Walt Ratterman Award for Creative Community Energy
The Inspiration for the Award:
The annual Walt Ratterman Award for Creative Community Energy was created to recognize and honor Walt Ratterman, one of NABCEP’s first Certificants, who was killed while working in Haiti when the devastating earthquake struck. Walt’s astonishing renewable energy work among some of the worlds most needy was truly inspirational. Walt channeled his efforts into the non-profit company he co-founded, Sun Energy Power International The company’s mission was “to promote an increased quality of life in remote, rural regions of the world through the use of renewable energy”.
Intent:
By creating this award, we hope that Walt’s legacy will continue to inspire other renewable energy installers to follow his formidable lead.
What is taken into consideration?
The Walt Ratterman Award will be presented to the NABCEP Board Certified Professional who does the most creative public service-oriented renewable energy project of the year. Installations can be domestic or offshore and the individual can be paid for his or her work, but they must be performed at no charge for a not-for-profit or charitable organization. Considerations such as legacy, local labor and material content, on-the-job-training and project sustainability will help guide the award committee.
Who can qualify for the award?
Nominees for the award must be NABCEP Certificants in good standing and may work in any technology that NABCEP offers certifications for.
How to nominate someone:
Nominations should include details of the individual nominated, their projects, and the nominator’s reasons for the nomination. Nominations can be submitted through the Award Nomination Form or they can be emailed to Shawn O’Brien, NABCEP’s Executive Director at sobrien@nabcep.org. Nominations for the award will be accepted until January 31, 2019.
When and where the recipient of the award is announced:
The recipient of the award will be announced each year at NABCEP’s Continuing Education Conference. The next recipient of this award will be announced in March, 2019.
About Walt Ratterman
Walt Ratterman went from shop boy to Senior Vice President in the fifteen years he did work for projects with Foley Electric, Inc. (one of America’s largest electrical contractors). He subsequently founded TRC Electrical Construction Services, a commercial electrical contracting firm installing solar PV systems in Pennsylvania and Maryland. In 2003, Walt was one of the first PV installers to pass the rigorous North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) certification exam. He earned a Master of Science degree in Renewable Energy from Murdoch University in Australia, and had extensive renewable energy design and installation experience internationally.
Walt’s hands-on PV experience included residential and commercial PV installations in the eastern U.S., as well as rural solar PV installations in Nicaragua, the Galapagos Islands, southern Ecuador, Peru, Arunachal Pradesh in India, Burma, Thailand, and Rwanda with NGO organizations such as Solar Energy International and Knightsbridge International. A Commissioner of the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, Walt has participated in humanitarian relief efforts in other diverse developing nations including Afghanistan, southern Philippines, and Cambodia.