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At 15, Kyle Barber started working at the Captain coal mine in southern Illinois — “following in the footsteps of my forefathers,” he says.
It was 1996, and the mine was closing, so his job involved swinging sledgehammers and scrambling down dangerously steep hillsides to retrieve huge rolls of discarded chain-link fence. He knew this was not the industry he wanted to spend his life working in.
Barber had long been fascinated by clean energy; he even won a grade school contest designing a solar canopy to go over highways. After graduating from college, he connected with the southern Illinois solar company AES to learn the trade, and in 2010 founded his own solar company, EFS. In 2017, he began teaching in a solar workforce training program in Peoria, Illinois, that was created by the state’s Future Energy Jobs Act (FEJA), which went into effect that same year.
Now, Barber is spreading the gospel of solar from the Scott Bibb Center at Lewis and Clark Community College in the southwestern Illinois city of Alton, on the banks of the Mississippi River. It’s one of 14 clean energy jobs hubs created by the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), successor to FEJA. And it shows how even in the wake of dire federal cuts to clean energy programs, a well-funded and thoughtfully implemented state program can foster a robust transition to renewables on the local level.
Barber has been on the faculty at Lewis and Clark since February 2020, originally teaching classes on solar through a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. After the pandemic, Barber saw interest in the solar training program surge. CEJA allowed the school to bolster its offerings with wraparound social services and basic education, helping a wider range of students overcome barriers and prepare for careers in the industry.
With one of his former students, Richie Darling, Barber cofounded a nonprofit, Solar Workforce Development, to teach courses on solar installation, marketing, technology, and other aspects of the business at CEJA workforce hubs and elsewhere around the state, including Richland Community College in Decatur, where leaders are pinning their hopes on electric vehicle manufacturing.
Darling was this summer named manager of the Alton CEJA hub based at Lewis and Clark. Barber teaches classes there and also owns the residential and commercial solar company BKJ, having sold his interest in EFS.
Another of Barber’s proteges, Austin Frank, founded a solar company called ARF that installed a 100-kilowatt array on the Bibb Center roof. Thanks to federal and state incentives and labor donated by Frank’s company, the system cost the school nothing and saves the institution about $5,000 a month in energy bills, covering 40% of the building’s energy, he said. Frank has hired multiple graduates from Lewis and Clark.
“It all starts with Kyle,” said Darling. “It’s like vertical integration. We’re training people in solar, getting contractors set up, and then we have solar on the roof.”
For six decades, residents of Alton breathed pollution from the nearby Wood River coal plant. The plant closed in 2016, taking around 90 jobs with it, and the facility was spectacularly imploded in 2021. Clean energy advocates have proposed a solar farm be built on the site.
Alton was founded more than 200 years ago at the confluence of the Mississippi, Illinois, and Missouri rivers. The city was once a booming industrial and commercial center, but its fortunes have declined as has its population, which now hovers near 25,000, though a smattering of trendy breweries, restaurants, and antique stores attract visitors from the St. Louis area and beyond.
The college qualified to be a workforce training hub under CEJA because the Alton area is home to a closed coal plant and because the state has deemed that the community was historically excluded from economic opportunities. CEJA prioritizes job creation and clean energy deployment in such spots, to make sure the clean energy transition benefits those who were harmed by or left out of the fossil fuel economy.
Advocates applauded the law’s impact at a celebration of the Alton hub at Lewis and Clark last month. “Now because of CEJA,” said Francisco Lopez Zavala, climate policy program associate of the Illinois Environmental Council, hubs like the community college “are helping to build Illinois’s clean energy future, which in turn makes our air easier to breathe, our communities healthier, and our grid more resilient.”
Under CEJA, students are paid to take the clean energy and related basic skills courses. At Lewis and Clark, students can choose from four tracks: solar, energy efficiency, HVAC/ heat pumps, and a Climate Works pre-apprenticeship program affiliated with labor unions. Since launching last fall, the school’s program has graduated 57 students in 10 cohorts — five focused on solar, one on energy efficiency, one on HVAC, and three in pre-apprenticeship. Ninety-five percent of enrolled students have graduated, and eight companies, including ARF, have already hired graduates.
CEJA also sets aside money to reduce barriers for students, who can apply for funding for everything from car repairs and bus passes to electric bills and child care. This opportunity lasts for a full year after graduation. Each hub has a navigator organization that administers the aid; in Alton’s case, that’s Senior Services Plus, a social service agency that helps people of all ages.
“We’re bringing people from barely being able to get to class, because of barriers, to getting them hired,” Darling said.
During the August event, current students enthused about the program and the opportunities it creates. In one of the HVAC classes, Michael Mahon Jr. said he wants to set a good example for his daughter, and John Bone said he wants to solve the problems of greenhouse gases and ozone.
Chase Ellinger said that he is excited about the chance for a real career after bouncing between minimum-wage jobs in warehouses, bars, and landscaping. “I want to make a better world and contribute to something for real,” he added.
Other students were learning how to build energy-efficient tiny houses in a workshop on the college grounds.
Up on the roof of the Bibb Center, Frank’s employees were installing the latest addition to the solar array. Frank started his career in construction, working with his father. After a number of customers asked them about solar, “we were like, ‘Holy cow, this is the next big thing. We’ve got to get educated,’” Frank said. He enrolled in Lewis and Clark’s solar training program before it was funded by CEJA.
Following his graduation, he founded ARF Solar in 2021 and became an approved vendor for the Illinois Shines and Illinois Solar for All programs created by FEJA and expanded by CEJA. Illinois Shines provides incentives for residential, commercial, and community solar, and Illinois Solar for All offers even more robust support for deploying solar in lower-income or environmental justice areas and hiring employees who meet equity-focused criteria.
ARF has installed systems on fire stations and other municipal buildings around southern Illinois, as well as schools and churches. Frank is also hoping to branch into community solar, which allows individuals to subscribe for access to energy from a shared array.
“The state had my back,” Frank said. “It created a program for small contractors like myself to come in and have a safe space where we’re able to grow.”
People with criminal records are among those prioritized for CEJA’s equity-minded incentives, and at Lewis and Clark, multiple students and graduates said the solar training could provide a crucial job opportunity especially given barriers they’ve faced due to their pasts.
“I come from a background of poverty, addiction, and mental illness. I didn’t have anyone to teach me how to do life things,” program graduate Taryn Sensmeyer told visitors. “By the time I found recovery, I had created a lot more barriers to entry,” including “my colorful criminal history.”
She heard about the program from a friend who described it as “this weird thing you are totally going to love,” and she said the friend was right.
“I thought I’d just be showing up to learn how to install solar panels, but I got comprehensive knowledge of the whole industry and a deep passion for the environment.”
She’s now participating in an apprenticeship that will prepare her to become a journeyman electrician.
“For the first time, I can put food on the table without any outside help,” Sensmeyer said. “It’s had a ripple effect on everyone I come in contact with.”
Zachary Resmann, a current student in Barber’s class, grew up on an Illinois dairy farm and worked in solar sales. But he felt he was being taken advantage of by out-of-state solar companies flocking to the Illinois market to cash in on incentives, especially for community solar. He joined the CEJA program in hopes of becoming a contractor himself, and his background qualifies him to tap into the law’s equity funds and services. He plans to become an approved vendor under Illinois Shines and Illinois Solar for All, and develop residential arrays for the many friends and acquaintances who have asked him about solar.
“Solar power is power by the people for the people,” said Resmann, who founded the company Resolute Energy Solutions, which helps customers interested in solar, energy efficiency, and other services get quotes and connect with suppliers. “With four kids and a felony, it was hard to get hired. This has changed my life and given me hope.”
In October, a clean energy job fair will be held at the college. Resmann noted Barber’s determination to get his graduates good “W2” jobs — rather than independent contractor gigs that entail 1099 tax forms.
Barber grew up near the massive Baldwin coal plant, which is scheduled to close in 2027 — an extension from a previous 2025 closing date. A lot of renewables will be needed to replace the 1,185-megawatt plant. A 68-MW solar array and 2-MW energy storage system have already been built on its site, under the state’s coal-to-solar program.
With such demand plus state incentives and training programs, Barber is confident the solar industry has strong prospects in Illinois, despite federal rollbacks.
“Under CEJA, there is truly no limit to the number of jobs, companies, projects we can create,” he told visitors to Lewis and Clark in August. “There is no magic; it’s just hard work and determination to create a cleaner and brighter future here in Illinois.”
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