What does Amicus O&M Cooperative (“Amicus O&M”) have to do with Carolina Solar Services? Amicus O&M is a community of almost 40 solar O&M providers spread throughout North America. Based in Colorado and spearheaded by Amanda Bybee (photo below), Amicus O&M provides opportunities for knowledge sharing and training for O&M professionals. The organization promotes safe, efficient, and standardized services for its member-companies.
Amanda reflects on the impetus for the group’s founding, “It was important to bring together solar O&M providers to offer greater industry standardization. Companies were doing everything differently from pricing to how they approached the work. We wanted to bring more efficiency to the market”.
Carolina Solar Services Participation
Carolina Solar Services CEO Zack Hobbs is the Chair of the Amicus O&M Cooperative’s Board of Directors. Amanda Bybee reflects on the importance of Zack’s participation.
“Zack has been the chair of the Amicus O&M Cooperative board since 2020. Carolina Solar Services is our largest O&M-only company, and has been a key participant in all aspects of the cooperative, from regular participation in our monthly calls to helping develop the O&M technician training program. All of the people at CSS are generous in sharing their knowledge and lessons learned, which is a core aspect of membership and which elevates the way others approach solar O&M work. On the board, Zack has provided a great deal of vision to help the cooperative grow; he is undaunted by hurdles and has very ambitious ideas. His influence has been hugely positive and uplifting, and we feel fortunate to have Zack and CSS devote their time and leadership to the cooperative.”
In turn, Zack enjoys being part of the Amicus organization and discusses CSS’ relationship with Amicus O&M Cooperative.
“CSS is proud to be a co-owner of the Amicus O&M Cooperative since 2019, and our team has benefited greatly from the “coopetition” and best-practice sharing with our fellow member companies. I am honored to serve as chair of the Amicus O&M Cooperative Board of Directors; working with Amanda and the other board members has been an energizing experience and I’m incredibly proud of the thought leadership Amicus is providing for O&M technician training across the industry.”
The Year Ahead
2024 will be a busy year for Amicus O&M Cooperative. In June 2023, the organization was awarded a grant entitled “Advancing Equity in Workforce Partnerships” from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a solar O&M technician training program. The plan is to determine O&M technician levels (i.e., what differentiates a solar technician 1 skill from solar technician 2; etc.) and develop a national standard. The grant also includes workforce development and plans are in the works to enroll 1,000 new technicians within the next three years.