Solar energy gives Jamez Staples the power to help community
Jamez Staples stands in the solar garden on the roof of North High School, a project he completed in 2020. Photo by Azhae’la Hanson
By Emily Gutierrez, Gaojia Xiong, and Amelia Hager, North News interns
The kid who left North High voted most likely to be on “America’s most wanted” by his classmates, now stands on the roof of his alma mater a successful businessman. Staples looked out on a vast array of solar panels on a recent tour of the solar garden that will soon electrify the surrounding neighborhood.
“Don’t step on those,” Staples gently cautioned. “There's a lot of work and money going into those panels.”
The hard work Staples refers to is only partially about the physical labor of installing panels. He has poured heart and soul into becoming the one responsible for bringing renewable energy and jobs to the Northside. He laid the groundwork before solar became popular providing a future for the climate and the community.
Staples is the founder and CEO of Renewable Energy Partners (R.E.P.), a solar development company based in North Minneapolis that installs solar energy systems all throughout the state. Being a Northsider for the majority of his life, Staples has seen the hardships of his community and wanted to create a positive impact by simultaneously addressing climate change and creating jobs.
In conversation with North News, Staples said moments from his upbringing provided some insight into what shaped him and his success. He remembers a conversation with his father that changed the course of his life.
“I remember at 14 my dad told me that I was going to be ‘one of those guys,’ referring to someone he would walk by with his friends on the street and see as a nobody,” Staples said. “There are few defining moments in one's life, that was one of them for me, even though my dad doesn't remember it, I was gonna be somebody or something regardless of what it took.”
After struggling in school, he understood that he had a natural ability to talk. He graduated unaware that his confidence for conversation would be a major key to his future success.
In the process of figuring out what was next, he worked for an insurance company until he decided to go to college. In his final year, he studied abroad in the Virgin Islands where he volunteered to install solar panels, not realizing at the time that this would be how he would leave his mark in North Minneapolis.
Upon returning to Minneapolis, Staples bought a building from the city and started R.E.P in 2013 when the Minnesota Solar Jobs Act passed to bring more solar energy across Minnesota. Seeing a lack of resources, training, and career opportunities available for Northsiders, Staples was committed and driven to bring solar jobs and training to his community, which has been done now for nine years.
Staples shared the highs and lows of his journey with North News. This conversation is edited lightly for brevity.
Leaving North Minneapolis, returning with a mission
I studied abroad at The University of The Virgin Islands during my final semester of college and that’s where I was introduced to solar energy. Back in 2006, Van Jones, a political commentator at CNN, was talking about addressing climate change and poverty together and that’s when it clicked. I went and volunteered to install solar panels and saw the opportunities it brought.
When I returned to the Northside, my goal was to use the knowledge I gained to make sure that not only I would benefit, but the people from my neighborhood would as well. People have heard me say when you're here and you're in it all the time, you don't recognize how challenged people may be when you’re walking by because you're used to it. Well, when you leave and you come back, you see that something ain't right. It almost felt like ‘man this is an opportunity to really create some real jobs that have some impact.’
Creating Economic Opportunities for the Northside
When I came back to Minnesota, the Minnesota Solar Jobs Act was being passed and I saw that as a huge opportunity to get into the industry, create jobs, and create economic opportunities for people from my community. I approached the state and was like “Hey if you guys want to address disparities, climate change is the route to go. If everybody is worried around the world that the sky is falling, we need to get everybody actively participating and working.” I started R.E.P. in 2013 with the hopes to create that stable and reliable foundation for the community.
Staples describes how solar energy is converted into electricity, powering the system that runs air conditioning throughout his company building. Photo by Azahe’la Hanson
R.E.P.: The Future Hub for Solar Panel Training
I picked up two guys in the neighborhood and after working on a few projects with them I quickly realized they didn't know what they were doing, they were just being told what to do. So I'm like, well, how do we get them skilled up and prepared so they can actually do stuff on their own as opposed to just being told what to do. That’s when the training center came into fruition.
Then I looked around and I said, “Well, where are the trainings at?” White Bear Lake and St. Michael were the only places that had solar energy training, and are not accessible through public transportation, leaving a big population of people in the city that don’t have access to those opportunities. I realized the need for a training center was not just for Northsiders, but for all of Minneapolis. The R.E.P training center is one of the most accessible locations in Minneapolis.
Creating Opportunities for Young People
Hopefully, we will get more young people that see this as a pathway so that they can just kind of roll right out of high school into a job. The goal is that they get started here, get on a roof, start making some money. But then continue to educate themselves, and they could get their two year technical degree if they wanted to and go into different areas. If they continue that education pathway, aligned with the industry they’re in, they could become an electrical engineer or be a designer of systems or work for Xcel Energy or whatever. A pathway and a pipeline of opportunity is what we're trying to incubate here.
“If we can get people engaged, educated, trained and hired, I think that will change a lot of the dynamics that we see in North Minneapolis. First, they need to know that there’s an opportunity for them. ”
A Project Near and Dear to the Heart
The North High Solar Project is near and dear to my heart because I’m a graduate of North. When the city voiced that they wanted a solar garden for low-income participants, I jumped right on it to go on North. The city originally wanted it in Fridley but if it's for low-income people it should be somewhere where they can see it, or at least know that it's there, so North was where it was placed.
It works as a community solar garden. It allows people from the neighborhood to subscribe and buy power from the rooftop. The anchor tenants of the project are the ones who have the bigger pieces of the pie. So the City has 10%, the school district has 10%, and 80% is being sold to community members and you have to qualify with your income.
What does it feel like to have run the project installing the solar garden on top of the same high school that you once ran the halls in?
It gives me great joy to know that I'm still with my community and helping my community. That's what's important to me. So for me, it's not about me, it’s just another thing that I can do to help other people that don't realize that they may not even know what we're doing. I'm just trying to get the work done, fix the problem and move on to something else.