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February 13th, 2025
Solar Industry:
Perspectives of Solar Asset Owners
Solar asset owners make the solar industry possible by providing the upfront financing to build a solar array and shepherding the long-term business strategy of operating a solar array. Their industry relies on market trends, federal and state tax credits, interest rates, and all the other professionals within the solar industry to do their jobs proficiently. Join us to hear from these financiers and the challenges and opportunities they see in the long-term ownership of solar arrays as they take a decades’ long financial view of these energy facilities.
Location: University Ballroom (level 300), The Lory Student Center - Colorado State University,
1101 Center Ave Mall, Fort Collins, CO 80521
Time:
5.30 pm - 8.00 pm
Doors Open at 5.00 pm
Parking at CSU: Please park in the LSC Engineering Parking Lot 310
Please register your attendance so that we can adhere to venue capacity restrictions and ensure adequate catering.
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Byron Kominek is the Executive Director of the Colorado Agrivoltaic Learning Center and founder of Jack's Solar Garden. Byron is a former US diplomat, having served with the US Agency for International Development in Zambia and Mozambique, working on forestry and wildlife conservation. Through his work in Africa with USAID, the Peace Corps Volunteer, and Doctors Without Borders, Byron has a long-standing interest in natural resource management and governance. Byron was recently honored as a 2024 US Ashoka Fellow to continue educating and inspiring Americans with his work in agrivoltaics. Other recent fellowships Byron has participated in include the CiviCO Colorado Governor's Fellowship and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Energy Executive program. He is on the Board of Visit Longmont to encourage agritourism in the greater Longmont area and works on his family's farm just south of town where Jack's Solar Garden is located. Byron speaks rusty French and Portuguese and through-hiked the Appalachian Trail with his old dog Mosi in 2016.
Byron Kominek
Owner & Manager
Jack's Solar Garden
Thomas Cushing is an Asset Manger at Greenbacker an independent power producer and energy transition-focused investment manager that owns and operates solar, wind and battery storage sites across the country. Thomas has been with Greenbacker for over three years managing utility scale, rooftop solar and battery storage sites in seven different states across the country. His day to day is mostly in the contracts, relationships and finances of the projects he manages.
Thomas has worked in the solar industry since graduating from the University of Utah after double majoring in Urban Planning and Environmental & Sustainability Studies in 2016. He began his career at Tesla working in with Renewable Energy Certificates before moving into Commercial Banking with Celtic Bank to oversee the permanent debt financing of solar projects. In March 2020 Thomas then made a pivot into Asset Management because he wanted to get closer to actual working projects and really feel like he was making a difference in the cleantech energy industry. This eventually lead to Thomas moving to Denver in August 2021 and joining Greenbacker in November 2021. He currently lives in Denver and tries to spend as much time as possible exploring the nearby Rocky Mountains hiking, camping, backpacking and skiing.
Thomas Cushing
Asset Manager
Greenbacker
Carol Dollard
Carol Dollard manages design and installation of renewable energy systems at Colorado State University.​ Dollard is an energy engineer in Facilities Management and co-chair of the President’s Sustainability Commission. Her responsibilities include coordinating energy and water efficiency projects, implementing renewable energy projects and the design, construction and maintenance of campus utility systems.
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Dollard leads a team that conducts the university’s annual greenhouse gas inventory and produces updates to the CSU Climate Action Plan. She also is also part of a team that submits the STARS – Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System administered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education – reporting metric for the university. CSU was the first university to reach Platinum STARS rating, and is still the only university to repeat that feat four times.
Energy Engineer
Colorado State University
Hunter's experience in the solar industry has ranged all the way from installing 5 MW tracking arrays in Minnesota to getting his Master's of Environmental Management degree in Colorado while co-leading Solarize Gunnison County. He's taken a number of classes with Solar Energy International, was a co-author on an energy study of municipalities in Colorado, built a solar powered ice fishing trailer for Bemidji State University, and helped establish Clean Energy Financing districts in Northern Minnesota. When he's not working on solar projects, you'll find him out hunting, fishing, and enjoying the great outdoors of the Colorado Rockies.