Bringing Solar Energy and Climate Opportunities to Tribal Nations
*This episode is part of our Skilled Labor Series hosted by MCJ partner, Yin Lu. This series is focused on amplifying the voices of folks from the skilled labor workforce, including electricians, farmers, ranchers, HVAC installers, and others who are on the front lines of rewiring our infrastructure.
Robert (Bob) Blake is a tribal citizen of the Red Lake Nation, which covers 1200 square miles in northwestern Minnesota. He's the founder, owner and CEO of a solar company called Solar Bear, which has a nonprofit associated with it called Native Sun Community Power Development.
Solar Bear focuses on solar project development and installation for commercial real estate. Whereas Native Sun focuses on workforce development, K-12 education and exploring ways to build infrastructure beyond solar to improve energy reliability on tribal land. Robert believes that the true power of clean energy transition is to tackle multiple systemic issues at once: diminishing poverty and mass incarceration with employment opportunities, strengthening tribal and energy sovereignty by ending a reliance on fossil fuels, and of course, mitigating climate change.
In this episode, we learn what has shaped Bob’s thinking and why he's so hopeful for the future.
Get connected:
Robert Blake LinkedIn
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MCJ Podcast / Collective
*You can also reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded on Jul 5, 2023 (Published on Sep 14, 2023)
In this episode, we cover:
[02:30]: Introduction to Red Lake Nation and impact of federal policies
[05:34]: The concept of tribal sovereignty
[08:05]: Bob's background and racism in Minnesota
[10:37]: Unique opportunities within tribal nations for innovation and energy sovereignty
[13:49]: Reversing colonial capitalistic systems
[15:48]: Origins and overview of Solar Bear
[20:01]: Examples of Solar Bear's customers
[23:37]: Solar Bear's nonprofit counterpart, Native Sun Community Power Development
[25:33]: Working with K-12 and college students
[28:57]: Solar workforce development for incarcerated people
[31:04]: Funding sources for Bob's work
[34:43]: Policy work and the Tribal Energy Advisory Board
[38:48]: Reimagining how energy is distributed in the transition
Resource mentioned: From Prison to a Career in Solar Sierra Club
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Yin Lu (00:00):
My guest today is Robert "Bob" Blake, who is a tribal citizen of the Red Lake Nation, which covers 1200 square miles in Northwestern Minnesota. He's the founder, owner and CEO of a solar company called Solar Bear, which has a nonprofit associated with it called Native Sun Community Power Development. Solar Bear, which is the for-profit, focuses on solar project development and installation for commercial real estate, whereas Native Sun focuses on workforce development, K-12 education, and exploring ways to build infrastructure beyond solar to improve energy reliability on tribal land.
(00:34):
Robert believes that the true power of clean energy transition is to tackle multiple systemic issues at once, diminishing poverty and mass incarceration with employment opportunities, strengthening tribal and energy sovereignty by ending a reliance on fossil fuels, and lastly, mitigating climate change. We learn what has shaped his thinking and why he's so hopeful for the future. But first...
Cody Simms (00:57):
I'm Cody Simms.
Yin Lu (00:58):
I'm Yin Lu.
Jason Jacobs (01:00):
And I'm Jason Jacobs. And welcome to My Climate Journey.
Yin Lu (01:06):
This show is a growing body of knowledge focused on climate change and potential solutions.
Cody Simms (01:11):
In this podcast, we traverse disciplines, industries, and opinions to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change, and all the ways people like you and I can help.
Yin Lu (01:25):
With that, Robert Blake, welcome to the show.
Bob Blake (01:28):
Hey, thanks for having me. This is awesome. Appreciate being here.
Yin Lu (01:32):
Of course. And we should give a shout-out to our producer, Zoë Furlong, who helped connect us with you, because she had heard you on many podcasts and said, "Hey, you should really get this Robert Blake guy, who's doing some great work in the solar community, onto the show." So I'm so excited that you're here.
Bob Blake (01:47):
Yeah, no, I mean, I've done a lot of these things, and I have a radio show. Well, I have a segment, I should say, on a radio show every Wednesday called The Solar News with The Solar Bear. It's on AM 950 in Twin Cities, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
(02:05):
Actually, it's crazy. We're getting picked up by other places around the Midwest now. I think we're in Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee. It's nuts. I'm getting, actually, questions from people from these different states now about solar energy.
Yin Lu (02:21):
That's really cool.
Bob Blake (02:22):
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
Yin Lu (02:24):
All right, we're going to dive into solar energy. We're going to dive into Solar Bear and learn the history of how you created that organization. But maybe to level set, we talked at the start about you being a tribal citizen of the Red Lake Nation. For those of us who are listening who really don't understand the history of tribal country, can you give us a 101 on that?
Bob Blake (02:44):
Yeah, I mean, I'm not an expert or anything myself, but we have 574 federally recognized tribes throughout the United States. We Native people call it Turtle Island, and each and every one of these communities are different. I think sometimes a lot of people like to just put us all in this one basket and think that we're all the same, and it's actually quite different. So each and every one of these communities has their own unique culture and their own way of doing things, and there's so much rich history and culture in all the areas.
(03:18):
It's interesting, too, because in some of these areas you'll have five, six, maybe seven different tribes or something. And it's really cool because they'll all come together for powwows and all kind of collaborate on stuff like that. So that's pretty cool.
Yin Lu (03:31):
And then tell us about Red Lake Nation. How many people are part of this tribe, and what's a bit of a history?
Bob Blake (03:39):
Really good question. I mean, I know we've got about 15,000 tribal citizens, and I know that we just got more because our chairman, Darrell Seki, and the rest of our tribal council actually, opened up our enrollment. And I know that we got more people in.
(03:58):
What happened a long time ago was the United States government wanted to do a thing called blood quantum, and it would essentially kind of bleed out our enrollment in our communities. So if you were, like, a quarter of Red Lake Ojibwe, you couldn't be enrolled in the tribe. I'm just giving you an example. So it was a way for the federal government to not live up to their treaty obligations to Native people, because we know for a fact that through this blood quantum requirement by the federal government, that we're essentially going to bleed out. We're not going to have any more tribal members, because we're marrying into other cultures and having kids with other people that don't have Red Lake blood.
(04:42):
And so it keeps on getting diluted. What just recently happened was the tribal council in Red Lake and our chairman decided to open up the enrollment to allow more Red Lakers, so to speak, that were descendants through lineage back into the tribe so they can enroll into the tribe.
(04:59):
And there are benefits to this. This was just one way for us to say that "We want to continue to thrive, we want to continue to be here." It was very controversial, but I'm very proud of my tribal council and our chairman for doing that work, because I think it's important. And that really is part of the crux of tribal nations and the United States government and our interesting, complicated relationship that we have with them, is us being able to self-govern, us being able to dictate what we want to do on our own land.
Yin Lu (05:34):
And is that where the concept of tribal sovereignty comes in? And if so, can you explain that concept to us?
Bob Blake (05:40):
Yeah, I mean, we are the only people in this country with our own government inside of this government, so I think that really sets us up for a lot of unique opportunities, and a lot of attacks, too. It's almost like a double-edged sword sometimes, but I think you could ask any Native person in this country and they would all say that they wouldn't have it any other way.
Yin Lu (06:05):
Can you double-click into some of the opportunities and some of the potential downsides to this concept of tribal sovereignty?
Bob Blake (06:14):
Yeah, absolutely.
(06:15):
I think one of the unique opportunities is that when we see our federal government fail us as people and our state government and local officials fail us, you'll often see tribal nations, our chairman, our leaders often step up and take a stance that is probably pretty controversial, but we know that, inherently, it really is the right move to make.
(06:41):
I would say something like pipelines, there was a lot of tension around pipelines in Native country the last, I don't know, five, seven years. And you really saw tribal nations that were stepping up and saying, "No, this isn't right." Our federal and state governments were failing us on that. Clean water should be a right. Clean water should be important to us. We don't have a lot of fresh water on this planet, so we need to take care of the natural resources that we do have.
(07:10):
And that's where you really saw tribal leadership step up and speak for the people. They really do hold, I think, a place in society. I've always said that. At one point in time, I think that the framers of the Constitution kind of knew that one day there was going to be a corporate oligarchy that was going to try and take over this federal government.
(07:31):
And I think we're seeing it in front of our eyes. And I think this is the main reason why they left tribal nations sovereign for this very reason. I always tell people, "If you appreciate democracy, if you like democracy, then you're going to appreciate tribal sovereignty and tribal nations for what they stand for," because literally, we are the last thing that is standing in between this country becoming some horrible Hunger Games movie. And that's really where I think tribes can play a major role in this democracy. And there's plenty more opportunities that come with that.
Yin Lu (08:05):
That's a really good context setting for the ecosystem that you grew up in. And I'm so curious, how did Robert Blake, as a member of Red Lake Nations, as in one individual, seeing the history and seeing the current realities of what it's like to grow up in a tribal nation, how did it shape your perspective as a human being wanting to do good in this world?
(08:30):
I want to understand the bridge of the ecosystem to you and your motivations to really lean into the type of work that you're doing.
Bob Blake (08:38):
It's interesting living on the reservation. I remember coming back from football games that we played. We played a game against Norman County West, which is on the western part of the state of Minnesota. And I remember we were sitting in the back of the bus and we hit the reservation line. Then I remember there were guys in the bus saying, "Wow, that feels so good to be back on the reservation." So being a part of that community, you really learn that there are people that want you to fail, people that want you to do bad. You learn blatant racism. We don't call it the deep South, we call it the deep North where we're located at. You think about the state of Minnesota right now, and the city of Minneapolis, we're going through a descent decree with the Department of Justice and everything that's happened with George Floyd.
(09:30):
And interesting enough, Beltrami County is going through the same thing. And you look at the law enforcement and how they interact with the Native American population. The rates of interaction are very high, almost so high that it doesn't compute with all the other races. We've got a lot of work to do in the state of Minnesota in regards to all this.
(09:51):
And unfortunately, Red Lake is an area where I would say the bullseye is on this community. The resiliency and the attitude of this community to continue to thrive regardless of the institutional racism and everything that it's around them, to me, is just incredible. 2023, this is still going on.
(10:14):
So the people in the community, the way that they deal in their everyday lives and the way they go about it, and now that they're focused in on renewable energy and all these other aspects to make the community healthier... Because in my belief, I think there's a human health crisis happening in this community, and I think renewable energy can solve it. And it just says a lot about how they're handling stuff. It just makes me proud to be from there.
Yin Lu (10:37):
It sounds like being part of the tribe and having that deep-seated identity is really important, and this creates opportunities for folks that are part of the tribe to really think, "Well, how can I make the ecosystem better for the young people that are growing up as tribal citizens?"
Bob Blake (10:57):
Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting, because you learn to walk in two different worlds. In doing so, you're able to see the angles, and you're able to see the opportunities where other people don't. That's the piece that I think that a lot of Native people around this country are really recognizing, and why this whole idea around energy sovereignty is really taking off across tribal country right now.
(11:24):
Because we really see the opportunity that we can be a part of the solution, because we do walk in these two different worlds, and if we're able to use our communities as testing beds for new renewable energy technologies so we can allow renewable energy entrepreneurs to scale up so they can get a placehold in a community, and then see if their products work and then scale up... Because we don't have all those regulations that the outside world has.
(11:53):
So if we're able to do that, we see ourself as being a part of the solution now. We see ourselves as being a part of something much bigger than ourselves. And I think this is really resonating with Native country and Native youth. They're really gravitating towards this, I think. And in doing so, I think it's reaching at a much bigger problem and a much bigger solution to the human health crisis, I believe, taking place in tribal country, which is purpose.
(12:25):
It's giving these individuals purpose, a reason to get up every morning, a reason to be a part of the greater good, a reason to be a productive citizen of society. And I think that this is how we attack drug addiction, alcoholism, missing, murdered indigenous women, poverty, all these things that we know are at the root cause of all of these issues, which is poverty. People always say, "Oh, Bob, you do solar, you do electric vehicles, you do workforce development." And I'm just like, "Yeah, that's what you see, but I'm actually getting at a much bigger goal, which is purpose and fighting poverty." Those are the things that are going to change a community's way of life, and that's what I'm trying to do in tribal country.
Yin Lu (13:09):
Yes, it sounds like there's been a lot of disenfranchisement of tribal folks over the history of many, many hundreds of years that has then led to these systemic things around drug addiction, around incarceration, that you're trying to say, "Well, these are the problems that we're seeing. What opportunities can I create to help uplift the folks that are experiencing this in tribal country?"
(13:30):
And could these opportunities be a way for us to really experiment with something like solar and see that scale up? Because we sit in a really unique set of jurisdictions where we have control, more control over our land, than land that sits within the federal government's control.
(13:49):
We can do more things than other communities can because there's a lot of rules governing those districts. Take for instance, the casino business. This is a billion-dollar business, but the energy business is a trillion-dollar business. And I tell Native people, we are in the wrong business. We need to be in the energy game. That's where it's all at, energy and tech.
(14:12):
So if we can be in the energy business with the energy source in our communities, and that's where we focus our efforts on, we can then multiply other types of industries, and other types of entrepreneurial opportunities and companies can sprout out after that. So rather than having this colonial capitalism system prey on these vulnerable communities, how about we reverse it and then we allow these communities to now dictate, by creating a circular economy, start dealing with the outside on our terms instead of always dealing it on their terms. You see what I'm saying?
(14:46):
So that's really how I'm imagining this happening. And it's not that I have a problem with casino capital, casino money or anything. Let's face it, because of casinos, I was able to get three college degrees, you know what I mean? So I mean, I'm very appreciative of that. But what I'm saying, though, I believe there's a negative aura attached to this capital. You can't see it. You can't quantify it, but you can feel the negative energy.
(15:14):
And that's really what I'm trying to attack, too, is that through the capital that we can produce off of renewable energy resources, that's going to provide a more positive capital to these communities. And I think it's going to be a different way of how we look at and deal with money. That's what, really, my hope is. Now, I don't know if this is going to work, but I will say this, though: Everything else has been tried. Why couldn't Bob Blake's idea around how we do this, why couldn't we try and make this work?
(15:48):
I love how what you're trying to solve is reducing poverty and incarceration, and how you're doing it is through renewable energy. So I guess what you've been saying is a perfect tee up for asking the question, what is Solar Bear? What is this organization that has been your baby and that you've been growing for the past number of years?
Bob Blake (16:06):
Yeah, Solar Bear, for the last seven years... Started Solar Bear, and it was just an idea. I literally dreamt of a polar bear with sunglasses who was talking to me and he was telling me, "Hey, you better do something about climate change." And I'm like, "Yeah, whatever, man." I was like, "I'm just one dude. I ain't going to change nothing." And Solar Bear was like, "No, we can all do something, and we all have a responsibility." I literally, in my mind, was imagining this polar bear with sunglasses talking to me.
Yin Lu (16:45):
Standing on a melting piece of ice?
Bob Blake (16:47):
Yeah, and he was saying the right thing all the time. Every little argument I would have, he would literally talk me out of it. And one day I just was like, "Hey, we should really do something about this. I should write a business plan and I should call this company Solar Bear."
Yin Lu (17:05):
Had you had any professional experience in solar at that point?
Bob Blake (17:10):
No. No, I haven't. But I knew that renewable energy was going to be important in the future. I knew that I just had to have some kind of hook. And the honest reason was I just wanted to try and help prepare people for climate change, because I read some books, and they scared the hell out of me. And I got onto this obsession of just trying to read everything and anything I could around renewable energy and climate change.
(17:42):
And the more and more I read, the more and more I became super scared, and I just found my purpose in this process, and it was nothing that was planned. All of this has been organic, and it's just been working out the way it is, and people have gravitated to us. I think people, they need hope. We need hope. And I think they just found a lot of inspiration in my story of just being a regular guy who was trying to figure it out for himself, and this is where it's led me to.
(18:10):
And now I can't stop. I can't stop. I'm on this roller coaster and it just won't let me go now, because I've caught this thing called the solar bug. And when you catch the solar bug, the solar bug doesn't just leave. You become obsessed with it. And that's really where I'm at.
Yin Lu (18:27):
What does Solar Bear do?
Bob Blake (18:29):
Well, we started out doing solar installation, and now we're turning it into a solar developer because we've got so many people asking for us to be a part of their projects now. So this is being able to allow me to help develop their projects, help put things together, and then I can also dictate who gets these jobs, who does the solar installations now. And a lot of that is basically trying to have people that I feel deserve an opportunity to do these installations now that normally wouldn't be able to get a shot or a chance to do them.
Yin Lu (19:01):
Hey, everyone. I'm Yin, a partner at MCJ Collective, here to take a quick minute to tell you about our MCJ membership community, which was born out of a collective thirst for peer-to-peer learning and doing that goes beyond just listening to the podcast. We started in 2019 and have grown to thousands of members globally. Each week, we're inspired by people who join with different backgrounds and points of view. What we all share is a deep curiosity to learn and a bias to action around ways to accelerate solutions to climate change.
(19:27):
Some awesome initiatives have come out of the community. A number of founding teams have met, several nonprofits have been established, and a bunch of hiring has been done. Many early stage investments have been made as well as ongoing events and programming like monthly Women in Climate meetups, idea jam sessions for early stage founders, climate book club, art workshops, and more.
(19:47):
Whether you've been in the climate space for a while or just embarking on your journey, having a community to support you is important. If you want to learn more, head over to mcjcollective.com and click on the Members tab at the top. Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the show.
(20:01):
Talk a bit more about the business side of the house. So who are the target customers that you're going after? And then talk a bit about the workforce development. Who are the people that you're getting into the pipeline to go out and do these jobs?
Bob Blake (20:14):
So a lot of people that call for my services are tribal communities. There are businesses that... We usually have a social cause, too, to it. One of our customers, MIGIZI Communications on Lake Street, was a building that was burnt down during the civil unrest during the George Floyd situation that happened here in Minneapolis. And their program serves inner city youth and teaches them about renewable energy jobs and whatnot.
(20:39):
So I come in and I speak to them, and I was just like them. You know what I mean? Just growing up in the hood and just trying to figure it out myself. So I'll speak to them and talk to those kids. And Duluth Food co-op, it's a co-op in Duluth, Minnesota that has asked Solar Bear to do the project on top of their buildings. They serve the community as a co-op model around food. I think that their social values really speak to how they want to work and who they want to work with and who they want to support.
(21:06):
And then we had another customer, they service older people. They built a building to work with them, and they wanted Solar Bear to do the project on top of it. So I get a lot of those kinds of... Museums. I got a museum now, too, that wants to do a project, and a workforce development center wants us to do a project for them. So we get a lot of these organizations that want to tell a story. So that's really where I think Solar Bear finds their niche in this market.
Yin Lu (21:30):
You get customers who are mission-aligned, similar to Solar Bear of, "We exist to help uplift the community," and they also happen to want renewable energy. So you and your crew go and you assess the project size and then do the installations of PV on their properties. Is that right?
Bob Blake (21:49):
Yeah, yeah. We basically put it together. Putting together commercial solar projects is a very complicated task and takes a lot of work. So it takes a lot of development work. You have to de-risk the project for the customer, so all these projects have to pencil so it falls in line with their budget. So there's a lot of obstacles that we have to overcome.
(22:08):
So I think all the people see all the pretty stuff of everybody just installing the panels and doing all that stuff, but they don't see the hours of work that actually went into it that had to put it together so that thing could even happen.
Yin Lu (22:22):
The development and then the installation on the development side, there's a lot of... The duck, feet underneath the water.
Bob Blake (22:27):
Yeah, there's a lot of hoops that you got to jump through. There's a lot of angles you got to figure out, and it's just really trying to put all that together for the customer so that they can go ahead and have their solar project.
Yin Lu (22:39):
And on the people side, what does that team look like, of people that are presumably doing the sales and the marketing and the project development work, and then eventually the installation?
Bob Blake (22:50):
Fortunately, I mean, we haven't put a lot of effort into marketing. It just sort of organically happens. I know a lot of solar companies, they buy leads or they have lead providers or those kinds of things. We haven't really had to do that yet, so that's kind of cool. But there is the development side of it, and making sure there's a process in place.
(23:12):
People process is really the big piece on that. So people, process, and project, the three Ps. Those are some of the things that we address, and we just try to make that as efficient, lean and mean as possible. And that's really where Solar Bear gets its projects and gets its opportunities and grows.
Yin Lu (23:29):
How many people are we talking here that are supporting the growth of the business besides you?
Bob Blake (23:34):
Oh, there's about five of us right now.
Yin Lu (23:37):
On the Solar Bear team, there's five of y'all that are really running the business, and then there's a nonprofit side to the business as well. Talk more about that.
Bob Blake (23:46):
The nonprofit side is called Native Sun Community Power Development. There's probably about five people on that side too, now. That's what's running the workforce development piece, the electric vehicle charging stations, the demonstration projects. And then we're in the process of putting together the Solar Cub program, which is a K to 12 curriculum specifically around STEM education and culture and language.
Yin Lu (24:13):
Got it. So there's the for-profit side of the business and the nonprofit side of the business, five people on each side doing kind of the administrative and operations work.
(24:21):
On the Solar Bear side of the house, I'm assuming that you need more than five people to do a lot of these installations once these projects get developed. What does that workforce look like, and is that a contracting type of relationship you have with other orgs?
Bob Blake (24:34):
Yeah. So the way that I've been running it is I've been contracting with electrical contractors who've got a crew of guys and they're able to come in and do the installation after we put everything together for them. That's kind of how that works. And even on the Native Sun side, we have partners and we have people that we work with. American Lung Association is one of them. We've got utilities that we work with. These are all our project partners.
(25:00):
And then, of course, we have subcontractors that we also work with, too. It would seem complicated, but you just kind of become used to it. And I wouldn't say that we're not anything different than what a lot of companies now are doing after this pandemic. A lot of people are stay-at-home now. They have subcontractors, people are out freelancing now. It just kind of seems to be the way of the world. So literally, Native Sun and Solar Bear are just adapting to the new workplace, I would say.
Yin Lu (25:33):
Talking about the Solar Cubs program and you doing work in the school system, whether it's K-12, and I think you also teach at the college level? It has to be one of your many hats that you wear. I am curious, what are you hearing from students, and how do they see climate change?
Bob Blake (25:48):
That's a great question. I'm an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Humphrey School of Public Affairs. And the students there are incredible. They are just thinking of so many solutions. I read their papers and I'm just thinking to myself, "Wow, this is what's coming up. This is what's happening." I go to high schools and I get emails from high school students saying, "Bob, do you think we could do it this way?" Or "Do you think that this would be a really good idea?"
(26:21):
And then I try to walk them through it like, "Okay, let's think about this. Seven steps ahead." And then you get grade school kids who are sitting there saying, "I've been doing this in my backyard and I'm wondering if this could work." They're thinking of geoengineering in their mind. "What if we put up big mirrors?" And it's incredible how all of these young people are thinking about climate change, and I want to let everybody out there know, do not think your kids are stupid to this.
(26:52):
Do not think that they don't see the TV or the news or everything that's happening around them. They can feel it. I was at this place where these little kids were in, they were asking me, "Mr. Blake, why is solar so good for the planet?" And I told them, I said, "Well, have any of you ever been sick before?" And all the students said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, raise your hand." And they all raised their hand.
(27:15):
And I said, "Okay, when you were sick, what did your parents do?" And then one of them raised their hand and said, "My mom gave me medicine." And I said, "Exactly, that's exactly what solar is for the world." I said, "Imagine the world being a big tummy." I said, "And the solar being medicine for the world's tummy. So it's getting sick right now, and this is the medicine for it."
(27:40):
And all the kids started rubbing their tummies, and I said, "Rub your tummy." And then one of them goes, "Oh, solar's like medicine for the world's tummy. Okay, I get it now." And it's those kinds of things. The kids are thinking about this, they feel it, because they know that we're like these microorganisms, just like the gut bacteria is for the planet, for your stomach. And when that's out of line, you're out of line.
(28:06):
And the reason why this planet is out of line right now is because we're out of line right now. So we got to get back in alignment with this planet and at peace with it and stop being at war with it. And then when we do that, we're going to start healing our relationships with ourselves. And the kids get this, they understand this. That's the incredible thing.
(28:25):
So that's why I've got so much faith for the future and for the planet, because the kids, they're recognizing all this stuff. There's a song from John Cougar Mellencamp and he says "To the future generations on the highways that we built, I hope they have a better understanding." And I think about that.
(28:43):
I think these kids are going to have a better understanding, and that's really my hope, and that's what I really see happening with the kids right now. So that's why I'm so positive, or I have full type thinking, because of the kids. That's really it.
Yin Lu (28:57):
And then a different part of the programming on the Native Sun side is working with folks that are currently in the Department of Corrections, so folks that are incarcerated. Can you tell us more about what that program looks like?
Bob Blake (29:08):
Yeah, so that program, that was a project that I did when I was working for another nonprofit.
Yin Lu (29:14):
So not part of Native Sun.
Bob Blake (29:16):
Yeah, it was called the Returning Citizens Initiative. And I am currently in talks with some folks out of New Jersey right now, putting together another training program for inmates that are in a correctional facility to do this work. But yeah, that was a project I did before. I think I spoke to probably about seven states about that project and gave them my information. I think New York was one of the last ones I spoke with.
(29:41):
And I got this idea from Homeboy Industries out of California with Grid Alternatives, and they were doing a project that they were training inmates, or not inmates, but people that were released, and they were doing it after they had come out of the prison system in California. And I thought to myself, "What if we actually went into the prison system and trained there? What would that look like?" I think we were the first program to do that in the country, actually.
(30:10):
So that got a lot of national attention. That even got me on the Climate Reality stage, Al Gore's Climate Reality stage. So that was really cool. That was pretty exciting. There is a great article if anybody wants to read it, "From Prison to Solar," and it's in Sierra Club. Sierra Club wrote a story "From Prison to Solar" from one of our participants. So if you can Google that, you check it out. It's a great story.
(30:35):
And one of the things that I had said was this whole thing's about fighting mass incarceration with climate change, fighting climate change with mass incarceration. And the whole idea there is that the planet is giving us this big problem, but it's telling us that we could solve a lot of our little problems with this big problem. So if we're smart, we could start tackling a lot of these little problems that we have around climate change and start fixing some of our other problems like mass incarceration.
Yin Lu (31:04):
When I hear you talk about these programs like Solar Cub and getting into STEM education in the K-12 system and helping change the trajectory of inmates in the prison system, that requires capital and funding. Where does that come from?
Bob Blake (31:20):
Luckily, I've been really lucky to have support from foundations that got to know my work. There was this woman, her name was Amy Whitaman, who worked for the McKnight Foundation who loved my work. She was like, "Hey, this guy's doing some good stuff. This guy's doing some interesting stuff." And because of her advocating for the work that I did, I was able to start Native Sun and get it funded by the McKnight Foundation, who has now since been a big contributor to all my work that really launched me into being able to get these really super big grants from the Department of Energy and all these other places.
(32:00):
And so the interesting thing is that Native Sun hasn't asked for any donations from the public yet. It's all been foundation and government support. That's unheard of, but eventually, I imagine we're going to have to do some type of charity thing or something. Oh, we do have a pickleball fundraiser coming up. I got these old guys that want to donate to Native Sun. They do a pickleball fundraiser every year, so I told them it's okay to use our name. And I'm going to be playing pickleball, so it's going to be kind of cool.
(32:31):
But just those kinds of things, really. And then actually, honestly, the way that it all started was people were trying to donate to Solar Bear, and I couldn't take their donations. And I had to get a nonprofit going, and I read all those James Baldwin books and he had this one book called "Memoirs of a Native Son". And I always liked that name, Native Sun, because I always felt like it was a play on words, Native Sun, me being Native, and son S-O-N, but then S-U-N is basically where we're deriving our focus energy on, our attention of our nonprofit on.
(33:07):
So then, Native Sun Community Power Development. "Oh wow, that'd be so cool." And then I thought, "Well, if they have nativesun.org available on the internet, then I'll grab it, and it's meant to be." Sure enough, I look for the website nativesun.org and it's available, and I'm thinking to myself, "This is meant to be."
(33:27):
And then in the back of my mind, I'm seeing Solar Bear snap his eye, like "Right on. Good job." So I mean, it's like it was meant to be. So Solar Bear essentially gave wings to Native Sun, and Native Sun now has been taking off like a rocket. So it's time for Native Sun to give back that love to Solar Bear now. So Solar Bear is starting to take off and do a lot of good things and a lot of cool projects now.
Yin Lu (33:58):
Well, I mean, here's hoping that the work that you're putting into developing the workforce and giving people economic mobility, whether they are currently in third grade and just learning about renewable energy for the first time, or they're in the prison system and thinking about what they want to do after they get out and seeing a professional development path for them in renewable energy, hopefully the talent transition goes and feeds Solar Bear.
(34:22):
And scaling up the amount of projects that you all are able to take on, and is helpful to other organizations joining the fight on the energy transition so that we can all have people to work on rewiring our infrastructure and give those people the economic mobility that they deserve. So it's kind of a beautiful flywheel that you've created with these two organizations.
(34:43):
I'm curious, what are new developments that you have incubating in your mind, or already in the works?
Bob Blake (34:50):
Well, we also do policy at Native Sun, too, because my graduate degree is in policy work. So one of the things that we've been advocating for the last five years is the creation of the Tribal Energy Advisory Board. That was just recently passed by state legislation here in the state of Minnesota. It got funding. It's also got a full-time state employee.
(35:14):
The significance of this is that first of all, it's the first tribal energy advisory board in the country for a state. And we hope that this is going to be a model now for other states to follow, because I think it's really interesting, and I think it's important that people understand that although tribal nations are under federal jurisdiction, they deal a lot with the state. So there's a really interesting kind of relationship between states and their tribal nations that are located within their state boundaries.
(35:46):
So this really does give tribes more of a say around energy infrastructure. That's why it was created. But we also have to have this federal voice, which we do have already. So you kind of have to have both sides of the coin here in order to make things happen for these renewable energy projects that tribes want to build in their borderlines.
(36:10):
So that's what I'm really hoping that this Tribal Energy Advisory Board does, is creates this communication space between states and tribes, and to be able to work more together on their energy planning and their projects. Because people don't realize these transmission lines are going right through tribal country, and there needs to be consultation between tribes and the energy companies. If you don't have that, then there's a lot of opportunity, and a lot of bad can come with that. So that's why these things need to happen.
(36:41):
That's really where I like to have my fun at is in the policy space. The other piece about this is, too, we just got done passing the 100% clean energy in the state of Minnesota. That right there was a piece that Native Sun was a part of, too. So the policy game, I like to play too, be a part of that. And those are some of the things that I like to work on besides doing all this other stuff.
(37:03):
But I love doing what I'm doing. I have so much energy for it. Every day I get to get up and I can't believe I get to do this work. It's just so exciting to be a part of all this. And I have so many wonderful partners that I work with, I can't do this work alone, and so many good people that have supported me. I stand on the shoulders of great people that have done this work. I'm just really happy that... From that person that didn't think that they could do anything, to now being able to have this national voice, has been crazy to think of.
Yin Lu (37:35):
One of my all-time favorite quotes is by this author named Andrew McAfee, and he wrote this book called "More From Less", basically talking about how America has, over the development of the Industrial Revolution, to now been able to make more things from less materials. And one of the quotes he has in there is "The Four Horsemen of the Optimist is you have to have innovation, capitalism, public awareness, and responsive government." And I think what you are doing touches on all four of those.
(38:03):
You're creating on an innovative model that leverages a lot of the economics that have grown from Clean Tech 1.0 and create this new model of thinking about how do we give back to the community while making money, but really help with workforce development? And you're raising the public awareness of the importance of doing this type of work. And this last piece of really focusing on policy, because having a responsive government, whether that's at the state level, at the federal level, at the tribal level, everyone have a seat at that table when working on the energy transition with the big energy companies, that's also key to ensuring that we're building this new economy that is going to do right by our children, our children's children.
(38:45):
So just really, hats off, Bob, to you and the work that you're doing.
Bob Blake (38:48):
And we have this opportunity. I mean, it's going to take, I don't know, $3, $4 trillion to turn over this whole electric grid. This is the greatest machine man has ever made, the electric grid in the United States. This is what they say. So we have this opportunity to turn this over, but we can reimagine how energy is made and how it's distributed and who benefits from it.
(39:16):
We can do the right thing here. And that's what's really incredible about this time right now is that the technology, we've never had this technology before, but now it's here. And the interesting piece about this is, this doesn't have to be one of those things where the old money that holds up that house, that framework of this country... This is a national security issue. Our grid can't be so connected anymore. We need a more distributed, sectioned off grid now.
(39:50):
And with that comes all these opportunities that ownership now can be redistributed across this country, into these communities, that they can harness this energy and use these resources for the common good of their communities, making them better, making them healthier, making them more prosperous.
(40:09):
The other piece about this is when one piece of the grid goes down, we're going to have to shut it off because what you're going to have, you're going to have tornadoes and hurricanes and other natural disasters that are going to take it out. So that's another reason why we can't be so connected. So it's just common sense that we just do this now, but I think it speaks to a lot more of what you were saying about how this can just be more equitable.
(40:33):
A rising tide can lift a lot of boats here. And I'm not saying it's going to level the playing field, but damn, if we don't try, we'd just be kicking ourselves somewhere down the line that we didn't take this moment. Or I'd have someone, some kid saying, "You knew all this was happening and you didn't do something, or try to say something." I just don't want to be there. I want to be able to say, "Hey, we did the best we could, man, and this is what it turned out to be, and it's a much better world for it."
Yin Lu (41:01):
Well said, well said. Well, Bob, thank you again for taking the time and really telling us about what drives you to do the work that you do. And I think you are presenting a lot of really interesting thoughts and philosophies on building what the energy future could look like.
(41:15):
I'd love it if you would come onto our Slack community and do an AMA with members of our community who I know are going to have really great questions to ask. I'm excited to continue the conversation there, and just, thanks again for your time today.
Bob Blake (41:32):
Thank you, and miigwech everybody. I appreciate being on here today and letting me share my perspective.
Jason Jacobs (41:34):
Thanks again for joining us on the My Climate Journey podcast.
Cody Simms (41:39):
At MCJ Collective, we're all about powering collective innovation for climate solutions by breaking down silos and unleashing problem-solving capacity.
Jason Jacobs (41:48):
If you'd like to learn more about MCJ Collective, visit us at mcjcollective.com. And if you have a guest suggestion, let us know that via Twitter @mcjpod.
Yin Lu (42:01):
For weekly climate op-eds, jobs, community events, and investment announcements from our MCJ venture funds, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our website.
Cody Simms (42:10):
Thanks, and see you next episode.
