Transcript: People Are the Heart of Renewable Energy Project Development

Nico Johnson — Host, SunCast Podcast

Providing clean power for all. Hey there, Solar Warriors. I'm Nico Johnson, and this is SunCast. Each week, I pull back the veil on the life and business insights of clean tech entrepreneurs building the most noble and impactful companies of our time. Today's entrepreneur is a high-powered female executive who has been in the trenches for many, many years in the energy industry. Kimberlee Centera is one of the only female CEOs of a privately held utility-scale renewable energy practice. She has a deep history in renewables development from decades of experience and has generated over 12 gigawatts of projects in wind, solar, and energy storage. She's also been involved in financing more than $6 billion — with a B — in project value. Her team are risk management experts for the development and finance of these large-scale projects.

Nico Johnson

We specialize here on SunCast on trying to get the real, authentic backstory of the industry leaders who are carving the path for the rest of us to follow. When I got a chance to meet the guest for today, I have to admit that I didn't know much about her background, and I was so pleasantly surprised to find someone with such a deep knowledge and understanding not just of how solar projects come together, but how the industry has developed. We're going to dig into that and so much more today. Welcome, Kimberlee Centera, to SunCast.

Kimberlee Centera — CEO & President, TerraPro Solutions

Thank you, Nico. I'm honored and excited to be here.

Nico Johnson

Before we really dig deep into your experience, I'd like to go back to prior to your coming into the clean energy industry at all and explore how the environment you were raised in maybe prepared you for what was to come. What did the conversation look like around the dinner table when you were young?

Kimberlee Centera

It's a great question. My father was a teacher, and he was one of the early entrants to California back in the early sixties, when California was really trying to attract top talent. All the colleges were offering incentives to the veterans to come in and go to school because they wanted to build up a bench. So my dad came in with a dream. Being a teacher, he naturally encouraged us to have opinions, to be aware — in fact, he challenged us to have opinions and be aware. We had five children, so a family of seven, and with a schoolteacher as a father, it was modest. We picked strawberries and cut and dried apricots out in Mountain View in the early days when there were still lots of farms — before it turned into the environment that it is today. So there was a real appreciation for the land.

One of my earliest memories was going on a field trip with one of my father's classes. He taught biology and chemistry — the sciences — and we were out in the Delta area of the Bay Area. We did some trenching and were looking at the water lines and some of the microorganisms, and that kind of thing really stuck with me. But overall there was encouragement to learn and to grow — always be learning and always be willing to grow. That for me was very foundational in terms of my thinking and my approach to my business and my life. Always be learning.

Nico Johnson

I love that. Do you have early memories of the career trajectory you wanted to take, influenced by a father who said challenge everything and choose your own path?

Kimberlee Centera

I'm sure it contributed to my starting my business and ultimately where I ended up, because you have to have that entrepreneurial, willing-to-learn spirit. When you're starting a business, there really isn't a rule book. Nobody hands you a book and says, okay, just check all these boxes and you're going to be a fabulous success, right? You have to sling it out. I had another teacher when I was in high school who really influenced me in the area of law — made law really interesting. So I took a lot of law classes, and it was that basis that led me into renewables. I was pursuing law and found that I loved it and wanted to work in that area. It was a position that opened up that caused me to leave the law firm and end up in the legal department for a wind developer in the very early days.

Nico Johnson

And not just any wind developer. Tell me about your first foray into what at the time was the very early development market for wind power projects in California and beyond, and how that turned into a more-than-decade-long career that culminated at AES.

Kimberlee Centera

I ended up working in-house in the legal department for Sea West Wind Power, which developed some of the earliest projects up in Altamont — in the days when the tax incentives were tied to the individual turbines. If you wanted to take advantage of the tax benefits, you would actually own a turbine and the transmission, and you would have a piece of the access. So if you had a wind project with 100 very small kilowatt machines, you would have 100 owners. And I know this for a fact, because one of my very early jobs was to try to fix all the title issues on one of these wind projects where all of the turbines had been individually owned. The starting premise was: go out, find all these people, and get them to sign a release to terminate their interest. We were trying to clear the land to do a repower. Luckily, all of that evolved to where we now just have a single owner on these projects. But it's hard to imagine the complexity in those days.

Nico Johnson

Who was the founder of Sea West? I was looking for any sort of remnant of information and couldn't find any.

Kimberlee Centera

That was Chuck Davenport — Charles Davenport. That early education, being in that environment where there was definitely a pioneer attitude in a small company — we also did our own contracting work, what you'd now call EPC. We would do our own construction. It was financed, of course, but it was fun because from the developer seat, we got to experience not only the financing but the actual construction of the projects and what goes into that. A lot of that formulated my later experience.

Nico Johnson

You know, one of the things I found looking back to the turn of the century, around 2001 — Renewable Energy World at that time was one of the only outlets highlighting the work being done in renewables. And I found an article: "Oil Giant Enters Market for U.S. Wind Energy." Shell, right? It's fascinating to me. Nothing is new under the sun. All these people talking about BP and Shell and their investments in renewables — it's literally the same playbook from 20 years ago.

Kimberlee Centera

I think that's the beauty of this business. We were just talking about it yesterday with my team — you can sit down and have a conversation, and within pretty short order you're going to find out that the same people worked on the same project. It's a very small industry, and it's really always stayed that way from the very beginning.

Nico Johnson

Sea West was acquired by AES, and that's where the story really takes a turn — the juxtaposition of small developer versus large independent power producer, which had most of its assets in reciprocating engines and fossil fuels at that time. Can you talk about the process of going from a relatively small, startup-feeling company developing wind assets to being a part of AES?

Kimberlee Centera

It was such a huge change. I like to tell people that I really became an expert at financing because it was a necessity. When we were Sea West, all of our money came from external third parties. When you know you're dependent upon something, you get really good at making sure you understand — going into the transaction — that you can get a deal closed. When we became AES, it was such a huge shift, because suddenly we could ask the question: is this balance sheet, or are we going to bring in external financing, and in what sequence? We never started to turn dirt until we had our financing in place, because we had to issue title insurance, and there are all kinds of issues associated with starting construction prior to having your debt closed and on record.

Also, the magnitude of our projects changed — we went from developing 15-megawatt projects to developing 250-megawatt projects. It had a whole different effect on the kinds of projects, the size, how we played in the market. When you're a smaller company, you're reaching out to everyone. When you're a larger company, they're reaching out to you. There were challenges too — when we were a smaller company, all the hierarchy was local, so decisions could be made more easily. With larger companies, things take a little longer. But it became a really compelling part of my story, because it helps me help my clients know the kinds of questions to ask and how we're going to set up for risk, depending on who the players in the market are.

Nico Johnson

At the time of the acquisition, Sea West was billed as the top wind developer. How did you perceive that the market responded, beyond just the financing?

Kimberlee Centera

I think it demonstrated their commitment to the renewable market and their commitment to bringing in the best team. And still today, Nico, in all the clients I've talked to and all the development teams I've had the pleasure to work with, I still think back to the brain trust that comprised that team — I've not seen it replicated in the market. It was such a blessing to work with a team that had worked together for a long time. We had a real camaraderie, an understanding of each of our individual skill sets. By the time we got to AES and had the opportunity to start developing these very large-scale projects, we were able to bring all of that experience and collaboration to those projects. We were fortunate to develop what became one of the most profitable projects for AES at the time, and I attribute that to our team and the way we knew how to think about all the different pieces and how to put it all together.

Nico Johnson

Paint a picture for me of that decade of work between the AES acquisition and 2012, when you were no longer working for either AES or Silver Ridge.

Kimberlee Centera

We had an opportunity to have a really aggressive expansion across the U.S. We were looking in many different markets — I did some work in South America. There was a commitment on the part of AES to be a very significant contributor to the renewables market, which they had demonstrated by bringing in this top development team that they knew could execute. Because our business is about being able to execute on projects — that's really where the rubber hits the road. And all these projects are difficult. Every single one. It's not easy.

Kimberlee Centera

Those years were an opportunity to really hone that skill. And at that time we were starting to go into solar — very early days, 2006, 2007. I had a chance to start working on solar around 2007, 2008 — starting to look at agreements and the issues we were going to deal with. There was a lot of commitment to that growth and expansion.

Nico Johnson

It's 2012-ish, and you have a decision to make. Can you take me to the room where you had the opportunity to decide where you wanted your career path to go? Do I step out on my own and trust that I've built the kind of skills that make an entrepreneur go — or take one of the many job offers?

Kimberlee Centera

It was a very interesting time, because I had built a long career in the capacity of being an employee, and that was a comfortable, known position. In the year following 2012, as I was assessing my options, I was actually in negotiations on a couple of different opportunities. The idea behind those opportunities was that I would go help these entities build their renewable division — use my project experience and contacts. And as I thought more and more about pursuing that kind of opportunity, I started to ask myself: what if I did this for me? What would it look like if I created something where it was an opportunity just for me to take those steps? I was starting to form a vision of what I thought the future might look like. And despite a lot of what I was being told, there was a part of me that had doubts. I thought, if I really want to create this vision, this future, then what if I take a chance on myself?

Especially as a woman — you don't necessarily have a lot of role models to look at in renewables and say, okay, she's done a great job over there, I want to replicate what she did. I didn't know it at the time, but I know now that I had to be willing to take that first step, take the leap, just kind of walk off the cliff and trust. You don't have all the answers, and you're not going to have all the answers. But the first thing I wanted to do was reach out to my network — so many wonderful people I'd worked with through the years — and start to say: Could you see me doing this? What do you think? Here's what I'm thinking. I really have to call out Howard Sussman, who was at Stoel — just so wonderful and always willing to give his time. Unfortunately, he's no longer with us, but I would say, would you meet with me and let me strategize with you a little bit?

I remember one month in particular, I had 30 meetings in a month. Breakfast meetings, lunch meetings, dinners — whatever people were willing to do to meet with me. From that, I ended up getting some business, but I also got a lot of good ideas and suggestions. Being willing to ask questions, and realizing that people are willing and able — they're excited to help you. They wanted me to succeed. That was a wonderful piece of information to have. We don't often get the opportunity to reach out to people and give them a chance to help us.

Nico Johnson

You're also kind of a deal junkie, and it's evident in the way you run your business — you're so actively involved in client engagement. What did you love about those early days of development that you carry with you now as a CEO who helps other developers navigate and mitigate risk in their projects?

Kimberlee Centera

For me, in a lot of respects, it's been about the people — being able to go into communities and have a grassroots effect of understanding the concerns, hearing what the issues were, and then really being able to respond to that. I've had so many great conversations with so many people through the years. I rode shotgun out in Wyoming when we were previewing a lot of our property for our Foote Creek projects, and one of the landowners out there — his grandmother had shot a bear in the front yard. He had these crazy stories. I spent time up in Oregon walking the land — a lot of time really walking the land. And for me, it became personal.

I feel so strongly that renewables is about communities. It's really about communities. And I don't know that we do a good enough job in renewables of really making it personal for people. I've seen communities change in and out of Texas — Abilene, what the city looked like in the early days and how it evolved. That to me has always been really compelling. I had one landowner who called me for 25 years whenever she had questions — we had long since sold the projects and moved on. Eventually I was dealing with her daughter, and then her granddaughter. It's been those relationships that were always really compelling for me.

Nico Johnson

If someone tuning in hasn't figured it out by now, you really are a land expert. How do you think about distinguishing yourself from the competition?

Kimberlee Centera

We think about that a lot. One of the things we've found is if we can get the phone call and we can project-talk, then people understand and know that we know a lot, and that there are a lot of ways we can help them be smarter. This is a tough business. It's tough to have projects succeed, and you've got to be smart about how you approach things. There are always things that are going to come out of the blue, but as many as we can identify early on and address early on — it's really about helping our clients leverage what we already know. Let's not make those same mistakes; I've already made them. We're working in markets all across the U.S. We've seen a lot. I'm an expert witness in a very large case right now that happens to involve mineral severance. So I really want to help our clients, and especially our developers — a lot of people are coming into renewables, and we're working with a lot of those people.

Nico Johnson

What do you think developers really need to understand about land as it pertains to the impact it can have on the success of these large utility-scale projects?

Kimberlee Centera

One of the most important leverage pieces we have is time. We can either use time to our advantage, or it's going to be used against us on these deals as we get close to the closing. There's a series of best practices we want to look at, and with our market experience, a lot of times we're helping our clients address portfolios of issues. If I'm sitting down talking to you about your projects, I'm going to want to say: when is your NTP, when are you planning COD — and back up from those timeframes. Maybe one of the things that's really important is not looking at something in isolation as just a lease. This is a whole project that's going to have to have all these different components — including your transmission and all of that.

Nico Johnson

Some of the things you've taught me — curative documentation, crossing matrices, subordination — they tend to be confusing. Can you help unpack some of that for us?

Kimberlee Centera

It's surprising how often we'll look at a portfolio of projects — doing some M&A work or review work — and we'll start out with, okay, where is the list that you have, so we can compare it and make sure that you're getting what you think you're getting. A lot of times those things don't align, for a lot of different reasons. Most of the time we can fix those issues, but that perfected site control is what is going to take you into financing. That's when you start talking about subordination and probate documentation and affidavits. There's a very long list of things that are going to be needed for a financing.

Nico Johnson

Can you give me some examples of why I should care about subordination?

Kimberlee Centera

Subordination and curative work — I like to say it's just not that sexy. It's something a lot of people don't care about unless you're sitting in a transaction closing and you're trying to put a value on what happens if we lose this piece of property in the middle of our project because the lender forecloses. We have one wind project where it took a long time to get the subordination — the bank had a specific process. They're not in a hurry just because we're in a hurry. They try to be sympathetic to our closing schedules, but that doesn't always happen. And this bank actually told our developer — who was in the process of starting construction — that if they started construction on this particular piece of property, it would put the landowner in default.

If you're sitting in the EPC seat, you know a lot of these projects have deadlines for utilities, deliverables, all kinds of penalties that kick in. It's not easy to just move a construction team to a whole other wind turbine — they're following a set plan. If you've got to move a team out, that can easily cost $250,000 to $300,000. And in a lot of cases, this might be a $100,000 mortgage. But with these lenders, you've got to play by their rules.

Nico Johnson

One of the biggest issues developers coming into the space don't initially understand is rights of way. We dealt with this a lot in Latin America, where developers would have a parcel of land and were going to interconnect some kilometers away, and they had not done any real work on the rights of way — the actual access to the interconnection point. How common is that now, and what other items like that come up when you're thinking about whether a project will work?

Kimberlee Centera

I think it's absolutely paramount for transmission, and it does get overlooked. We had one client recently who was surprised to learn that the access to transmission all has to be part of the survey, all has to be part of the title insurance — everything has to be buttoned down. All the same curative work has to be done. That's going to be the expectation. Those pieces are going to be as critical as where the improvements are for the project. It all becomes part of the same financing package and the security.

One of the trends we've seen in our business is right-of-way review work, because it can get very detailed. We looked at a 30-mile transmission line that had probably every kind of ownership you could have — from state lands to tribal lands to federal lands, public agencies, private individuals. There's a very complex strategy that needs to go into acquiring that and then perfecting it. And with a lot of the transmission work being done now, there are two- or three-hundred-mile lines in some cases that are going to be installed. In our business, we typically don't have the power of eminent domain like the utilities have. So it becomes a matter of figuring out a way to work with a party — and if we can't, we may have to look at some costly alternatives.

Nico Johnson

A lot of the work you do helps position clients to make decisions around timelines, and your deep understanding of what's required to keep the financing train on track is what keeps clients coming back and referring folks to you. How have you synthesized that information in a way that helps your team scale and helps your clients succeed?

Kimberlee Centera

We spend a lot of time thinking about tools and creating tools that are really easy, because our world in real estate and title has its own language. People don't understand it — they don't even know the questions to ask. So a lot of our work revolves around taking information and being able to synthesize it in a way that we can present to our clients so they can quickly make decisions. We deliver material in many different forms to give them a lot of different ways to look at it and understand it.

We created a very specific product for one of our clients recently who wanted to do some early-stage assessment on projects and understand a lot of details around title. We said, share with us your portfolio of projects, we'll take a look at the market structure — and we ended up creating reports and deliverables that their project teams can review to make decisions. When should we start certain entities? If we've got a COD or NTP coming, what are our milestone dates? When do we need to be thinking about things?

Kimberlee Centera

I get asked a lot to go in and present. I was just asked recently to give a minerals presentation to a development team, because they said, look, we know minerals is a hot topic right now, we know we need to be concerned about it — can you help our development team think about it the right way? And I love when people ask those kinds of questions, because there's an opportunity for us to leverage what we know to help our developers make better decisions. That's what we want to do at the end of the day.

Nico Johnson

What was your higher purpose for creating TerraPro Solutions — when you think about being an entrepreneur creating fertile ground to support other people as employees and to help clients?

Kimberlee Centera

One of the things that has been really gratifying for me is — when I started in renewables, I had a lot of great mentors who were men, who afforded me the opportunity. When I said, I want to try this, they said, yes, try it. Go ahead. That in a lot of respects is how I ended up doing what I'm doing. Through my business, I'm able to create that same environment of nurturing people, supporting people, learning what their strengths are, and providing them with those opportunities. Most of the people who work for me never worked in renewables before. They had maybe some basic knowledge or a desire, and I said, hey, do you want to come work with me? We're doing this renewable thing, and I think you've got skills we could really use.

We've really seen people evolve and seen their talent evolve, and I love that about our business. We happen to have a lot of great women on our team — it's not a bias, it's just worked out that way, because they were a lot of the really smart people in the room. Everyone who works for me started doing something and has evolved into something else, and I love that there's no one telling me you can't do that. It is, in a lot of respects, my way of paying it forward. I love talking to young women who are trying to carve out a career in renewables. I love to encourage them, and I love to connect them to people that I know.

Nico Johnson

What were some of the key questions you asked in those coffee meetings with mentors like Howard Sussman, that you encourage people to ask when you're mentoring?

Kimberlee Centera

First of all, people need to ask. Just ask for the meeting. Early in our careers, we're a little apprehensive — they're too busy, they're not going to respond, they don't have time for me. I learned to ask. I learned that people want to help you. They want you to succeed. But besides asking, you have to be willing to receive — willing to listen. Go to that meeting with questions, but be willing to receive. I met with a young woman recently who said, when I was new in this role, I spent a lot of time just listening — sitting in meetings and listening to learn and understand. I thought that was great. And when I meet women, I tell them: we need you in renewables. We need you in groups like WRISE and some of these other groups that are working to create great careers for women. Come work with us, bring your ideas, sit with us around the table, and help us create that future.

Nico Johnson

What resources do you recommend for folks trying to get into the industry?

Kimberlee Centera

We work hard to leverage the internal experience of the team that we have — we have an awesome team, and we've really hand-picked and cultivated our team and our culture. Our values are super important to me, and we've worked really hard to create that culture. It is hard work as a leader, every day. Beyond that, there are great organizations like Women in Cleantech and Sustainability, and WRISE — Women in Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy. There are a lot of good groups out there. And finding mentors — within your own environment and even outside of it. I'm preparing to reach out to a mentor I just heard speak recently, because I loved his talk on culture. So even I am in that place of feeling a little apprehensive — I know he's busy, is he going to make time for me?

Nico Johnson

Give us a peek inside the brilliance of that networking you've honed over the years. How do you anticipate getting him to respond to an email?

Kimberlee Centera

First of all, referrals are wonderful — find someone that knows that person who can introduce you. And I made this mistake: when I was working and I had a job, I felt I didn't need to build a network. I didn't learn until I had my own business the power of really having that network. It used to be the power of the Rolodex, and of course now it's evolved. Just take the first step and reach out. Everyone knows someone they look up to. Find something about what that person is doing that speaks to you, that's compelling to you, and then be willing to ask questions.

I tell a story when I'm speaking about being at a conference — and these renewable conferences are still a sea of men in black and blue suits. They had a luncheon, and I was a little late getting there. So I walked into the room, and there are all these tables. Do you take the safe table where there were several open seats and probably some young people new to the business? Or do you pick the table where all the men are seated and maybe there's one open chair? I really challenged myself to go up to the table where it was all the men, in the middle of a conversation, and say, "Hey, do you mind if I join you?" And they were like, "Oh, sure." Men are wonderful — they made a place, introduced themselves, made me feel welcome. That's what we have to do. We have to be willing to take that step and be a little uncomfortable. Challenge yourself.

And the other thing I did is I asked questions. I was seated next to a great person, super friendly, and I said, what's top of mind for you? What books are you reading right now? A great recommendation for a book came back — ordered it, read it. It's not rocket science, but a lot of it is just that. And in our role as leaders, we have an obligation to make ourselves available. When a young person reaches out to me, I will make it a point to make myself available. I'll schedule the lunch. I feel it's a reciprocal obligation — we need to instruct people to make the ask, and then we need to reciprocate by making ourselves available.

Nico Johnson

With a bunch of trade shows upon us — what's one good conversation starter that you've found tends to work from a cold start?

Kimberlee Centera

A lot of the conversations just start with small, sincere questions. When I'm approaching someone, I usually just start with small talk — what do you think about the conference? What's top of mind for you? Sometimes we make a mistake, especially if we don't feel real confident talking about ourselves. But probably the most important thing we can do that opens up any good conversation is to be asking the other person: what are you interested in? How is this conference for you? And then really being present and listening. In fact, it's something I'm working on right now — I need to ask more questions.

Nico Johnson

I'm a professional question-asker, so I'll drop one in for you that always works really well: some version of "What are you working on lately that's got you excited?" An easy one if you just don't know the person: "Hey, what's your story?" Three words that have so much power. And if you maybe know the person a little bit: "What was the highlight of your day?" or "the highlight of your week?" It gives people a bright spot to point to — and if they don't have one, guess what, your conversation is going to get really interesting.

Kimberlee Centera

I love that. "The highlight of your day" — that's awesome.

Nico Johnson

Are there any trends you're seeing as we navigate rising interest rates and uncertain delivery schedules for equipment? How do you see developers managing and mitigating risk right now?

Kimberlee Centera

We're in an interesting market where we've seen a lot of pivots happen, and we're getting a lot of calls for early-stage work — a lot of market work going on. People are excited about projects and trying to do early-stage work to get projects under control and get them going. But the other thing we're seeing is somebody will call and say, look, we want to get this project over the finish line by the end of the year — six months. And if you know this business, trying to close financing and start construction in six months is pretty aggressive, especially if you're starting at zero, or maybe even at fifty percent. In that case, we want to get real smart, real fast. What are our long lead-time items? What do we need to be solving for right away? Those are the things we're helping our clients look at. And I love a challenge — I love it when somebody says we're doing closings and building projects.

From a trends perspective, I think we're going to see a lot of deals being made. We're seeing a lot of smaller, earlier-stage developers bringing projects into the market, and I think there's going to be a lot of interest in those projects. I heard recently on a call regarding financing that there's still a lot of money out there — a lot of money to invest. It's going to be conservative; they're going to be looking at a lot of different pieces. So don't wait. Let's get together now. Let's talk now, take a look at the portfolio, understand where you are and what markets you're in, and have your teams thinking about those milestones with a good plan. Those are some of the best things we can be doing to move things forward.

Nico Johnson

Do you see anything right now with regard to module allocations or import delays causing unanticipated project delays that folks should be concerned about?

Kimberlee Centera

It really varies. We were talking to a developer the other day that has a lot of panels available — they're very bullish on proceeding. I always ask, are you worried about status on tariffs or where things are? It really depends a lot on the individual. We saw recently that a consortium of developers got together and made a really huge investment in panels — I think one of them was AES. What that indicates to me is that there are a lot of people out there thinking about ways to make sure they have what they need to keep projects going forward.

Nico Johnson

I believe that leaders are readers and readers are leaders. I'd love to know what books have been particularly important or even indelible to you in the way you've thought about creating the business or the life that gives you meaning.

Kimberlee Centera

I've certainly read some great books. I read "Own It" by Sallie Krawcheck, and I loved that book from the perspective of thinking about women — she covers a whole series of subjects that women don't often think about and talk about. She's also very optimistic in her projections for women, and control and management of finances. That was very interesting to me.

But there were some books that were personal. I read John Lewis's book about building the bridge, where he talks about working with Martin Luther King early on and the strategy they set up for the civil rights movement. It really gave me a view into the world from his eyes, and I realized there was a whole world going on that I wasn't necessarily aware of. The other book I read was called "The Three Mothers" — the story of the mothers and their lives and their sons, and the things they managed around to raise these men who became such influencers. Ultimately, these women all sacrificed their sons in different ways. As a mother and as a leader, it was an interesting read. A lot of what I read stayed with me. It really impacted my thinking about what our hopes and dreams are for the future.

Nico Johnson

The book you just mentioned, by the way, is called "The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation."

Kimberlee Centera

Yes, thank you. I always remember just enough to be dangerous! That's why I have to surround myself with an awesome team — I always just say, let's go chase that thing or create that new thing, and they all make me look good.

Nico Johnson

Is there anything on your nightstand that you're reading now?

Kimberlee Centera

Rediscovering joy — I'm reading a book on joy by Desmond Tutu. For me, that's peace and joy — especially peace. I have my personal values as well as our company values, and mine are courage, humility, and wisdom. I want to bring my best self to my work and to my life, and that's an evolution — I think it takes our whole lives. I'm trying to be very purposeful about the person that I show up as every day, and being much more aware of how I influence. We had this conversation with our team recently about how it starts at the top. You can't create a culture if it's not true, if it's not really who you are.

Nico Johnson

As we always do at the end, our final question — what we call our bold prediction. What one thing do you see happening in the marketplace that maybe nobody else is tracking? What's in your crystal ball?

Kimberlee Centera

I think we're going to see lots of deals, based upon the early-stage work that we see. There's a lot of excitement in the market, and people are planning to develop projects in wind and solar. It's all happening, and we're really excited to be a part of it. One of the things maybe we're most proud of is working on one of the first wind projects in Mississippi. From my many years of wind projects, I remember hearing, "Someday there'll be wind in the South." We had the opportunity to work on that, and I think it's going to be a game changer. It just takes someone to do it for the first time, right?

Nico Johnson

And there's some interesting offshore activity happening in the Southeast, on the coast of North and South Carolina. Things are getting interesting for wind again.

Kimberlee Centera

Absolutely. And five years down the road, maybe longer, we'll see offshore off California.

Nico Johnson

There you go — that's a great little crystal ball for us. Kimberlee Centera is the founder and CEO of TerraPro Solutions. Kimberlee, it has genuinely been my pleasure and honor to host you on SunCast today. I hope that you come back and see us sometime.

Kimberlee Centera

Thank you, Nico. It's been a lot of fun, and I appreciate the time.