Pearce Renewables: Powering Careers for Veterans

Allen and Joel speak with Frank Martinez, Talent Acquisition
Specialist and Veterans Ambassador for Pearce Renewables. With 32
years of distinguished U.S. Army service and 13 years at Pearce,
Frank shares invaluable insights on creating pathways for veterans
in the renewable sector. Pearce is leveraging veterans' unique
skillsets and fostering a supportive work environment, with an
impressive 10% of their workforce self-identifying as veterans.
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www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Allen
Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast. I'm your host,
Allen Hall, joined by my co host, Joel Saxum. Today, we're pleased
to welcome Frank Martinez, Talent Acquisition Specialist and
Veterans Ambassador for Pearce Renewables. Frank brings a unique
perspective to our discussion combining 32 years of distinguished
U. S. Army service with 13 years at Pearce Services. In his current
role, Frank leads Pearce Renewables Efforts to recruit and train
veterans for the renewable energy industry. This initiative draws
on Frank's extensive military background and his deep understanding
of the renewable sector. During his military career, which included
both active and reserve service, Frank trained over 40, 000 service
members. Today, Frank will share insights into Pearce Renewable's
veteran recruitment and training programs. He'll discuss how the
company is creating pathways for veterans into renewables and
explore the valuable skills. Veterans bring to the sector and Joel
and I are looking forward to hearing about these initiatives in
veteran recruitment and training for the renewable energy industry.
Frank, welcome to Uptime. Frank Martinez: Good to be here, Allen.
Thank you. And Joel for having me on the show today. Allen Hall: So
Frank, you have an extensive career in the military. My gosh. And I
want to touch upon that just briefly because you don't run across
people every day that have served over 30 years in the military.
That's right. And you want to just give everybody some insight into
what you did with the U. S. Army? Frank Martinez: Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, you're right. I usually don't meet too many people that have
20 plus years, let alone 30 plus years. So that said, I know that
it is pretty unique. I will tell you that, I love being part of the
Army because I really cared about the mission. And what was the
mission over the last 20 years? As you remember, we were at war. I
had a really vested interest in helping those that were preparing
to go to war be part of that solution. And so I did that for the
last 18 years of my career. I was an instructor trainer for units
Army, Air Force, and Navy that were going overseas to deploy Iraq,
Afghanistan, Africa, all types of contingent operations worldwide.
So I was part of that and like you said there in the intro 40, 000
service members that I stood in front of and taught a subject to.
And I'm very proud of that. So I was part of that solution that the
army needed to get people ready to go to war. That is incredible. I
think it's incredible as well. Just the opportunity to do that.
When I was in it I was 100 percent dedicated to that mission and
how serious it was. Because we're talking about people's lives,
we're talking about America's sons and daughters at this point. It
really I knew at the time when I was doing it that it was much
bigger than myself. And so just to be part of that I wanted to ride
that as long as I could, and that's Allen Hall: exactly what I did.
So when you left active duty and then went into the reserves, then
you transitioned also into the renewable sector, right? Frank
Martinez: Let's start there. So my active duty time is mixed in
with my reserve duty time. So I went from active duty to the
reserves and then from the reserves, I would get activated. for
typically one year at a time, and then you go back to your civilian
job. For me, like personally, I did I did three years straight at
one point during that time in the reserves, in the reserves. Yeah.
Three years, one whole stretch. Once again, training soldiers and
service members going overseas When I came off of that is the time
when I came to join this company that is now Pearce. That was 2011.
So 2000, May of 2011 is when I joined Pearce. And then during that
time since 2011 till now, or actually two years ago, when I
officially retired there was three other times that I got called up
for one year mobilizations of active duty. So while I was an
employee of this company, I got called up for duty to go serve. And
during that capacity, I did the exact same thing. I was getting
soldiers ready to go overseas. Joel Saxum: But it plays directly
into your military career, plays directly into your civilian
career, because when you came over in 2011, of course, Pearce,
Pearce right now, one of the largest, if not the largest, ISP in
the United States, telecom, solar, wind, all the above, I know
there's a couple there's four, four figure employees in just wind,
so you guys are huge. But you've seen that kind of Growth through.
Mean, with Pearce has been growth through acquisition, growth
through organic growth. Hey, we've got a contract. We need to get
all these people in. So you've seen that change in the last 13
years in Pearce and what would become Pearce and all these other
companies. So you. They can lean on you by saying Hey this
gentleman here has trained all these people. He has this
experience. And I know when we were talking off air, you said when
there was a point at Pearce where you got basically, Hey, we want
to keep, we want you to be a part of the team. Frank, how can we
utilize your skills to the best of what your ability is? And you
basically created what you do now Out of thin air, out of that
conversation to, to help Pearce. So how did that work out? Frank
Martinez: So when I first joined the company, believe it or not, I
came on board as what's known as a detail engineer. And that is
writing specifications for installing telecom equipment. I did that
for exactly one month. My background in the military was signal. So
I had a solid signal understanding and I had worked in that type of
role before. That lasted exactly one month because the guy that was
over procurement got fired. And so when he got fired, the office
manager at the time recognized, you're really like my military
background. We spent a little bit of time talking about my
background and he was like, I think you're the guy that should be
in procurement. I'm going to move you over to procurement. And so I
became the procurement guy, did the procurement role for about
maybe four or five years, then I became the procurement manager for
Pearce. So I ran all that two years down the road after that, I
became a project manager, and then after a project manager, I
became the operations manager for the telecom division. So I really
had a lot of career growth within this company just based on
opportunities that were available at the time all the way to the
role that I'm in now. The role that I'm in now also plays well into
my military background. Of course, like you said, very extensive 32
years when I retired in 2022. That's that pivotal moment where wow,
32 years, even saying that out loud it's almost impossible for me
to even comprehend it, but reflecting on it and, really proud of my
service. Like how, what can I do? Now that I'm retired to still
continue something involved with the military. So for a time now, I
had already seen Pearce growing in renewable energy and telecom,
and then thinking to myself like, man, these roles are really well
suited for service members. And the reason I know that because as
an instructor trainer, I've trained all types of We're talking
about engineer construction units. military police units, signal
units, transportation units, you name it. I've trained them.
Aviation units, maintenance battalions. Like I've been around all
these soldiers and all types of different skillsets. So I've seen
firsthand the type of equipment they use, how they work and operate
to maintain that equipment. So I thought, I always thought to
myself like, wow, there's such an opportunity for those service
members to find careers. Here at Pearson, almost any division that
we have available. And then, so basically this ended up just having
a conversation at a Christmas party, believe it or not with my
supervisor at the time. My, my manager at the time was at this
Christmas party and I just pulled him aside and said, Hey, listen,
I just retired from the army and I want to know is why doesn't our
company have a dedicated military recruiting program? And he said,
I don't know, Frank, tell me why we don't, I said, or why we
should. And so I laid out the groundwork, like matching the skill
set to the type of rules. Like these guys do this military service
members and this specific skills have these skill sets. We need
these skill sets. In this rule everything from renewable energy to
telecom, you name it. We, those skills easily come across. So he's
Frank, that makes 100 total sense to me. We should figure out a way
to get you transferred over to the HR team and figure out. How to
get this initiative started. Officially in November of 2022, I
transferred over to the HR department and they I've now the talent
acquisition slash veteran ambassador for the company. Basically in
that role,