There are many roads that lead to a career in the solar industry, and STG Solar (No. 44 on the 2022 Top Solar Contractors List) of Brevard, North Carolina, was brought here by fulfilling a favor.
Credit: STG Solar
Founder and president Mike Kilpatrick started the electrical subcontractor Southern Tradesmen Service Group back in 2011. Business then was strictly electrical, laying lines in new construction projects for clients like hotel chains and big-box retailers.
STG’s reputation as an experienced electrical subcontractor inspired a friend of Kilpatrick’s to reach out and ask if the company could help with some electrical work on a “solar farm” commissioned by Facebook in North Carolina in 2014.
“A solar what? I was clueless. I didn’t know what he was talking about,” he said.
Kilpatrick brought several crews to the project site and was immediately taken by the prospect of generating electricity through sunlight at this scale. Shortly after, Kilpatrick and his crews were contracted to salvage electrical work on another solar project in Rosedale.
“To tell you the truth, it was far more gratifying building a power plant in the middle of a field as opposed to going and wiring up the next big-box retailer,” Kilpatrick said. “I really at that point in time didn’t know if I would go 100% solar, but the next thing you know, everybody is asking for us, requesting us and asking how many farms a year we can build. So here we go — that’s what we do now.”
After some research into the industry, the company changed its name and began focusing on large-scale solar installation in the Southeast. Kilpatrick said moving into solar installation was a natural transition for STG’s electricians. They already had years of experience building distribution and electrical systems. The biggest difference from electrical subcontracting was working outside.
“We found it easier, but the selling point to my team, too, was they really enjoyed it, I enjoyed it — we all enjoyed being a part of this clean energy movement,” Kilpatrick said.
STG Solar currently employs over 200 people, several of whom all share the last name Kilpatrick. Despite its size, Mike Kilpatrick and his son Logan, junior project manager at STG, still consider the company a family business.
“We used to say, ‘I don’t know whether it’s better to be a son or one of his guys,’” Logan Kilpatrick said. “When it’s a family company, it’s something that we all believe in. It is our family, so for me it’s beautiful. It’s what we rely on. It’s what we built our lives on. It’s the legacy of our father.”
Many of the electricians who started with the company prior to the shift to solar are still there today. STG prioritizes keeping all solar-related services, like installing fiber-optic networks or driving structural beams, in-house. Given the volatility of the solar supply chain, STG is leveraging its varied service offerings to give clients realistic and consistent construction timelines.
The Kilpatricks attribute all of these factors — employee retention, in-house construction services and a history of large-scale electrical work — to STG’s longevity and its ability to compete at the utility-scale in a region home to other larger solar developers.
“It’s fun for me to go up against some really big, seasoned companies and be able to actually have bragging rights that we built over 700 MW, and I’ve got the same clients I’ve had back then, and the same employees I’ve had back then,” Mike Kilpatrick said. “We’re from Podunk, nowhere-land USA, but by golly, we’re a bad, mean, solar machine.”
This story was featured exclusively in our 2022 Top Solar Contractors issue. See the issue and full list of top U.S. solar installers here.
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