Bridging the skills gap, one solar panel at a time
It was June 29, and Dexter Rawlings had finished his first day of on-the-job training, installing solar panels on the rooftops of Washington. After hours under the unforgiving summer sun, he arrived home, exhausted. But an email was waiting for him with an encouraging message: The work he had done was projected to save local homeowners more than $11,000 in energy bills over the lifetime of the panels.
“I screenshotted it and posted it on my Instagram to show everybody what I was doing over the summer,” Mr. Rawlings says.
Rawlings, 24, is a D.C.-native, though he grew up in a foster home in nearby Maryland. This
Under the D.C. sun, a crash-course in solar powerNew industry, new possibilities
