>>Narrator: How do I know which path is best for me?

Is it possible to take on these challenges and obstacles?

Where do I even start?

What should I do with my life?

Sometimes, the only way to find out is to go see what's possible Since 2001, we've been sharing the stories of people who ventured out and explored different career paths and different possibilities for their futures.

This is one of those stories.

This is Roadtrip Nation.

[MUSIC] >> Leila: So far, all of the places we've been to have been super cool.

>> Julia: Interviewing all sorts of people in clean energy.

>> [SOUND] >> David: I'm excited to explore parts of New York that I've never been to.

I like driving a lot.

I've definitely missed a couple turns, but they definitely give you a good opportunity to see all parts of the state and the most pretty parts of New York.

>> Julia: That's also been a really great and valuable part of the trip.

>> David: Just the parts that you don't plan that feel really random are some of the best parts of the trip.

It really makes it feel like a road trip.

Coming from the city, it's kinda easy to get stuck in that bubble.

And so I think this trip has been a super great experience to kinda see the rest of New York and what it has to offer.

There's a lot to see and do out here.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: On one of our drives in the middle of New York, we ended up at this wind farm, and we got to hear a little bit about the farm.

>> Caroline: As you could tell when you got here, it is pretty windy.

So why not use the wind to our advantage and get some power out of it?

>> Julia: Those things are big.

>> Leila: Have you ever tried basketball?

>> Julia: [LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] >> Leila: 292 feet of pure power.

[LAUGH] >> David: 292 feet of pure power.

>> Julia: 292 feet of pure power.

>> David: [LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] >> Julia: I'm hopeful through this road trip to learn more about what kinds of clean energy jobs are out there.

I know what my job is like, but I don't know what other jobs are like.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: My name is Julia Dworetzky, and I'm currently working as an energy engineer in New York City.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: I like to explore, so something I've really been enjoying is taking out city bikes and biking around the city.

There's always something to look at, something to see.

Thank you.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: What New York's all about.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: So welcome to my room.

Yeah, so this is my desk over here where I'll do work when I work from home.

A little chair for me to contemplate things.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: This is such a cute photo, my gosh!

See my mom.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: Hi.

>> Speaker 5: Good morning.

>> Julia: Good morning >> Speaker 6: So you're in New York City.

Hello, New York!

I was excited to see you- >> Julia: Yes!

>> Speaker 6: It's so nice to see your face.

>> Julia: All right.

>> Speaker 6: Okay, love you lots.

>> Julia: Love you guys, bye.

In the city I'm working a pretty 9 to 5-ish job.

My days, it's mostly in an office looking at spreadsheets and writing reports for buildings around the city, trying to reduce their energy use.

And so far it's been pretty good, I've been there about a year.

This, it's my phone.

No, it measures CO2 levels in spaces, and humidity and temperature.

[LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] >> Julia: In college, I really didn't know what I wanted, no career ideas.

But energy was something that stood out to me as a intersection of interests, and on top of that, clean energy is cool.

There's a lot of cool stuff happening.

At Duke in college, I remember a project about eVTOLs, which are the electric vertical takeoff and landing really cool electric helicopter stuff.

Flying robot?

Sure, sign me up.

I got chosen for the team, which was great, I was really excited about it.

And the team turned out to be seven guys and me.

As time went on, I definitely was like, I kinda wish there was another girl on this team.

I could not shake that imposter syndrome, I still can't.

There's something that guys have about this confidence that I don't.

So I'm not super sure about what I wanna do, or a dream role or anything like that, and that could be in clean energy and engineering, or that could not.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: So next we're gonna head to Plattsburgh to interview Emma Davis, who is a flight test engineer at Beta Technologies.

Her experiences, problem solving in aviation, totally relates to stuff that I'm interested in.

[LAUGH] >> Leila: My, no seriously.

[LAUGH] >> Julia: Iron Man designed it.

Yeah, no, you know what it looks like, out of Avatar.

>> David: It does.

>> Leila: I felt like Spiderman when he first walks into SHIELD headquarters and he's like, what?

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: Yeah, this is sick.

>> Leila: Yeah, dawg.

>> Julia: [LAUGH] My friends are gonna be like, what?

>> Leila: The B-reel, what is that?

>> Emma: I'm Emma, I'm a flight test engineer here at Beta Technologies, and I help test our experimental aircraft.

>> Leila: That's so awesome.

Can you tell us a little bit about what made you want to go into aerospace?

>> Emma: I have loved planes since I was a little girl.

My dad, when I was really little, would always take me to the airport to watch planes so I would stop crying.

Basically since growing up, I still had that passion all the way through school.

So then in college, I actually wanted to be a fighter pilot, and I'm too short.

So I started googling in college, just like, flying an aircraft not being pilot, and I found a thing called flight test engineering.

I think flight tests for me personally is the most exciting thing, cuz I don't do the same thing each and every day, and I'm learning to fly helicopters in my free time.

So I'm very happy.

>> Julia: How's it going?

>> Emma: It's good, I'm getting close.

We're getting to the end stage of my actual private pilot, so.

>> Leila: That is so cool.

>> Emma: Do you guys wanna come check out the aircraft?

>> Leila: Yeah.

>> Julia: Yeah!

>> Emma: I'll give you the full tour.

So these numbers that you see, one through five, that's where a battery would go.

You can look up under the aircraft.

>> Leila: How fast does it go?

>> Emma: Our current top speed is 120 knots.

>> Leila: Nice.

>> Emma: And we're able to fly it basically down, all the way to Arkansas, on our charge network.

And honestly the best part to me was every airport we stopped at, there was just a little crowd of people or there was a big crowd of people that would come out and these people would be like, what is this thing?

[LAUGH] Is this a UFO?

We're like it is not, it's not a UFO, I swear.

Definitely, we have reduced emissions when you have an all-electric aircraft.

I think something people get really hung up on is they look at the big picture and all very doom and gloom.

But I think if we just even tried to take a small step to reduce emissions, eventually that's gonna make an impact, that's gonna have a difference.

The huge first step is to get an actual working all-electric aircraft that's practical, and can be used for practical means and commercial means such as UPS.

>> Leila: What were some obstacles that you faced just during your career that taught you a big lesson about yourself and engineering?

>> Emma: Probably some of the bigger ones is imposter syndrome, which I'm sure you guys have heard about.

But just obviously there's not a lot of women in engineering.

And it's like you're very aware of your surroundings at all times, and you know that you're the only female in the room, right?

That's something that I felt often.

But also knowing that you are expected to make mistakes, you're going to make mistakes, no engineer is perfect.

But it's not taking that, I made a mistake because I'm a woman.

Nobody's really thinking that.

It's not gonna reflect badly on all the other female engineers out there.

It's just a part of the learning process.

I have plenty of male coworkers that feel exactly like I do.

They might not be as vocal about it, but I bring it up and they're like, I don't feel smart enough to be here, I'm like, me neither.

>> Julia: [LAUGH] >> Emma: [LAUGH] look at us we're all in the same boat.

There are definitely other people in the room that feel exactly the same way.

There are some people that don't feel that way, but [LAUGH] >> Julia: And maybe they're too confident, right?

>> Leila: [LAUGH] >> Emma: Exactly, they're projecting.

>> Leila: [LAUGH] >> [MUSIC] >> Julia: She was awesome to talk to.

She felt like just a normal person who's just working on planes cuz she loves planes.

In college, my project was all about autonomous charging for these eVTOLs.

It's a big puzzle, and I think that's what drew me to engineering.

So it was really cool to see one of these planes in person.

>> David: When they talked about how they can just take one of the their helicopters and fly from Burlington to Plattsburgh as their morning commute.

I was like, what?

It was cool hearing how you can pursue what you're passionate in and end up landing this super awesome job doing cool things every day.

>> Julia: Thanks so much for showing us around this was awesome.

>> Leila: Yeah, this was really, really cool.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: Next we're gonna be talking to Kathy at Dandelion Geothermal, and I'm really excited for that.

I think geothermal is so cool.

I'm excited to hear how it works and where it's going.

>> Kathy: So, my name is Kathy Hannun and we are working to make geothermal heat pumps.

Which are the most efficient and renewable way of heating or cooling buildings.

The goal is this would be something that a typical homeowner would choose to get instead of a furnace or a boiler.

>> David: Can you just introduce what geothermal heating is?

How it works?

>> Kathy: Sure.

Geothermal heating is using what's called a heat pump.

In a geothermal heat pump, you can move three to four units of heat into your house from the ground with one unit, let's say, of electricity.

And so it's a way of leveraging a small amount of electricity to move a large amount of heat.

So they do heating and cooling.

You don't need any backup system it just does everything you need, even in places where it's very cold.

And I'll just try to be short.

But the unique thing about a geothermal heat pump is that it's connected to these things called ground loops.

Which are plastic pipes that go down into the ground in your yard.

And they're just filled with water, and they passively exchange heat with the ground.

So this is what really differentiates a geothermal heat pump from other types of heat pumps.

But the advantage there is the ground is always the same temperature year-round.

So the geothermal heat pump doesn't really care what the temperature is outside.

Cuz it's just connected to the ground, and that lets it run really, really efficiently.

The government of New York is finding it's very worthwhile to just pay for those ground loops up front and then experience those savings indefinitely.

>> David: What was your journey coming here?

>> Kathy: So, I wanted to work on energy or water, and I majored in civil engineering.

I actually got a master's degree in computer science.

But I didn't really know how to translate those interests into a job that seemed interesting.

And I just didn't have a clear sense of what the path was.

So I ended up joining Google in a customer support role, but my job had nothing to do with energy or water.

And, while it's helpful to join an energy company if you want to learn about energy.

It's equally or more important to just work with really amazing people that you can learn from.

That teach you how to get things done and just how to be effective in whatever goals you wanna pursue.

For me, when I look back at those seven years at Google, so much of what I learned was how to have a job [LAUGH] and be a good coworker.

And make data-driven decisions and present things in a compelling way and all of these skills.

And I think just knowing that, it is an exploration.

So I left the job and started the company, and it was the ultimate test.

I definitely didn't know what I was doing at all when I started Dandelion.

There have been times that have been incredibly stressful and I've never worked harder and it tested me, right, and pushed me.

But at the same time, of course, it's like the most rewarding thing I could imagine.

And I have no regrets cuz what I wanted when I set out on my career was I wanted to do something useful.

That's one of the things that made me leave Google to start it.

Is I just saw this potential where if we can pull this off and sort of make that profit motive totally intertwined with getting people off of fossil fuels, that could have just this incredible impact.

>> Leila: Would you have any advice for somebody who wants to start a business, or people starting out their career in clean energy?

>> Kathy: I think my advice would be learn about the topics in clean energy that seem most interesting to you.

And then when you really feel conviction about an idea, my advice would be, just go for it.

One skill I built in my 20s, which I highly recommend, is I put myself in situations not infrequently where I didn't know how to do what I committed to doing.

It's like I didn't know how to set up a company legally.

But you ask around and find a lawyer who can tell you how to set up the company legally and then you learn that.

And it's like you make so many mistakes along the way, but that's fine, everyone does, right?

And I think just the whole company has [LAUGH] been like that.

Where it's just been, well, I have to figure out how to get my employees health insurance now, so today I will figure that out.

And [LAUGH] then you know how to do it.

>> Leila: [LAUGH] >> Kathy: So just go for it.

If you can just hold your breath and take the leap, you'll figure it out.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: Definitely a little bit star struck.

She was talking to us, pregnant with her third child, and had this full-blown company that she started from the ground, ha ha.

And sorry [LAUGH] >> Leila: Ha ha.

She was so cool, and it was nice to talk to somebody who had humility.

I really liked listening to her story.

>> David: I thought that was a great interview.

I feel like her career path is something that I could like see in myself, maybe.

How you can have both tech and sustainability, they aren't opposites, that's reassuring to hear.

>> Leila: Mm-hm.

>> David: When she talked about going for things and trying things- >> Leila: Yeah.

>> David: So casually.

>> Julia: Pretty inspirational.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: So we got to stop by Catskill Brewery.

>> Julia: We went to Catskill Brewery and they have a real emphasis on their environmental practices, from geothermal heating, to solar panels on the roof, to reclaiming hot water, heat.

>> Mike: I'm Mike, I'm the head brewer here at Catskill Brewery.

I do like working with fruit a lot when I can, especially if there's an opportunity to work with local fruit.

We brewed a beer with Eggos and maple syrup.

>> David: What?

Have you ever made a hot dog one?

>> Julia: [LAUGH] >> David: Well, have I got an idea for you.

Could you tell us what all these things are for?

>> Mike: Yeah, so let's take a walk back into the tank area.

This is our little tank farm.

All of the ownership group really prioritizes sustainability and the environment.

This area is so rich in natural resources, the mountains, the rivers, and keeping the water clean and the land clean is super important to our mission.

>> Julia: Cool thing was being able to see a bunch of sustainable practices and clean energy practices being implemented into a small business.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: So today we're headed to Saratoga Springs.

>> Julia: To talk with Michael Phinney.

>> Leila: And the Phinney Design Group.

>> David: And they specialize in green building.

>> Michael: My name's Mike Phinney, and I'm Principal of Phinney Design Group.

And we're an architecture, interior design, and construction management company with offices in Saratoga Springs and Troy, New York.

>> Julia: I'd love to hear more about you and how you got to architecture, your journey there.

>> Michael: Yeah, so I grew up in Lake George area, and I went to school at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

I studied architecture there, but I did my thesis on environmental awareness in architecture.

I was doing a lot of research back then of just a lot of the issues that we talk about now.

And the term green building wasn't formed, hadn't really been coined yet.

Even sustainable design was sort of, what is that?

So as a young architect, I was sort of preaching these kinds of things, and most people didn't listen to me.

And then I had a boss ask to me to be his right-hand man on headquarters for New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

That was a half a million square foot building, 13 stories, and that ultimately became the first certified green building in New York State.

Shortly after that, decided to start my own company, focusing on green design and sustainability.

And I've been fortunate to be sort of at the forefront of that industry for almost two decades now.

>> Julia: What was that like, being young and trying to navigate being in charge of something, were you confident, or?

>> Michael: It was tough, yeah, I had some tough days at times, and a lot of sleepless nights.

I don't know if I know all this.

I got people 10, 12, 15 years older than me, expecting me to get the answer.

But what I learned from that experience is that there's no such thing as perfect, and everyone makes mistakes.

Everybody has good days, everybody has bad days.

And at the end of the day, it's like, well, just do the best you can do.

And you're gonna learn a heck of a lot, just kinda stay in there.

>> David: Could you just explain what is green building and green design?

What that means?

>> Michael: Sure, what it means to me, I think, is buildings that are responsive to their environment, and the environment can be very different.

So you gotta think about what these material, how they're gonna react to the environment.

In our location, northeast New York, one of the common sense things is geometry.

We can have 30 below 0, and 0% humidity.

And then we can have 110 degrees and 100% humidity.

We think about sun angles, right?

The sun angle in the summer is much steeper versus the winter it's lower.

So we'll design roof overhangs and where we place glass, so that we can passively heat and cool the building, right?

So we want as much of that sun penetrating deep into the building in the wintertime when you're usually heating.

And then in the summertime, when you usually wanna be cooling, we block the summer sun.

But now I'm really interested in things that are more about biomimicry.

Can you build something that actually promotes and enhances the natural environment, right?

Or mimics the natural environment, that buildings can actually be like a tree or be like a plant, they can clean the air, which I think is the future of buildings.

And I think it has come a long way.

People are becoming more aware of all this stuff and they're saying, well, no, you have to do it.

Of course we're gonna save energy.

And so that's great.

That's what you want to see happen, right?

>> David: We just talked to someone who does electric aircraft.

So it's spreading everywhere.

>> Michael: It is, electric boats are coming.

And they're now getting to the point where they're pretty reliable.

>> David: Yeah, when we went to Niagara Falls, we went on an electric boat.

And it could spin 360 on it, it was so cool.

>> Michael: And it's quiet.

Working in sustainability, it's about the long-term vision.

And so you've chosen a path that has potentially some really big impacts long-term, right?

Not only for you as a career and something rewarding, but the world in general.

Something led you to this is what I wanna be part of.

Don't lose the fire in your gut as to why you did it.

>> [MUSIC] >> Leila: Michael Phinney also helped build the bio building at The Wild Center that we visited.

>> Michael: That building creates way more energy than it consumes.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: The Wild Center is actually the first LEED certified museum in New York State.

>> David: It's kind of just like a stamp of approval that shows this building is sustainable.

>> Julia: Wow, way to be a trailblazer.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: The Wild Center was full of these animals, and the otters were so adorable.

>> [MUSIC] >> Julia: Quack.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: So we're halfway through our trip, and it's been a good first half.

It felt like just this momentum that clean energy has, it's just found its way to every field.

>> Leila: Today we'll be making shiitake hash and rice [LAUGH] >> Julia: Yes, chef.

>> David: Yes, chef.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: That's a cup.

Is that half a teaspoon of salt?

>> Julia: You wanted a job.

You wanted a job.

>> David: [LAUGH] >> Leila: On this trip, I'm still looking forward to exploring people who identify the same way as I do, and look like I do, and see how they navigate the world.

That would be so cool to see.

>> Julia: It's good to see what the variety of jobs can look like in this space, and even in my current job, I can bring some of these things back there.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: [LAUGH] >> Leila: It's really hot.

>> [MUSIC] >> David: The first half of this trip has shown us some really cool things in the field of clean energy, but it's also brought up some questions on, is this feasible and is it gonna continue in the future?

And I just really hope those questions can get answered in the second half of the trip.

>> [MUSIC] >>Julia: we're halfway through our road trip.

Interviewing people in the clean energy industry.

I'm just looking forward to exploring people who identify the same way as I do and see how they navigate the world.

>>Elizabeth: There is brilliance in our communities.

>>Leila: This is really cool.

I'm really glad we got to talk to.

Wondering what to do with your life?

Well we've been there and we're here to help Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path And you can check out all our documentaries, interviews and more Start exploring at roadtripnation.com