When I was a child, like I always wanted to find myself in a career where I really was actually helping people.
So that's like very important to the reason why like, I'm in this field.
My name is Ricky Gass.
I'm 25.
I live in Linden, New Jersey.
I'm a certified solar installer and I'm looking forward to making $100,000 this year.
By state, by state law, if it's over one megawatt, it has to be prevailing wage.
The amount of panels that we're getting ready to do is over one megawatt, it's automatically prevailing wage.
The jobs that we take that's under one megawatt are considered non-rate, which is $22 an hour.
Prevailing wages is $65 when non-rate is $22.
I take care both my kids and I take care of both their moms too.
But I always like being a superhero, though.
Like, I always thought of myself as a little kid, like, let me be a superhero.
Let me bear it and then they could be spoiled and all that.
My dad is like a big bass player, and my mom is a nurse, grew up in Newark, where I was born.
I was a good student, I liked to learn, like I always liked to learn since I was a child.
A bit of a class clown, at times I can admit.
I graduated in 2014.
I knew I wanted to be different. Like I knew I wanted to have a good job, I think, in high school, but I just didn't
know how to get there.
So I was a little confused after high school because I didn't have a real plan.
After high school, I went to college and then I was arrested and then I went
to trade school. Immediately
after I got out, I had to do an outpatient program, I did that and then I just went, I went back to work.
I just wanted to change my life, I was running from my past.
I was running away from complacency, laziness.
I was running from a lot of things, so I just put all my energy and effort into school.
Like school is like the first springboard to where I'm at now.
I always loved construction.
I just wanted to be like, build house for my mom or build houses for communities or build a house for myself.
A workweek is five days a week of 40 hours, no weekends at all.
The money, we're making so much money that there's no need for overtime.
I wake up, I would say, 4:30 in the morning.
My current commute is an hour and a half.
So I got to get up a little earlier, but it's OK because it's worth it.
We start at 6:30 in the morning or 6:00, depending.
We have our morning meeting on as far as who is going to do what for the day and we break up.
Everybody gets they task for the day and then we all go into our separate positions.
So if we're doing solar panels, then we're most likely all working together.
But if we are working like on the racking systems or wire management, that's more of a solo task.
Work ends at like 2:30.
I've installed at a couple of different places.
My first job we did was 11,000 panels on one roof and it was like 10,000 panels on this second roof
right adjacent from that roof.
Yeah, physically, you've got to be ready.
You can't like oversleep.
You can't go to sleep 2:00, 3:00 in the morning and think you're going to get up and lift 40 or 50, or maybe even a
hundred panels in a day.
Lifting bricks, lifting panels, lifting different type of wiring,
different equipment. You definitely have to, not necessarily be the strongest person, but you definitely have
to be prepared. Your technique is more important than the actual physical part
of the job, like if you have your technique down pack and you have your skills that you were taught and how we were
trained, the physical part is not the hardest part.
It's definitely the technique.
The benefits, you have great health care benefits, vision, dental, medical.
The first paycheck, it changed everything.
It changed like my goals.
Like at that exact moment, it changed my expectations for myself.
And it just, it made like all the people that I was working with me that believed in me, like that was their
confirmation too. Best day on the job, I would say,
was when I got the call from from my girlfriend that
Reina was coming when she was being born.
That was the best day on the job and I had to leave work and go and take her to the hospital.
That was the best day on the job.
Because I'll be the first one happy for everyone else.
They were like, really supportive, like just, yeah, to see them there for me, like for personal situations, just
makes me more effective.
Working with them on the roof just makes me work 10 times harder.
Oh, my worst day on the roof.
It was the winter for sure, and my hands were numb.
I couldn't like, I couldn't move my hands.
My feet was numb, I couldn't like, I couldn't even move my toes.
And we still had to lift panels at the time.
And it was just brutal.
Like it was like, sometimes, like you say, it's cold, but it was maybe like -10 degrees with like 30-mile-an-hour
winds. We trying hand warmers.
Didn't work. Nothing worked.
Three jackets didn't work, but we got through the day.
Right now I am a solar installer.
I have plans on becoming a supervisor very soon, with foremen coming after that.
Humbly speaking, and of course, the next step is CEO.
I'm happy about everything that I'm doing right now.
I'm happy like my kids love me.
My kids look up to me.
My community. My school.
I completed my school.
GAF, Solar Landscaing, like every everything that I've been through, it's been worth it.
It's been. It's been humbling.
It's been great. And I love the journey.