When I started at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) 12 years ago, we were an industry that generated the equivalent of an industrial boiler’s worth of energy each year. Solar was the most expensive energy source, with barely a footprint outside of a few states. SEIA had three staff, a month-to-month office and 65 members.

If you had asked me back then - as I was fighting to save SEIA’s nonprofit tax status, regain our D.C. business license and deliver on a budget of $350,000 - whether I thought that one day I would be presiding over a well-honed lobbying machine representing an industry that was installing more generating capacity than natural gas, I would have smiled and said Hell Yes.

In those early days, it was clear to me that solar had the potential to be massive if we could only crack the code. And although colleagues in Washington joked that I was making a bad career move, it was in the first board meetings - during which more members were wearing Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirts than Brooks Brothers suits - that I knew I was in the right place. Those Hawaiian shirts were emblematic of the positive attitude combined with vision, passion, homebrews, late nights and a healthy dose of ignorance that helped us put together the plan that would get us where we are today.

Now we are riding the hockey-stick curve of success upward on the front lines of a clean energy revolution that is taking over our country. Recently, the solar community celebrated the fact that, after more than 40 years, we have eclipsed 1 million solar installations in this country, and we are on the fast track, set to hit our second million in just two years.

We achieved this success through a strategic series of policy victories that created markets; technology innovation that led to a massive drop in prices; and an effective singular industry voice that helped cultivate a national passion for clean and affordable energy. And while I want to be very clear that I did not make all of this happen, I am proud to be a part of it.

In April, I announced that after 12 remarkable years at the helm of SEIA, I was stepping down as president and CEO at the end of May. I leave feeling confident that SEIA will carry on the significant progress we have made during my tenure.

One of the first things I focused on when I started was establishing SEIA as the voice of the solar industry. We became a powerful advocate for the industry, representing all technologies and all markets, including residential, commercial and industrial, and utility-scale solar. I wanted us to be the voice of the industry so that when members of Congress in either party had questions, they would come to us. When the president or the administration had questions, they would come to us. When the media had issues, they’d come to us. And they did.

We have passed some of the most important legislation in the energy industry and have opened markets throughout the country. We passed the investment tax credit (ITC), which jump-started the industry, in 2005 and most recently executed an ITC extension that will provide unprecedented market stability for the industry through 2023.  

  Together, we expanded state renewable portfolio standards and protected and enhanced net energy metering laws to expand markets for distributed solar. We created dozens of initiatives that streamlined the siting, permitting and financing of large-scale solar energy projects. And don’t forget the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which included 17 separate provisions for solar - all driven out of ideas from our first policy summit in 2008.

We created Solar Power International, a conference and trade show that became a financial engine for the association and the best party in the industry. We founded the Solar Foundation and helped it grow into a self-sustaining organization that provides essential services to the industry. We took over the Solar Alliance and pumped millions of dollars into advancing state policy.

But the industry cannot rest on its laurels. We cannot afford to become complacent and turn our backs on Washington or the state legislatures. Frankly, we need to take a page from the playbook of mature industries like the oil and gas industry, the automotive industry, and others. We must be relentless in educating members of Congress and their staff, building coalitions, and informing the public and state policymakers about the benefits of solar.

Even as we must continue to advocate aggressively in Washington, the industry is going to need to devote significant resources and dedicate top professionals to work in the states, where new battles are cropping up every week. It should be obvious at this point that our opponents are ramping up in the states, and we need to also.

I look back on my time with deep gratitude for the great people I have met along the way. From the individual members who are building this industry one installation at a time, to my many mentors, to solar champions of all kinds who motivated me to fight as hard as I could for solar every day.  

I am honored to have made a small contribution to help create an industry that has such a positive impact on the U.S. economy, energy security and the environment. With the ITC effectively extended through 2023 and solar energy markets growing throughout the country, now is the right time for me to move on to new challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.  

Anyone who has been a CEO will tell you that after 12 years running an organization and the accompanying high passions and high expectations, a little bit of down time is in order. But it’s also time to pull out the Hawaiian shirt again and get back to planning a path that will catapult solar energy to its next set of record-shattering milestones. - Rhone Resch