands and thousands of contractors in a, you know, maybe in a large state alone.

So for us it made the most sense.

Let's go up here.

And we only have to educate this amount of people on what we're doing.

And then it can trickle down, not to use the trickle down term, but in this case it actually can work.

Hopefully that made Sense.

But yeah, that's what we do.

Yeah, it's interesting because we're in this situation where I think most of us, I think are tuning in, maybe want to do better and want to think about sustainability practices and want to engage on this level.

But they're like, you're saying there's so much that's unknown and it's like, how does the practicality work?

How does it work for us on the day to day?

How do we incorporate that in our lives?

How do we make these decisions that help with energy efficiency and sustainability?

And I think the older punk in me, you know what I mean, you, you like enter this world and you're like, let's change everything radically now and then.

Like you buy a house and you're like, oh my gosh, there's like so many things to do.

But like you want to, you want to do it right when you start taking things out and replacing things.

And it seems there's always something and there's always new technology and finding the right people like the contractors you're talking about to even support that is, has been an interesting scope of fighting this like old guard, new guard situation of when you're like entering those, those worlds for sure.

But you even have to know as the homeowner how to contact the contractors and what to look for and to know to get multiple bids.

Like it's.

So we're trying to take the thinking away, not take the thinking away, take the insane amount of choices away from, you know, that final level of decision making.

Because you don't, you don't have to know everything.

So if we can just like make it easy and what we, we try to make these programs, we call them market transformation program.

So eventually we like to get to the point where the heat pump, water heater, like that becomes the norm, right?

So we just transition out the old, the energy sucking equipment that just costs a lot of money too and, and transform the market, if you will.

Like we used to have a ton of lighting programs so we would incentivize LEDs, but like that's just become the norm, right?

So those have gone, gone away.

And so we have, we have to constantly keep up with the new technologies and find new ways to get them into people's homes and businesses.

So it's, it's never ending.

Well, you mentioned the LED lights and I remember when we started to transition away from the incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescence and LEDs, there was like a resistance to it and it got politicized in A way that a lot of green technology seems to be getting politicized.

But that does seem like a success story because.

And I think there is some legislation in New York state, but it's.

You go into Home depot and like 95% of the.

And I'm just making that number up, but it seems right of the light bulbs on the shelf are, are high efficiency.

And then the heat pump is another interesting one.

And it sounds like you're talking about it in the context of like heating water.

But I know like maybe 20 years ago when, you know, I was first starting to think about buying a house, heat pumps were kind of like, they worked in the south, but like in a place like Rochester, New York, it was like kind of not a great technology.

But I know more and more people now who have heat pump systems that can keep up with the types of Rochester winters that we have.

What, what are you seeing as like the next technology that's going to kind of clear that hurdle and become viable for a person who maybe isn't, you know, particularly wealthy or maybe a middle class type of homeowner?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's still heat pumps.

It takes that long.

I mean, they have, like you said, they've evolved and yeah, they have something called cold climate heat pumps now that can work in Wisconsin, can work in New York and, and keep up.

But yeah, if something gets a bad rap, people just start to hear the negative things about the new technology.

And it's very hard to overcome that.

That hill.

So.

But it is still heat pump.

So we just launched a new program in New England.

It's a heat pump accelerator program and that can be tacked on top of the already existing heat pump program there.

So it's like double incentives.

And so those are becoming more affordable.

They're still a little expensive, but they're getting there.

Um, so it's still, it's still that it takes quite a while.

There are new technologies, they just cost a lot, like air to water.

Heat pumps are a new thing, but they're anyway, they're very expensive and haven't really even hit the US market.

And that's another thing, like we get, we get equipment much later than say, Europe does.

So they're kind of the testing ground.

And then it eventually comes over here.

Yeah, I noticed like, as I, before I had kids, and this is probably an episode where I'll reference that a lot, because before I had kids I thought, I'm gonna have solar panels on my house.

And that seemed like something I could afford or I'm gonna have an electric, an all electric vehicle.

And that seemed like something I could afford maybe in a couple years.

But then kids came along and it's kind of set me back a little bit.

And I guess in some ways that was a good thing because that having children may be the thing that prevented me from owning a Tesla right now at this very point in time, which I'm very proud to say.

I do not own a Tesla.

Sorry.

If you do business.

Thanks for clarifying that.

Yeah, I own a gas guzzling car.

I care about.

Yeah, our democracy, not the environment.

But before I had kids, I went to Europe a handful of times with my wife and I noticed like, wow, like every third house has solar panels on it.

And even around here it's gotten much better.

I still don't see them very often.

It's pretty rare.

So it does seem like we're way behind and never been to, to Asia or China.

But I understand that they're also farther along than we are.

Is that's correct, right, Absolutely.

I mean most of solar panels are come from China.

So yes, we.

I feel like, you know, technologies like that are so at the whim of whoever is in charge of the country.

The incentives just come and go and it makes our job very difficult.

And to that, you know, piece, we don't really work in the federal sphere at all.

Our company's been around since the mid-90s and we've only grown.

We have never been hit by whoever that's in the White House decides what is a smart technology or not.

We don't do that.

We do state by state and we work directly with utilities.

Utilities have one job.

They need to keep the gas or the electricity flowing and there's only so much they can provide.

So I grew up in California where there were rolling brownouts and blackouts because the grid couldn't keep up.

And so we've had to come up with clever ways to keep the grid stable.

So you can do a few things right.

You can build more power plants.

Nobody wants to do that.

They're costly, they're just not a good idea.

They cost so much money.

Or you can just use less energy, right.

So they, the utilities are willing to pay companies like ours to come up with program designs to reduce that instead of building new power plants.

So it's been much more stable than federal programs.

That's so fascinating to me that.

The Green Energy Initiative and bubble, I guess, if you will, that sphere of creating jobs and technology is the immediacy.

I think that our Culture demands is this.

It wants to see an impact in such a way that is unattainable that you're saying, the company I worked for has been around from the mid-90s, and it's this incremental growth and steady peel back of the energy consumption that we're using.

And I, and I feel that gets lost in the narrative because of maybe how fast growth happens in other aspects.

Right.

Because we're also consuming more.

So it's almost like this race of how do we compete those narratives.

Definitely.

Yeah.

You're not wrong.

Well, the unsexy solution to all of this is just to consume less and to reuse, which as I get older and, you know, as I alluded to, you know, kids, kids will cost you money, that.

That seems more feasible and is more appealing to me now than, you know, maybe what it would have been when I was in my early 30s or my 20s.

But I feel like that's the most viable for the most amount of people is, Is just to be a little bit more thrifty to, To.

To recycle.

What, though, are like, practical technologies or practical steps that a person maybe of modest means might be able to take to reduce their energy use within their home that you can speak to, if you can speak to.

And which one of those did you read in a zine at some point along the way?

You know what?

I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere there were some zine about, like, weatherization.

But I mean, this, this is actually how I got started in energy efficiency specifically, was I worked for this nonprofit, and we each had a region of the US that we were supposed to work in, where we were working with universities and getting students to go through our, like, energy literacy program.

And then we wanted them to feel empowered to come up with a renewable energy project to implement on their campus.

We literally pulled sticks.

I pulled the stick that put me in the southeastern region of the US which is much more difficult than asking the same thing of the Pacific Northwest.

This is probably 10 or 15 years ago.

I learned really quickly when talking to the people that actually lived in that region, they were not interested in talking about solar panels.

They were not interested in talking about wind turbines.

They wanted to talk about reducing their utility bill and, like, the immediate needs, because they were spending, you know, 300, $400 on keeping their house cool in the summer.

But they had leaky windows and they have leaky doors.

And so they're all.

That AC is just going out, literally out the window.

And so some of the cheapest ways to just reduce usage in your home is make sure your windows are sealed.

If you can't afford to go from single pane to double pane, there's like, the old school plastic stuff you can put up and take a hairdryer to it.

So it's really just, like, looking.

We call it the envelope of the building.

Sealing up the envelope.

And a lot of utilities will provide free energy audits of your home.

Some free tools like that, you know, the plastic coverings or even light bulbs and little things, they'll just give away.

So.

So I know people generally don't like their utilities because all they interact with is their bill, and no one's happy about those.

But there are a lot of free programs for homeowners, so just get familiar with your utility.

I'm happy to help anyone, you know, navigate what that looks like.

It can be confusing, but, yeah, those are the little things.

Well, you touched upon a bunch of things that sparked something in me, and I had this impulse to turn this podcast into, like, an episode of, like, the hardcore scene version of MTV Cribs where I go around my house and show the various.

The various things that we've done or have to reduce our energy consumption.

We have these really, really cool.

And again, this is.

This is.

This is.

This is an audio format.

So I apologize to everyone who's listening.

I'm going to reference things that you cannot see, but we have these interior storm windows on our house that are actually held in place by these.

These magnetic.

This magnetic molding.

It looks like it's wood molding, but it's held in place with, like, rare earth magnets.

And then in the summertime, we can, like, use just a flathead screwdriver to pop that molding out and use giant mechanical suction cups to take the sheets of glass out so we can open our windows and get air through.

But it's super.

It's, like, way more convenient than the exterior storm windows.

And it looks a lot nicer.

Wow.

Of course, I'm not careful.

And you can probably see where this is headed.

How many have you broken?

I've broken three.

And they're safety glass, so they just turn into.

It just looks like I spilled a lot of rock salt or methamphetamine in my basement.

So I intended.

I swear I intended to get new glass cut for the winter.

And I thought I was going to do it because.

And this is where I can bring it back to hardcore.

My hardcore band went to Syracuse and we recorded some songs.

And right next door to the Studio was the same.

This.

This, like, glass wholesaler that sells these windows.

They're like the only people in the region who sell these.

When I'm like, this is a sign I got to get these windows replaced because I know exact, exactly where it is now.

It's right next to more sound studios in Syracuse.

But I never did that because it was actually just cheaper for me to go and get sheets of that solid foam, like inch and a half thick foam board and cut it to the size of the window and put it in the window.

My wife does not really like it.

So my advice is, if you go this route.

No.

Yeah.

She's got no.

Chill.

My advice is if you go this route, put a nice curtain over it, and then you'll never have to see it from the inside again.

Arrange the storm windows so that they only.

The pink foam board only faces the backyard where no one can see it.

Hot tip.

I like it.

You also touched upon the Saran Wrap stuff that you use, the hair dryer.

That's a scam.

I'm not a science expert like you, but if you go.

If you go to Staples, you can get yourself a sheet of the bubble wrap.

You want the small bubble wrap with like the quarter inch size bubbles, not the, like one inch size bubbles.

Spray your window down just with like some, Some.

Some water or Windex, you know, here we are, recycling.

You can take your empty Windex bottle and fill it with water.

Spray that window down, and then put the bubble side facing the glass.

The water will eventually dry, holding the.

The.

Holding the bubble wrap to the glass.

And I think it works just as well.

Again, not a scientist, but I think it works just as well as the Saran Wrap stuff, which I could never get on my windows.

Right.

Wow.

I mean, you have all the hot tips.

I didn't know about any of these things, so.

So, Greg, I'm gonna.

Greg, you're hired.

Right, Good.

I'm gonna piggyback on having foam board in one of my windows right now because one of our basement windows broke and we haven't gotten it replaced because we only have two basement windows.

And they won't.

The person we came out had come out.

Give us a quote.

They said their minimum amount of windows that they would replace is three.

All right, get the bat out.

Time to take out two more.

And the other windows in our house are mostly sliding glass doors because our house is really weird and they need it, too, but we just don't have the finances to make it all happen.

So there's that Foam board, windows.

Foam board's the way to go.

Last analog solution to a serious technological problem.

And, Rory, I'm curious if you remember this.

Like, 25 years ago, when Witness was practicing in my basement, you may have noticed a note taped to the thermostat that said, do not turn above 68.

Put on a sweater.

And put on a sweater was underlined.

That very note is still taped to that thermostat.

I was going to hope you took it.

And it's now in your house.

It should be, but I have a nest thermostat, which I got for free one time from.

From our local power company.

See?

Yeah, it was.

Well, it was a trick.

Okay.

That you're using the drug dealer model, because they're like, hey, here's this free $109 thermostat we're just giving you.

Okay, great.

I'm gonna do it.

I put it in.

And now I get emails all the time that are like, hey, let us adjust your thermostat for you.

That way you don't spend too much money on heating your house.

And I get paranoid about that.

I feel like they're gonna freeze me to death.

Yeah, I get 20 bucks back a year if I let them do that.

And I'm like, you gotta multiply that by at least.

At least 10.

I want 200 for you to control my thermostat.

But tape that note on there.

Tape that note on there.

My kids can't figure that thermostat out because I can only control it from my phone.

But, dad, thank you.

I didn't see the wisdom when I was 19 and freezing.

Now that I'm paying the bills.

I understand and I'll respect.

Yeah, take that note when.

When he finally passes on.

And it'll be a family heirloom that I'll leave to my children someday.

What are they, shadow boxes?

They make you just frame it and put it up on your wall.

Yeah,

well, I mean, those are some of the programs we run, too.

The.

The demand response programs where we want to control the appliances in your home.

But 20 bucks?

Yeah, that's.

That's not enough.

That's wild.

My.

I am very.

This house, anyway, is very old school.

We have electric baseboard, and then we have a wood pellet stove to heat our home.

Yeah.

And then everything.

Everything's electric, so there's no gas.

And then we just have the.

The well water.

So.

Pretty wild figuring it out.

A little salty sometimes, but, you know, we got the RO System for the filtering, the drinking water.

Though, so, but working on the energy aspect of it.

That's good.

So, so Colleen, like this is, I mean this is, it's interesting to me because I mean living in like sharing space with people in punk settings and, and living in houses and, and sharing all these.

I feel like for me there was always these little tips and tricks going around like, like Greg was talking about, like, and you were talking about like this was happening before I even thought of energy conservation.

It was just like, how can we live as cheaply as possible and communally as possible?

So like how has like hardcore and punk, you know, ethos shown up in your day to day life at this point?

Yeah, day to day.

Now I don't know.

That's a hard one.

I mean I, I feel like I am where I am because of getting into punkin hardcore originally like gosh, back in the what, late 90s?

I mean this is really gonna be, this gonna be a journey here.

But when I started going to shows it was in Sacramento and at the time pretty much everyone I was surrounded by was vegan and or straight edge.

And so I started obviously to learn more about the, the ethics around veganism or being vegetarian.

And so it just becomes a snowball, right?

And it eventually led into environmental conservation.

And, and so this very long path from when I was like, I don't know, 14 or 15 to I am now, it has been a slow but steady, just snowball effect.

And for me the environmental piece of it really hit when I realized that sustainability is also a social justice issue.

The more that we do not take care of our planet, it affects low income communities first and hardest.

And so it's all so intertwined and I don't know that I would have, I hope that I would have, but I don't know that I would have connected the dots as early if it weren't for going to those shows and meeting, you know, these people.

And so it's just been this, just following my, my morals and my, you know, code of ethics through life has kind of led me to this random job where I work in H Vac and water heat, you know, But I try to view it in this larger lens of what, what is my day to day impacting, you know, years down the road.

So that's, that's what keeps me talking about H Vac.

I mean it's, it's, it's inspiring to me to realize that these like being in those rooms has wedged us into these like bigger landscapes, you know, like that seed that was planted in these Rooms like it grows like, and inspires and it moves and, and you know, just to like having a 10 year old now.

And I'm thinking like you're saying when I was 14, this is what kind of inspired me my trajectory for the rest of my life.

You know, and before I came down here to do this, you know, I'm like talking with my son and he's talking about bullies in high school and in school.

And so it's like in four years he could be inspired or even now he could be inspired about something that is going to lead him down a path for the rest of his life.

And I think it's really fascinating that these little things along the way, like you said, snowball into bigger things and bigger passions.

And we absorb so much in these rooms and we take it with us, we take it through education, higher education and we kind of can we start to figure out what's, what's bullshit and, and what inspires us and that we can do things that are outside of the norm and the stereotypical where you're still advocating and pushing for clean energy, which is, which is punk.

Like that is punk.

You know, at the end of the day it's, you know, it doesn't seem like it sometimes, but you know, when it comes down to advocating for people, what you're doing, I think that's really awesome to see.

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of pressure.

Having children and constantly thinking about just the little interactions on a daily basis that may or may not stick with them forever.

So good luck to you too.

Not a path I chose to take.

It sounds terrifying, but also, also pretty awesome.

It's both, it's definitely.

And you know, Greg and I are pretty open about all of our navigating of this since the last podcast we recorded.

You know, my oldest and my youngest both have adhd and with that comes big feelings, lots of emotion.

And Ren, recently my oldest, Ren decided to kick a hole in the, in the wall.

Nice.

You could tell Ren, like that's not an okay thing to do, but there's definitely places in my parents house where I could like walk right up to it and point the outline of like the hole I punched in the wall when I was 14 and pissed off about something.

Yeah, so, so we had.

He immediately was like, oh no, I didn't mean that.

It was an accident.

Well, you know, we'll go through all that but you know, so it's like we're working through all that.

We're working through managing my emotions through it all.

As well.

You know, it's like, these are learning things that we're all figuring out.

But, you know, it was funny.

I was like, okay, well, we're gonna have to work on patching that up together.

Like, that's something we're doing, you know?

And it was funny while we were doing it.

At one point, my wife Chris was like, did you ever do this with your dad?

And I was like, no, I wish I did.

Like, that would have been neat to, like, just.

Not necessarily I put a hole in the wall and I should patch it, but, like, to do those constructive things.

Like, you look back on it now and you're like, that was awful.

That was stupid.

I shouldn't have done that.

But then those are the bonding moments, too, to come together, to fix something in some way without shame.

Like, okay, now we're going to learn, hopefully some put something back together a little bit, and it's only a piece of a wall.

We'll figure it out.

That's a good skill to have, too, because you'll find, you know, as your kids grow, they're going to need to learn how to do drywall.

And I think it's a transferable skill, because when I've had to fix drywall, I think I'm probably like Daniel LaRusso and Karate Kid waxing the cars and sanding the decks.

Like, in.

In putting drywall spackle on the wall.

I'm learning how to ice a cake really well.

So I could.

Probably thinking I could do that, too.

But you mentioned, like, doing it with, like, teaching your kids how to own their mistakes without making them feel shame is, like, that's, to me, like, kind of one of my goals, too, because you're all going to make mistakes.

You're all going to do selfish things.

It's inherent to the condition.

And, like, the way that I kind of was redirected as a kid was like, well, I'm going to make you feel as bad as I possibly can about yourself through this corrective process to prevent you from ever doing this again.

And that didn't work.

That was not a great strategy.

I mean, my parents did a lot of things right.

But that was.

That was one I would advise people to avoid.

Yeah.

And I still struggle with that, too, sometimes, too, you know, as a parent.

And so we're all still learning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well.

And since the last time we recorded this podcast.

And I'm sorry, Colleen, this is where it turns into a parenting podcast.

We.

It's inescapable.

Yeah.

To be fair to me, Though I started this project before Donald Trump was a president and, and I.

And it's like kind of scarier when like, you know, we're going to invade Greenland and oops, nevermind, we're going to like bomb Cuba.

Yeah.

We're going to bomb Iran and we'll take out their leader on Friday night.

Bada bing, bada boom.

We'll have this all wrapped up by Monday.

Oops, that's not going well.

Let's distract everyone with Cuba.

Anyway, my oldest turned nine, Rory, since the last time we chatted and I also turned 43 and I just have been thinking about kind of like age and perception of time and like nine, like him turning nine is freaking me out because he's like halfway to 18 now.

And those nine years went so freaking quick.

Like, you know that, that saying I've heard from time to time and seen on social media posts like the, the days are long but the years are short feels so true.

But of course, from his perspective, like another nine years, that's like the entirety of his life that, you know, like, if our relationship to time is proportional to the amount of time we've lived, like that would be like me thinking about when I'm going to be 86, you know, which also seems like kind of a far, far away place for me.

But like, yeah, we're like halfway to him being an adult.

So wild.

But he, he is reading now, bring this back to adhd.

He is reading now the ingredients of things before he eats them to see if there's red 40 in them.

Because that's like the one kind of woo woo, crunchy parent thing I like buy into is maybe that like artificial dyes, like have some effect on him because, because of his adhd.

Oh, they have an effect on our kids for sure.

Oh, geez.

Yeah.

And me, honestly, not me, as I'm

drinking my bright red crystal light here, I'm immune to the effects.

And one day they saw me drinking it and they're like, hey, how come you get to drink right?

They're like, I don't have ADHD, kid.

I'm sorry.

We're lost causes post 40.

It's all just downhill.

Yeah, but he's reading the ingredients and he saw me reading the ingredients one time.

Like, are you checking to see if there's red 40?

And then I'm like, no, I'm checking to see if there's animal byproducts in this.

He's like, because you're a vegan.

I'm like, yeah, that's Right.

And now he's like, for some reason, reading the ingredient list has, like, that has been the best thing I've done to promote like, vegetarianism and veganism to him.

He wants to be informed.

So thank you, Colleen, for letting us indulge in parenting.

He's going to be.

Now, you can now transfer that to like kilowatts and things.

Like, you start reading with your RGB bills.

Yeah.

Next you can, you can read your utility bills together.

That can be your.

That would be a great class in high school.

It would.

I mean.

Yes.

Yeah.

The actual skills that could be useful when you get older.

Imagine that.

Imagine learning something useful in school.

What a concept.

Oh, my goodness.

That would.

I mean, sign me up for that cheaper.

So.

So before you got into this position, was there any other jobs that led up to it like that, that led you to where you are now?

For sure.

And none of it intentional, like, none of it.

I feel like I've been through so many.

I've had so many different jobs and been through so many different interviews and there's always that question of like, what's your five year plan or your ten year plan?

And I, I hate that question so much because I don't, I don't know.

And anyone who has a five year plan, I have questions for you.

Like, why do you think, you know, that's Rory.

One time he said he had a five year plan and I was like, oh, I don't have a five year plan.

A person.

I had a personal five year plan and it worked.

It worked.

He's got the most successful coffee shop in town.

My five year plan was to not have a five year old plan, to just roll with the punches and see where I wound up.

Well, you're direct.

You're a director of a library.

It was never the plan.

I just, I feel.

It doesn't feel like I accomplished anything.

I just survived.

Yeah, well, okay, I, I take that back.

It works for some people.

Clearly, if you're a business owner and like there are things that you are responsible for and that, like, I respect that.

There is, there is a time and a place for a five year plan, but for like the trajectory of my life, I don't, I don't know.

But I.

Yes, I.

The last job I was at before I came to this company I can.

Was probably the best job I've ever had.

And I have been so lucky to say that, like, I actually enjoy my jobs.

I've enjoyed almost all of them except for that summer I spent shredding Paper in a room with no windows.

So that sucked.

But everything else has been pretty great.

Room without a window, let me out.

And they shut the door too.

It was really rude.

That's terrible.

Yeah, I used to, I used to work on this program in California that was, it was an internship program and we, we hired students at universities and they went through an energy efficiency education program.

But then they also, similar to that other job that I referenced, except this one was much better, would implement projects on their campus, but energy reduction projects.

And I just, I love that age group.

I know some people find them terrifying, but I think college age students are like the perfect age group.

They're still so idealistic and like malleable.

And that's the time to kind of learn what's important to you and where your skills are and what you want to do.

And that, that job was, it was just the best.

Such a kind, smart group of kids that I ended up working with a lot of them too.

Like the company I'm at now, a lot of those folks graduated and ended up working at the same company I'm at.

So it was just, yeah, it was the best.

I really enjoyed that.

But it was a non profit and after 14 years of running that program, we lost it because they deemed we were too expensive.

But always silver linings.

When I left there, I ended up here.

So yeah, it all works out.

But I just, I just feel like for me at least just being open to whatever came next and trying to build relationships within, you know, my industry and this community has just, it's just worked out and I feel like that, that does.

If you're open to, you know, trying new things and figuring out what comes next.

But, but also respect to a five year plan, I guess if it, if it works for you, then good.

But I needed it as motivation.

But that's, you know, that's also totally fair.

Yeah, I was like, okay, I'm moving back in with my parents.

I need something.

I'm almost 30.

Pay off my credit cards from touring and buy a car.

That's what I want to do.

Good five year plan.

Yeah.

You know, you know, there's a couple other things that happen along the way which are great, but you know, so, you know, being involved a with younger folks, that sounds awesome.

That doesn't scare me at either.

Like I always, just for me, even now like I'm working with like younger folks than I am, they make references and I'm just like, I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm Here for it.

And.

But it's like, has your.

You know, I would say this.

Like, it has hardcore and punk shown up to you from others in these spaces?

Like, have you met, like, any people that you're like, oh, you're into that?

Guess what?

Huska do.

I love them.

You know, like, has that, like, shown up in that.

In that world?

It literally happened today.

Like, I got to talk about your podcast to someone today, and this doesn't happen often.

It was just.

Today's been a really weird day.

I was on a call with someone at a distributor who shall not be named.

But he.

I was wearing an Adidas.

It was such a weird.

A weird way to get into it.

I was wearing an Adidas shirt.

And he was like, weird question.

Is that, like an Adidas classic or is that a new shirt?

And I was like, oh, I don't.

Like it's new.

Like, where is this going?

Again?

Where is this going?

And he was like, we.

We collaborated with Adidas to make, like, a shirt for our band, and it looks just like that one.

So I was wondering.

And I knew that he lived in Western Mass.

And I was like, hold on.

What kind of music?

And he was like, it was a metal band.

And I was like, say more.

What?

Like, what was the name?

And he tells me the name, and I Holy.

Like, yeah, I. I know that band.

And I was like, you were on Metal Blade Records?

And he was like, what?

How do you.

Hold on.

Are you pranking me?

And so we, you know, from there, we just, like, got into it, and turns out we know a lot of the same people.

But he's in this, like, I don't want to say costume.

That's not fair.

But we show up differently in our, you know, quote unquote professional lives than we maybe do at the grocery store or whatever.

And he was like, yeah, look.

And he pulls up his sleeve and he's got, you know, full.

Full tattoos and everything.

And he was like, you know, I. I know I don't look like it right now.

And I was like, that's crazy, man.

Like, I never would have pegged you for that.

But, yeah, every once in a while, it'll show up.

And I don't know when I still actually worked in an office.

My co worker and I had a little record player that we would put in between our desks because we actually had a door that we could like, close.

And so we'd listen to music and every Friday we would bring in records and like, show each other different stuff.

And I made a bold move one day and brought in a Bad Brains record.

And so we have the door closed and we're listening to music and One of our VPs walks by and he stops and like turns and opens the door and he goes, are you listening to Bad Brains?

Wow.

And I was like, do you know what?

Like, you know who that is?

It's just, it seems like a, you know, middle aged normie dude.

And then we spend the next hour talking about, like, he's from Orange county, talking about Orange county hardcore and just.

You just never know.

Yeah, there's been, there's been a couple of those.

And then that bond is immediately stronger in some way.

It's like we can, we have.

We're like in a common, like, wavelength of, of things and we understand each other a little bit more.

100.

Yeah, you can make.

I mean, it's not always correct, but you can, you can make some assumptions and hopefully you're on, on the same level with a couple different things.

But yeah, and my, my job is truly like 99 of it is about relationships and people trusting me and, and when I want things from people that they feel not obligated, but they would like to help me with what I need.

So that certainly is a really nice bonding moment.

And yeah, we were talking about all the, all the old venues and Connecticut and some of them in Western Mass.

But there weren't.

I don't know, that's.

That's a harder one for me, but it's just nice to go down that memory lane too.

Yeah, it's like circ.

Like there's so many folks that have circled and like, like what we've talked about before, it's like we don't know where they end up.

Right?

It's like, because, yeah, especially at that time, folks were touring, folks were like making music, but no one was making money.

It's like we were just doing it because that's what we did.

Right?

And then all of a sudden like, oh, we're, we have to have a professional life in some capacity or just like, quote, unquote, grow up.

But you don't really grow out of that mentality.

Like, it's like being a skateboarder, you just see the world differently.

It's like for me, like skateboarding and it's like I still see curbs.

I still see certain things that are gaps, you know, like, and same with Hardcore and punk is like, I see the world differently.

Like you said, like, people.

Like, that's.

For me, that's like having a business is.

Is people.

It's relationships.

It's building that trust.

And it goes so much further than we actually realize.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I guess, I mean, I shouldn't be that surprised when this does happen every once in a while and we like, quote, you know, find each other out our little music secrets because we, we work with so many folks in the trades, and I feel like that is a pretty.

Not a common path, but I just see a lot of that happening from folks that grew up in punk and hardcore.

Like, being an H VAC technician is not that unusual.

So it.

Yeah, I don't know why it surprises me when it happens, but there's more than I would have expected originally.

And I mean, honestly, folks coming from hardcore and punk, like, even if you don't have the skill set, we're kind of.

Some of us are just brash enough to go for it anyway, figure it out.

So it's like, oh, did you know that, you know, saving your energy.

We can, you know, put plastic on our.

Over our windows.

Like, I didn't know that aspect.

I knew it saved me money.

But, you know, now that you say it that way, I'm putting all these pieces together.

Yes.

So, Colleen, did you have.

Did you have any, you know, like mentors in.

In school or even in your professional life that kind of like, catapulted you further?

I didn't really until kind of later on.

And I, I always wish that I had.

I mean, I feel like we've.

We've talked about so many kind of niche jobs already.

Like, there's just so many paths and as a young person, it's so hard to get a grasp on that.

And I, Yeah, I didn't.

I never had that in high school.

I didn't really have it in college until maybe my last year or two.

But that was only because I.

Because of the job that I had.

The school that I went to in California required everyone at a certain level to do what we called service learning courses.

And I'm pretty sure it was a requirement for all the California state schools, which I loved.

And so the premise is that you have to go out in the community and serve or volunteer with an organization that relates to what you're learning in the classroom.

And so it was my job to help students find their placements.

And so I got very into like, doing community.

Community service.

Sounds there's like a bad connotation with that, but you know what I mean, Serving your community is a positive thing.

And so my, My boss very much became my mentor, and that.

That really set off my path, doing that for a couple years.

And she.

She was just a lovely person, but she, you know, bought to me.

Bosses, supervisors should also be mentors.

They're there to support you and not just to tell you what to do.

So that was a lucky one.

And really, what kind of set off my.

And I.

The school that I graduated from isn't very well known.

And also my program was literally, I got to make it up.

Like, they called it integrated studies, and you just mashed together things that interested you, and as long as somebody, you know, declared that that was appropriate, you could do it.

So I had a degree from a place nobody knew of with, you know, something that made no sense.

And all that got me a job was that.

That job that I had in college.

And I ended up doing AmeriCorps for three years after college.

So more, you know, service to your community.

And it, you know, it was paid, but barely.

And that.

That was, like, probably the most pivotal experience of my adulthood to get me where I am at the time.

At least you could get jobs in something that no one would ever hire you for in the real world.

Like, I was a sustainability coordinate coordinator at a university with, I don't know, one year of halftime experience in college because it was a. Technically a volunteer role, and it wasn't that big of a thing back then.

So I just.

Anyway, I'm babbling, but that was such a formative resource, and I know it still exists.

So I, I.

If people want to take one thing away from what I say, like, check out AmeriCorps.

If you need a career change in your life, there's a little bit of everything for everyone there.

Yeah, my wife did AmeriCorps for two years, so, yeah.

Oh, awesome.

Yeah.

What program did she do?

You know what?

I honestly don't remember specifically.

I know she.

There's a lot of them.

That's fair.

So she.

And she bounced around a little bit.

She was in a warehouse doing some of the reselling of stuff.

At one point, she was working on an equestrian farm with horses and rehabilitation.

So, yeah, a couple different.

And she moved away from that, and she ended up at the voc, which is Veterans Outreach center locally.

So Greg might be familiar with them, but.

So, yeah, but she Landed her first job outside of, you know, college or whatever because of AmeriCorps as well.

Oh, that's awesome.

Love to hear that.

AmeriCorps.

Super punk rock too.

Like, because you're literally helping your community in ways that the private for profit sector never will.

And then I forget what you said.

The program that you went through college doing where you got to kind of like, design your own coursework or program of study in New York.

I didn't know about any of this because no one told me about it in high school.

And I also, I never had like a mentor until I got into like a line of work.

And it was like, kind of already too late for me.

But we have this college, a university in New York called Empire State College.

And basically that's all they do.

It's all non traditional students who design their own programs to study.

Somebody has to sign off on it.

So it's not like, like totally freewheeling.

But when I was working in libraries, in my first job, one of my jobs was to be the primary point of contact and liaison with the administrative staff at Empire State College.

And I just remember thinking, like, why didn't anyone tell me about this?

Like, you can cobble together something that is unique to you and you'll have somebody put guardrails on it so that you can actually get a job later on afterwards.

Words.

And I just thought, like, this would have appealed to me so much as kind of a non conformist, non traditional person who wanted to, you know, kind of forge my own path in life.

So if anyone's listening and it's young or going back to college, like, definitely consider that, because holy heck, that was.

That was a missed opportunity for me.

And then what you were saying about mentorship is, I think another place where if I could give advice to my younger self, it would be to find a mentor.

Because I didn't just have, like, one naturally appear to me.

Like, my parents never turned into kind of natural mentors to me.

They've, you know, they were great parents, but, you know, they never really mentored me.

And.

And I think about mentorship a lot because I do feel like I might be somewhere different in my life if I had had a mentor when I was, you know, maybe in college or done with college or just before college.

And for me, I think a mentor is somebody who helps you accomplish the goals that you've set for yourself in a manner that is consistent with your values that you've identified for yourself also.

So it's not so much about someone Telling you what you should or ought to do.

But it's someone telling you, here's the most expedient path to the destination that you've chosen for yourself in a way that isn't going to violate any.

Any of your higher aspirations or most important, ethical, you know, beliefs in life.

So I hope, too, at some point, like when my.

My sons are teenagers, transition out of that authoritative parent role where I'm like, hey, you know, don't put your hand in the garbage disposal to more like, how can I be of service to you while also still being real with you about, you know, consequences and outcomes.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I. I feel like I. I'm doing that now.

I mean, kind of organically, but in some ways structured, too, because I wish I. I had that.

And so I seek out those opportunities where I can to help, you know, folks that are just starting their career to try and navigate that now, because it's what I wish I had.

Right.

And if.

If that's what we can offer, then, then we should.

And to me, that feels like a nice sense of community, even if it's not like my direct, you know, physical community.

I consider my, you know, my industry, my career, my part of my community.

And so that's.

That's been even just helpful for me, too, because it's branching out my network.

And anyway, it's always good to.

To do what you wish you had.

Yeah.

Oh, sorry, Greg.

Oh, yeah, no, but like, just sticking with the mentorship thing.

Like, at work, I'm in a supervisory role.

A weird thing is happening now where, like, most of the staff is younger than me, but I get something out of being a mentor to people because, frankly, the best ideas that are coming up and are kind of cultivated in our organization, a public library, like, they're not coming from me.

Like, I'm no longer the young, ambitious person who's got the bandwidth and the time and the energy to break down barriers and invent new things.

That's a different person's role now.

But if I can help them cultivate their ideas into something that is viable and can stand on its own, that benefits the people who use our library, that also benefits me.

You know, I don't have to.

I don't want to have an ego about the success of the organization.

I don't want to feel like, or be the kind of leader where everything we do grows from.

My original idea that came from my head.

None of it can come from me.

As long as it comes from the organization.

I feel like my role is kind of shepherding these ideas through the, the flames and storms so that they can see the light of day and grow into something that truly belongs to someone else, but benefits everyone.

Sorry, go ahead, Rory.

I didn't mean to interrupt there.

No, I mean, you know, similarly to you, I didn't have much of mentorship until I think I, and I, you know, it was more peer to peer mentorship until I found what I was passionate about as far as, like, in a professional way.

And I think just like both of you are doing at this stage is you're cultivating the community that exists and you're just raising that up.

And I think it comes from wanting to do better and wanting people to feel seen and appreciated.

And that's kind of what you both are doing.

And I think a lot of the folks that have come through hardcore and punk with an empathetic viewpoint are doing these in our everyday lives still, which I think is really kind of inspiring from my perspective.

Working with younger folks and taking the time to just give them what I never had.

Going through as a younger person with, with a job and, and trying to create a different way of seeing things and then spiriting their ideas to the top and be like, yeah, like, that's not my idea.

This is this person's idea.

This is this person's work that went into it.

I can help get through the goal posts.

Like, that's my job.

Right.

And I think that's important for us to be at this point to kind of, you know, set the table and allow people to sit there authentically and show up and let's figure out how to move you forward along with everyone else, you know.

Yeah.

And that.

So I work in a very male dominated field, at least historically, and things are changing.

And to both your points about, like, new ideas and different ideas, you know, diversity is a hot topic right now, and fortunately it's one, you know, where I work, we can, we can fully encourage it and work towards it, but regardless, like, you can be supportive of that.

But if, if the historical, you know, landscape of a career keeps certain people away just for fear of not feeling, you know, wanted or included or whatever it may be that, you know, I've, I have felt that way for quite a while.

And so when we, there are other women that join our company, which there are quite a few, that feels like a natural path of mentorship for me.

Like, I like to help those folks in their, in their career, whether I'm an official mentor or not.

But I want that part of our of our industry to grow and to see more of that.

There's different perspectives and different behaviors and, and all that good stuff.

So that's.

We actually have an entire group of women that we call them trade ally managers and that has historically been mostly men.

But there's a big group of us now.

And so we even have our own affinity group where we support each other and help each other get over those barriers because we frequently find ourselves out in the field and working with contractors and, and in that kind of field is, yeah, very, very heavily male dominated and can be some perspectives that are kind of old and outdated and sometimes make us feel even unsafe from time to time.

So it's been helpful to have a group of other women in the same role that we can kind of lean on.

I guess that's one benefit of working in green technology is that it probably does appeal to people who maybe have a more open mind or more progressive perspective on society, life in general.

And I mentioned my brother works, he installs solar equipment, commercial grade solar equipment, on things like warehouses and stuff.

But when I see him in his work regalia, I always rip on him and say, you look like a Trump supporter.

So, you know, in order to get, you know, the green technology developed by someone who's into environmentalism paid, you know, someone like me who's wants environmentalist policies and technologies.

But you've got a contract with a guy who looks like he tried to overthrow the government on January 6th.

Sorry, I shouldn't be making a joke about it because I think it is.

I think it is.

And I, you know, I see that sometimes in some of my friends, you know, in the fields that they work in.

And I think you're right.

Like if you don't have a diversity of perspectives and opinions and backgrounds, you're missing something.

You're not going to have all the ingredients you need to really come up with a robust idea that can withstand, you know, kind of the rigors of reality.

And especially when you're looking at STEM fields, if have primarily been male dominated and many of them have been like white male dominated even, you know, it's important to have women's perspectives and, and the perspectives of people from different, you know, races, cultures, religions and ethnicities.

Well, I mean, sorry, Colleen, you go ahead.

Well, I was just going to say, you know, to your, your point earlier at the beginning about what are some of the ways that, you know, folks who maybe are, you know, middle income, low income, can access these kind of resources, that is a, that is a big a Big area that we haven't really solved for yet.

And so the more diverse that our staff is that can have, you know, ideas for how to reach those communities, you know, the better.

We, and we still have not gotten there yet.

And we have to.

This can't be something that's only accessible, you know, to the 15% or, you know, whatever it may be, but it's, it's currently still not that accessible.

You now you actually talked about what I was going to bring up,

how much we're failing.

Well, you know, but, you know, but you're not because you're also saying, like, we have a, you have a cohort of individuals that, you know, are a different representation of what people think of when they think of your field.

And I think that's important to continue that, continue growing that and continue making space for others.

And, you know, like coffee is, has notoriously been male dominated in a lot of spaces.

And for me too, it's also something I push back a lot is folks saying like, you know, baristas is an undervalued and underappreciated job and it's not work, you know, and.

But what we don't realize in that industry is the folks that are serving you specifically, even in restaurants, they're the ones answering all your questions.

It's not the chef that's coming out and answering your questions.

They're the ones that are fielding those questions and giving you the answers.

So they are educating themselves.

They are putting themselves at the forefront and they are the spokespeople of these industries.

Just like Greg you are and Colleen you are of yours is when you are out in the world and you're talking about these things, you are the educator creators.

And it is important to realize that you are you.

But also like, when you speak passionately about these things, you are representing your whole culture.

And it's awesome to hear you both like being passionate about that.

And that's a big thing about this podcast that I love.

But also a lot of the folks that I'm, I'm connected to in my life that are super passionate about what they're doing.

It's inspiring to me.

And, and it's cool to see that just exist in the world.

Definitely.

And so getting through a little bit of that, like, as you've gotten older, you know, how is your relationship with, with punk and hardcore change from when you were younger?

It could not look more different.

I mean, I, I was probably going to shows, I don't know, three, four times a week.

It was just like where everyone got together.

Right?

You didn't even have to talk about it.

It's just where you ended up.

Every night was a different venue or a warehouse or, or whatever.

And I mean I, I live out kind of in the cuts now.

I, I'm two and a half hours from Portland, Oregon.

And we don't, we don't, we don't get bands coming through here.

So in that, in that way it's like almost completely gone.

I will go to the.

Every once in a while, you know, a reunion show here and there.

But yeah, so it's just.

I've been kind of forced away from it in that way.

But you know, like we've been talking about it.

It still shows up in my everyday life just because of where I ended up and the people that I still, you know, my community, my friends are still very much from that area too.

Right.

And yeah, it's just, it's interesting as a 41 year old who lives in a very small town trying to make new friends.

You know, I only moved here four, four and a half, five years ago.

How do you find your community?

And, and to me that's always historically been like pumpkin hardcore.

But I can't fall back on that.

And so it's been an interesting experience to have.

Like my friends who haven't had that experience and my friends that have and kind of bring them all together at the same time.

It's like we, we find new common ground around new things.

But yeah, I just, yeah, I don't know, it's just kind of grown out a little bit.

But it's still where the majority of my friend group lies.

So it'll never be gone.

I still have my retirement plan and my record collection, so there's that.

That I'll hold on to.

Hopefully that continues to be popular.

But yeah, no, I think you're hitting on things that I'm sure Greg feels and I feel too.

I don't feel as connected by any stretch.

And I think what we even hinted at before is that the change makers are the younger folks.

Those are the change makers.

Those are the folks that are pushing it forward and it's for them.

And I've said this before, I'm happy to just be able to be in a band still and play shows and be asked to play shows and show up and.

But it's ever present like our, that the world we grew up in and honking hardcore.

It's like going to shows when we were younger that there was no second thought.

It was like, that's just what you did, you know, and now you have, you sound old when you're like responsibilities and this and that, but like things change, you know, like you're, you're, you navigate life differently and it's.

And your community shows up differently and you, you know, whether you're at the YMCA and you become a regular there, which is, that's my life is turning into, with having kids and programs and, you know, like, it's interesting that you're connecting with people that you never would have outside of hardcore and punk.

But now it's, it's, it's different, but it shows up similarly.

It's interesting for me.

Common Thread is co hosted by Greg Benoit and Rory Van Grohl with creative support from Rod Antonucci.

Follow us on Instagram at Common Thread hxcpodcast.

For news and updates, contact us at Common thread common thread hxcpodcastmail.com common thread is a part of the Lunchadore podcast network.

Visit lunchadore.org for more information on other great podcasts.