Meet Tripper Gawan – Instructor Spotlight

The best clean energy education comes from people who’ve done the work. Not only studied it, but shown up on job sites, solved the hard problems, and grown through the process. Those are the instructors HeatSpring is built around.

The Instructor Spotlight series introduces them. Each feature pulls back the curtain on the professionals driving clean energy education forward and the experiences that made them who they are.

Say hello to Tripper Gawan!

Courses on HeatSpring: Solar Construction Safety, Solar Construction Safety – en Español – Spanish, and Hand & Power Tools for Construction Professionals 

What was your first job in the industry?

Installer level 1 – I was hired at Vivint Solar in Mesa, Arizona, as an installer. I still recall the Operations Manager (who was much younger than I) asking where I saw myself in one year. I stated that if I did not have his level of position, I had done something very wrong. I had been in leadership almost my entire life and knew that once I gained the knowledge of what solar was and how the field and office worked together I could lead an entire office. I became an Operations Manager within 10 months. 

How many years have you been in the industry?

I am in my 14th year.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?

Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence or simple error/misunderstanding.

What’s a quote you think about often?

Integrity is doing what is right even when no one is looking. 

This permeates my being; I want to be a good guy that does good guy things. In life it’s all about how I perceive and feel about myself when I am alone and the self assessment is able to speak the loudest. 

What are your hobbies?

They used to be numerous and now it’s just work, family and Jiu Jitsu. I have been training for just over 5 years and I will have been a purple belt for two years here in May. 

What’s a fun fact about you that your students don’t know?

I lived in Europe/Germany for almost 2 years in a small village of about 2,000 people and I was the only American there. I learned how to be without family and how to make friends even with extreme language barriers. 

What’s a tradition or habit you’re proud of?

Continuously improving in one area of life or another. I feel unsatisfied with stagnancy or lack of growth. I must learn, develop, or improve in some capacity or I feel like entropy is taking over. 

If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Burritos. Aren’t they the perfect food? 

Anything else you think would be fun to share?

There is no perfection, only improvement and development. We should all be more kind and expectant of ourselves through that kindness lens. Jiu Jitsu has taught me to judge myself only against my past self and not use others’ achievements or abilities for reflection. They say comparison is the thief of joy… I would amend this slightly to say that comparing oneself to others is the true thief of joy. Comparison to your former self is a healthy barometer for ongoing improvement; however, improvement can be measured in many ways. Expecting to improve how fast you run a mile as you age may not be the best scale to measure against. Simply put: Are you improving in some capacity in your life where your past self would be proud?