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Leadership Insights on Clean Energy from Katie Mehnert

on • 28 min. read

Insights from Katie Mehnert on Leadership, Focus, and Optimism in the Energy Sector

 

Overview

My newest Scaling Clean guest is Katie Mehnert. She got her start in oil and gas, and she’s become a leading thinker and evangelist for growing the clean energy talent pool as CEO of Ally Energy, a global consultancy based in Texas. Katie’s journey through the incumbent parts of the energy sector has given her an enhanced perspective on being a clean economy CEO. 

 

Here are Katie’s B3P’s

 

12:38 - As a leader, you have to surrender the notion that you can control everything, because you can’t. CEO doesn’t stand for “Chief Everything Officer.” Rather, it’s about making sure you pull in the best team you can, and help them make things happen.

 

16:28 - Visible leadership is when someone leads a company, rather than runs it. To be a visible leader, determine what your “why” is, and march forward. My “why” is to help give my child a cleaner future. But, the world will not be a better place if you are on the sidelines, playing it safe. 

 

23:26 - When you look to hire someone, it is important to consider what the workforce values right now. The job search is no longer about the gold watch – the best benefits and pay can only get you so far. People instead look for a purpose. Create a purpose within your company that attracts people and gives them a reason to enjoy their work.

 

Thank you for coming on the show, Katie.

 

 

Also listen on Apple, Spotify, Radio Public, Amazon Music, iHeart, and Google Podcasts.

Introduction

Mike Casey:
Hello, cleantechers, and welcome back to another episode of Scaling Clean. As listeners know, our show is tightly focused on interviewing CEOs and investors to glean usable best practices and tips on how to build, run, and lead companies. My guest today is Katie Mehnert, who came to cleantech by way of floodwaters, which I'm going to ask her to explain in a little bit. Katie got her start in oil and gas, and she's become a leading thinker and evangelist for growing the clean energy talent pool as CEO of Ally Energy, a Texas-based global consultancy.

The current labor market is still tight, so I know there's going to be a lot of interest in Katie's thoughts on talent scouting and recruitment. But I also think her journey through the incumbent parts of the energy sector will give her an enhanced perspective on being a clean economy CEO. Katie, welcome to the show.

Katie Mehnert:
Thanks for having me, very excited to be here.

Katie Mehnert's Background and Career

Mike Casey:
I'll start with a few of our standard questions so listeners get to know you. How would you summarize your background and career?

Katie Mehnert:
Gosh, I'd summarize it pretty simply. My background is in energy and people. And so my mission and vision in life is to get as many people mobilized for the net-zero economy as possible. And that's going to take oil and gas folks, it's going to take people from utilities, it's going to take people from climate tech, it's going to take all kinds of energy forms and all kinds of great talent. And we are not ready here in the United States. So this is a big challenge and it's my life's work.

Influential Mentors and Inspirations

Mike Casey:
That is the most compact answer I've ever gotten to that question. And it's spoken like a true evangelist. I love that. Who were your most important mentors and what did you learn from them?

Katie Mehnert:
My most important mentor, so I owe a lot to a dear friend of mine and a woman who's left the tech industry but is now full-time in her philanthropy, Sheryl Sandberg. So Sheryl wrote a book, former COO of Facebook, turned into Meta, and wrote a book called ‘Lean In’, and her whole vision around this book 12 years ago, 13 years ago now was to get women to lean into their fears. And I’ve got to tell you, I spent most of my career in corporate. Now I can say that I'm spending the rest of my career not in the corporate world. And I am excited because the work that I do is work that years ago I would have been too afraid to do. Too afraid to leave a comfortable chair, too afraid to leave a comfortable salary, too afraid to beg my husband to keep me around, right? But we've been 15 years married and I've been 10 years an entrepreneur and I love my work. So I would say she's the first.

The second I would say is oddly, I read a lot of dead people. I read a lot, I do. I look at people who've gone before us and changed humanity. So Steve Jobs, is a smart guy, right? Crazy guy, but he changed the world.

I love reading about folks like Albert Einstein. Einstein was the spark that created energy and energy is the currency of life. So I make it my point to find people who've done great things and move the needle in their industries or in humankind to make a difference. Because when I leave this earth, I wanna know that I've spent every moment doing and making my mark and making a difference.

The Turning Point: Hurricane Harvey

Mike Casey:
And that, my friend, is why you are on the show. Speaking of which, when you and I first met at a restaurant down the street from here, you told me this riveting story about how you came to greater climate awareness. And I want you to share it here with our listeners. And after you do that, I'd like you to take it a few sentences further and tell us how that experience shaped you as a CEO.

Katie Mehnert:
Wow, so I'm gonna answer that one as succinctly as I can. The long and short of it is I'm from South Louisiana. We had no storms down in Louisiana, spent most of my life watching hurricanes, chasing hurricanes, very interested in weather. I actually almost went into geology but didn't. Fast-forward to Houston, moved here in early 2000 right at the turn of the century, and moved here to be in the energy industry, in the energy business. Got married 15 years ago, and moved to the west side of Houston, which is known as the energy corridor. So this is where all of the energy companies, all the oil and gas companies operate. Many of their people live in these neighborhoods, which are near these offices. And so it was 2018, I'm sorry, this was the summer of 2017.

And I had actually just come back from a lovely vacation. We were getting ready to start my daughter's first year in first grade. And I remember we took a picture outside the front. She had a sign that said the first day of first grade. And within four days, we were hunkered down, waiting for the largest hurricane to hit the shores of Texas and Hurricane Harvey hit Texas a few times in a couple of days.

It rained and rained and rained. We live in a part of town, the energy corridor, that's protected by two dams. And that just didn't happen this time. This time the dams had too much rainwater, too much pressure on the system. So there was a decision made by the federal government to order the release of those dams, a controlled release because the fear was that a controlled release meant control, not out of control. And we wouldn't want an out-of-control dam or two.

So our backyard was completely inundated with water. Most of my neighbors, 85% of us, did not have flood insurance because if you buy in an area that's protected by a dam, you're not required. But those dams were made, I don't know, 40-50 years ago. So a lot has changed since then, a lot of zoning, obviously a lot of pollution, a lot of climate change, all kinds of issues that have contributed to the lack of infrastructure and the support that we needed in order to keep that water out. 

So that water came rushing into my backyard pretty quickly. We were pretty surprised by what happened. We found out at nine o'clock the night before that they would start releasing it in the morning, but they had released it at 2 a.m. So by six o'clock, what was in the street was at the doorway. So it had moved pretty quickly. We live two blocks from Bayou, which backs into the reservoirs, which is where all the water came.

So, Ally, my daughter, on my back, getting out in a boat. You watch these things on Facebook, you watch these things on TV. This never happens to you. This is what happened to us. So, it hit me in those moments when I was leaving my home, a home is a place for everyone to have sanctity and have moments and memories.

that I was going to be homeless in the sense that I wasn't going to have a house and I certainly was not going to have a car because all of our cars were parked safely, we thought, in the driveway and in the garage. So, left the house with a little bit of cash, my daughter, and my cell phone. Had to leave the dog and the husband behind. But the point is that never I thought that I was going to be the one having to put my mask on to help myself, to get myself out of my own home. Typically, when we've fought storms, we were the ones providing meals, writing checks, helping people get through disasters. So I had to surrender. 

I had to ask myself to think really long and hard about, how can I fix this. How can I be a part of this? And at the time I'd already started my company. My previous company's name was Pink Petro. The focus was to get more women in oil and gas, and maybe we'd have more diversity and diversity of thought and approaches to how we produce and consume fossil fuels. But it was at that moment I realized that this was bigger than Pink, it was bigger than Petro, it was energy 2.0. 

My belief is, whether people believe it or not, Houston, Texas is the energy capital of the world. We want to be that energy transition capital of the world. There's a lot of talent here, that we've got. We've got the talent and the know-how to make this transition. And so we make the transition through people. So the work we do is about getting people into these jobs as quickly as possible, as ready as possible so that we can meet these net-zero goals.

So this hit hard. This hit my family pretty hard. I will tell you the one moment I knew that life was very different and special was we were traveling between our home that was being repaired and our rental, our rental unit, an apartment we had. We were very lucky to get an apartment because, as you can imagine, the area was inundated with the need for rental properties while Houston rebuilt. Well, we were in our beat-up old car and my six-year-old daughter and I were driving to the beat-up house. And we looked to the left and we saw a man. And she said to me, Mom, that's a homeless man. And I've noticed the homeless in Houston. A lot of major cities are struggling with homeless populations, but she looked at me and she said, at least we have a broken home to go home to. 

And so it was at that moment I realized I can do something about this. I have one foot in the oil industry, one foot in the cleantech industry, and working with two administrations for the last five-six years to try and address workforce. At the end of the day, it's not just about the capital and the technology. We've got to get people ready for this change. And that means we've got to get hearts and minds and steel-toed boots and heels and all kinds of people interested in this work so that we can decarbonize our economy and have a sustainable future. 

So it hit me pretty hard, Mike, I still look back, it's very hard for me to sleep with rain because when it rains that much, a bit of a PTSD moment, but I look back on those nights and months and weeks that we went through the rebuild and consider myself actually one of the lucky ones. I just don't want anyone to ever have to go through what we went through and they shouldn't.

Mike Casey:
Did that experience change the CEO that you are now?

Katie Mehnert:
Absolutely. So I never like to ask for help. So I could lean into my fear, but not lean into asking people for what I needed. And so as an entrepreneur, I'm excited cause right now we're in the middle of a capital raise. That means you're asking people to support you. That means you're asking people to give you money, right? And that was not something I did. My father kind of taught me as a young person, to be tough, and do it all. 

And here's the thing, we don't do things by ourselves. We do things in groups with people in teams. And so I had to surrender that notion that I could control it and I could fix it because I couldn't fix it when the house was completely broken and we couldn't get in for two weeks and there was water in there for several days. I had to lean into and lean on the people who were around me willing to help me. So I learned that I have to surrender.

And it's not about being the chief everything officer. It's about making sure that you pull in the great team that you have and make things happen.

Lessons in Leadership

Mike Casey:
I love that. Okay, you quit your job tomorrow. You become a lecturer at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas and your first lecture is on the role of the effective CEO. What are the big points you're going to make in that lecture?

Katie Mehnert:
Well, the first is it isn't about you, it's all about people and culture. And I will tell you, I learned this early days because when I was a CEO inside of a major oil company, I was a project manager or program manager. What I learned is that you need everybody around you smarter than you. You have to know your strong suit and focus on what you're best at and then find other people that will address the gaps that you have in your team. 

So at the end of the day, it's not just about you and what you bring, it's totally about the team that you bring with you. I will say that if I went the route as a CEO again, might try my hand at corporate, only because it seemed like it was a lot easier than when you're an entrepreneur.

Mike Casey:
Oh yeah.

Katie Mehnert:
There are a lot of things you don't have. You don't sleep. You don't have an ergonomic chair. You don't have IT and finance to come fix your budget or fix your IT. But I think that being a CEO is really recognizing what you are great at and then finding the people that you can build around you to fill those gaps. 
The second thing I would say is that it's really about visible leadership and leaving a legacy. For me, that's what it's about. I wouldn't consider it.

Mike Casey:
Say more about what you mean by that visible leadership. Give me a couple of sentences.

Katie Mehnert:
So visible leadership is there are a lot of people that run companies and then there are people that lead companies. So my vision of what a CEO needs to be is you need to be the heart and the soul of the vision of the company. But there are a lot of people who are runners. They're operators. I'm not an operator. I am so not an operator. Please don't make me an operator. I've tried so hard for 10 years being an operator and a visionary and it just doesn't work.

But I think what's important about visible leadership is standing up for being thoughtful about what you want to be and do and what your purpose and your why is, and then screaming it from the rooftops and then living your life and designing your work around that why. And that's what I've done since I started my business. I said, what is my why? Well, my why is I want to see a cleaner future. I want my kid to be in a better place. 

She's not gonna be in a better place if I'm on the sidelines playing it safe. So, I've had some hardships in my life. I've had health problems in my life. What I've learned is that we're not guaranteed tomorrow. And so you have to live your life, we gotta own it. You gotta be the CEO of your life. No one's gonna hand it to you. No one's gonna say, go do this or go do that. Find your purpose and then march forward. Because like I said we're all kind of on a path, sadly to the end, which sounds very morbid, but I use that as fuel to remind me that we're on limited time and so our time matters and we need to make sure that we're doing things with purpose. Those are the things I would talk about. Be visible and be purposeful as well as know that you don't need to know it all. It's about the team you build around you.

Mike Casey:
Good. I love that. OK, in that hypothetical classroom, several of your students approach you. Say, Katie, we're about to graduate. We want to start companies. Give us the best piece of advice so we can track to a career like yours. What do you say?

Katie Mehnert:
Wow. So I had someone not too long ago pull me aside. He wanted this advice. And you know what I told him? I said, don't start a company right out of college. And I'll tell you why. Cause had I done that boy. Well, there definitely been some failures, a lot of failures up front. I think there's something to be said for what I call the older entrepreneur. So go get your feet wet.

I tell people to go do work that nobody wants to do because what ends up happening is you figure out what you're good at and what you're not good at. There may be people that are out there that have a knack for entrepreneurship. I didn't have it in my blood and my family. So if I look back and say, gosh, I had done this at 21, that would have been a really tough road. 

I think that having some experience, obviously working in corporates, working in big companies, traveling the world, that's do a lot of things. And I learned pretty quickly what I was good at and what I wasn't good at. And I think the experiences that you get are what helps shape, hey, what's my next phase gonna look like? And your career does not have to be static, okay? You can end up CEO and you don't even have to be a CEO, right? You can end up in a different role. But I look back and if I thought at 21, I was gonna be a CEO at 48, I'd tell you that I didn't think that was the case. I didn't see myself as an entrepreneur. I had to see and hear other people give me that push like, hey, you really ought to try this, right? But I think you got to throw yourself into the deep end of the pool and start doing things. 

Now, if you've got a vision and it's like, wow, I want to own a company. I want it to be this and this, or it's a family business, right? It's very different, right? Because of the experiences that will shape that kind of vision. But I tell most young people, no, no. If it were me, I'd go the route of getting as much experience as possible, and get yourself financially suited so that you can invest in your own business. Because what I see is a bunch of kids that go out, they raise a ton of money, their equity up to other people. They make a lot of mistakes, right? So for me, it's about getting that experience, getting your feet foundationally, getting your financial foundation, and then going out and starting a business. So that's how I do it.

Mike Casey:
Got you. All right. So after that group of students leaves, one or two young women in that class come up and say, Katie, like that answer. Any tips you want to give us as young women who want to track where you're going? What's the nuance you give to them?

Katie Mehnert (19:38.422)
Yeah, so the first thing I tell them is to invest in the best stock you own, you, Y-O-U, the best stock ever. No one's gonna give you money to invest in you. You've got to take ownership of what your future's gonna look like. So it's not gonna be handed to you. The second I would say is to know your worth and add tax because women don't put enough, men will charge and women will do things for free. No. Okay. 

And so I tell young people, young women, you got to know your worth and be willing to put yourself out there but make sure you add a little extra because you're probably underselling yourself. And then be original, be yourself. Everyone else is taken. It's okay to be different. I actually think that we're living in a time where difference stands out, and matters.

If you've got something unique to bring, which I think we all do, don't be afraid to show that side. The sooner that you embrace who you are and you're intentional about what you wanna do, you'd be really surprised. And you do lean in and ask for help. You'll find that there are gonna be a lot of people that wanna help you along the way. 

Navigating the Changing Workforce Landscape

Mike Casey:
Got it. So I think Brian and Clare, who helped produce this show, would vouch for this. But I think every guest we've had, 30 plus, has agreed that hiring is one of the most challenging parts of leading companies. You have robust experience in hiring, recruitment, workforce development. I want your advice for other leadership teams on attracting talent and how to structure their hiring process. What do you get for me?

Katie Mehnert:
So I will say this, the workplace has changed forever. When I entered, it was much slower moving. We didn't have as much technology. We didn't have a lot of pressure to be on always. I think that the hardest thing about the workforce of the future and preparing for the workforce of the future is we've gotta take our paradigm in our own heads of what we think it should be and we need to flip it and look at it from the perspective of the workforce coming in. 

And as much as that, it annoys me to be honest with you because I feel like we don't have critical thinking like we did. I don't think we have the connection that we had before technology. Technology was supposed to help us. And really, I think it's taken us back. It's creating barriers. So I think employers need to look at what does our workforce care about? What are their values? Understand what those are. Understand what makes up a candidate's preferences, right? Because today, I might prefer more flexibility over pay. And we need to be unique in the way we approach the value proposition to everyone.

Nobody joins for the gold watch anymore. Nobody joins for the best benefits. People don't join for the best pay. People join for a purpose. And so I think it's important we have to learn what that purpose is. But create a purpose that attracts people that want to be right a part of a purpose. 

I'm going to tell you, I'm not the best at this. I'm a startup. We are flying the plane on fire, building it and keeping it from crashing and burning. We've been doing that for 10 years, bootstrapping. So if you look at my track record of keeping people, it's not been that great. I don't have a problem saying that because I understand that's not my strength. My strength is attracting people to the vision. It's not necessarily running the day-to-day. That's not my thing. But when I work with leaders and organizations, what I tell them is, that people get to know your why, they get to know what you bring. And what your expectations are. 

If there's anything that I could do differently in the last 10 years as a CEO running a startup, it's set the expectation that a startup isn't what you think a startup is. A startup is a lot of work. And I actually would agree that it's harder today, even with all the technology, because too many choices, too many options for the way to work. 

And everybody wants to work their way. Whereas when we entered the workplace, we worked the way our employers set the expectation. So it's a very challenging world. I think it's only going to get more complicated as technology evolves. I think AI is a force to be reckoned with. I think there's a huge opportunity for efficiency in the workplace, but we're not going to AI our way out when it comes to climates, we're still going to need people and lots of talent and smarts to get these answers. 

But there are definitely some efficiencies that we can gain. And we need to be thoughtful about how we hire people, what we offer them, and think about what we're going to do to invest in them. I think we moved away from that. I remember the good old days when employers invested in their people. I think we need to start looking at doing more of that if we want to create a more sustainable culture where people want to work.

Mike Casey:
Do you have a go-to interview question? And if so, what is it and what does it tell you about a candidate?

Katie Mehnert:
I always like to ask people, and these are speakers, this is like candidates, what keeps you up at night? I love knowing what keeps people up at night. Because I think that gets into the psyche of what are they pacing around about. What are they thinking about? What are they excited about? Or maybe what they're fearful about. I like to kind of ask that because I think it also kind of sets the tone for ‘We don't have to go through all these structural things. Let's talk about some of the things that you're interested in or some of the things that you're passionate about.’ So that's one of my favorite questions. I always like asking a speaker that too. The first question nobody wants to ask, I'm like, what keeps you up at night? And everybody's like, oh, she broke the ice.

Mike Casey:
Good. What's your guidance on firing people?

Katie Mehnert:
Boy, I hate it. Because when you fire someone, it feels like there's been a failure, honestly. I feel like you gotta do what you can to coach. I think coaching and mentoring is important. But when it comes to firing people, I think it's important to let people go and let them move on. Everyone has a role in life and a purpose, and everyone has a skill set.

And sometimes those skills don't match what the current need is, or they don't match the culture. I absolutely can't stand letting people go or firing them, but it's important, particularly in a smaller business environment, it's very important if you cannot find a fit to move on. It's best for the candidate and it's best for the business.

Personal Habits and Rituals for Success

Mike Casey:
In your experience running Ally Energy, is success more reliant on what you choose not to do or what you choose to do?

Katie Mehnert:
Gosh, so I would have told you that answer was what you do. But I'm in a phase now where I tell you, no, it's about what we don't do. Because I think that when you are successful in life, you have a lot of options. And that's great, except that options can create distractions. It can take you, your focus away. We are not focused today. Ask anybody if they're focused and if they are, then we want them to write the $50 million book. That tells us all how to stay focused. But no, I think it's good to throw out and do things and see and explore ideas. So you need to diverge, but you gotta converge very quickly and figure out what you're best at and then be willing to say, okay, to the side. And Steve Jobs was really good at that. He was ruthless at it. He was very good at saying, okay, here's our to-don't list.

Mike Casey:
Hahaha!

Katie Mehnert:
And so I go through pretty regularly, a weekly process. I try to go through what am I not gonna do? And what am I just gonna put to the side? And I file it away and put it in the box called lower priority. And guess what? A lot of that stuff just doesn't get done. But it does have a place, which I think we need. We need to be able to say definitively, yes, I'm gonna do this, or no, I'm not gonna do it.

Mike Casey:
The time management technique I was given once was to create a file called your someday maybe list. It's where all your not urgent, not important, nice ideas go. Maybe you'll pull them up, but they actually measure that it takes a certain amount of calories to keep an idea in your head and so go ahead dump it on a piece of paper and you can forget about it. Love that. Okay closing in here on the end. What does Katie Mehnert do at work or at home to maintain her daily performance as a CEO?

Katie Mehnert:
Well, the first thing you do is have a little bit of ritual in the morning. So I try to get out of bed at 4.30. If I'm lazy, it's five. I do a little pre-workout drink, which sounds like I would go to workout, but lately, I've been kind of lazy about the workout. But I will tell you that when I do work out, I feel amazing. 

When I'm focused on my health, and I have been I'd say the last 18 months, I've lost a lot of weight. I trained for a marathon that I finished, not very fast, but we did it. Thank you, took a team of people to the New York Stock Exchange, rang the bell, and then ran a marathon. So it was a lot of fun. I got my eyes fixed. It doesn't help to have a failing vision when you're a visionary. 

So I tell people to invest in themselves. You're the best stock you own. I tell people that, but you know, I gotta do the same for me. So my busiest quarters are the first and fourth. So right now I'm breathing a little bit, except that we're not really, because we're in a fundraising round. So it's just as crazy. It's a different kind of crazy, but I try not to work seven days a week, even though the work is sitting there.

Mike Casey:
Oh, my friend, I feel your life. 

Katie Mehnert:
You know what I mean? And so, it's hard. I'm not gonna lie, Mike. I don't have the answers to this. I actually look at what other people do. I ask what other people do. I will tell you the big thing that I have been kicking on as of the last year is I have been looking at how can I use AI tools to clean my inbox, to make my life a little less messy.

What can I do to make my digital footprint a little less? Because I think it can be very distracting and when you have so much information coming at you, and I can process a lot of information, my brain moves very quickly, but it doesn't mean that it has to. So I've been trying to find tools to help me with my productivity. So I've been playing around with all kinds of different AI tools. 

But at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to stop and remind yourself that if you are the heart of this company, if you're not well, then no one's going to be doing well. And so, but that's why I'm raising. I finally was, Mike, okay, it's been 10 years. It's time. We do not want to be a services firm exclusively. We see ourselves as a tech platform that can help match people. We want to help create a faster way and cheaper way to find talent. So I think the recruiters will either love us or hate us. But at the end of the day, for me, it's about the speed to get as many people right into these new jobs. So to do all of that, to have that kind of stress, I've got to have some rituals that are sacred to me. And right now it's, like I said, getting up early and taking better care of myself, but then also trying to find tools to minimize distraction.

Mike Casey:
You will be the only person involved with the show who thinks the difference between 4.30 and 5 a.m. wake-up time is lazy. I'm just saying, Katie Mehnert, you're the only human that I know. So, I'm just saying, here's an unscripted question. I'm going to give credit to my wife, Gretchen said, you need to start asking these people this question. 

So was there a moment over the last 10 years that you can remember when you said to yourself, yep, this business can work? It was kind of an affirming moment. And I'm wondering, is there one that sticks in your mind?

The Evolution of Ally Energy

Katie Mehnert:
Yes, so it was after Hurricane Harvey that someone said, what would you do if you weren't afraid? Which was the question that Sheryl Sandberg always liked to ask. And I said I would continue. So we were killing it. Why wouldn't I stop? Like, why would I stop? I think it was the moment though, when I pulled a bunch of people in the room from across energy because we knew Pink Petro was going.

Okay, people were excited about diversity, diversity, and oil and gas. It was getting calls from all over the country, from all kinds of different backgrounds and industry parts of energy. And I said, why don't I throw everybody in a room and ask them all some fundamental questions, and guess what? Everybody has the same issue. 

And I said, so why can't we see ourselves as energy? Why do we have to see ourselves as oil or coal or CCUS or clean or dirty or any of this stuff? We're all people and we need a lot of energy. It's gonna take a lot to move the needle and it's gonna take a lot of people. So I knew when people said, yeah, that's my problem too. I went, well, then I just gotta convince all these people, a lot of people, but that we should be doing this more collaboratively. We should be doing this together. 

Why would we be going in thousands of different directions if our goal at the end of the day is a sustainable future and one in which people can prosper economically? Because that's the big rub, am I gonna lose something? Am I gonna lose my job or am I gonna lose money? So I knew that when everyone seemed to come, kind of, communalize around problem statements, I went, this will happen. 

However, I will tell you this, I'm the IBM. I was the IBM, I was early. Unfortunately, what happened to IBM, Mike, you know? Microsoft came in, Apple came in, and I wanna be better than Apple. So I think I knew that when I truly was like, hey, you were early and you see that this is gonna happen, now it's more about the will to make it happen and find the right network to make it happen. I've got the network. It's just taking the pieces and making it happen.

Mike Casey:
Nice!


Katie Mehnert:
And part of that is fear. It's not even, am I gonna fail? I think it's, oh God, I might actually succeed, which I think as a CEO is very humbling because you can fall on your face all the time, but when you're successful, it's very humbling. It's exciting, but at the same time, it's a little humbling. 

Sometimes it's hard to step into that light and say, oh, I did do this right. So yeah, I think it was right before the pandemic when I threw everybody in the room and I said, oh, everyone's having the same issue. So eventually we're gonna get there. I just gotta survive was my thing, like survive on the cash, keep going, don't go broke. And so I feel like we're in a really good spot right now, there's a lot of momentum around the workforce. And hopefully, someone's out there listening saying, wow, I want to know more about this. And they'll call us up and see if they want to be a part of the next phase.

Climate Optimism in the Face of Challenges

Mike Casey:
I think I know Katie may not have answered this last question but has your work left you a climate optimist, a climate pessimist, and why?

Katie Mehnert:
Oh, I'm an optimist. I have to be, as scared, because that is a word, scared as I am. I think scared because politically we are in the worst place ever. We've politicized energy like no tomorrow. We politicized everything. And in this great country, I've seen us convene, I've seen us come together irrespective of political party and views. I've got to be an optimist. I have to.

My daughter's name is Ally and an ally is spelled the same way as a force for good. So I have to see the rosy side of this, but I do think it's going to take a lot to get to where we need to go. And we've got some tough days ahead of us.

Conclusion

Mike Casey:
Katie Mehnert, I appreciate you for coming on this show, for talking with me, and for sharing your wisdom. It's a lot of wisdom and I appreciate what you're doing in this space, bringing a lot of folks into clean energy. So thank you, Katie Mehnert, for coming on and for sharing your wisdom.

Katie Mehnert:
Thank you, Mike, and thank you for all you do to get the word out.