 Welcome to Hawaii Reimagine, a streaming live on Think Tech Hawaii. As we're facing massive work disruptions through the automation and now the pandemic, our challenge is to create solutions that address the future of work and the demands of the new labor market. On Hawaii Reimagine, I feature innovators and entrepreneurs who are addressing these economic and workforce issues with innovative solutions that will make a positive social impact to people in our communities. I'm Ruby Menon, your host, and my guest today is Yvette Ellis, the co-founder and Chief Workforce Officer for Charger Health. Charger Health is a California-based technology company and they've created a mobile application and web-based platform for dispatch technicians to fix electric vehicle charging stations. They provide access and opportunities to people from anywhere to get trained to work in the green economy for equitable wages. I'll be talking to Yvette about her work with Charger Health, how they're bridging workforce development with the clean tech industry, the company's focus on diversity and inclusion, and how clean tech can provide good paying jobs and train workers with the skills that they need for the future of work. And just a quick story, I saw Yvette's presentation when I intended the elemental accelerator's TEDx event, and I was super impressed with how she told her story in such an authentic and personal way, and I was equally impressed with the work that Charger Health is doing in the clean tech industry with the focus on inclusion. So Yvette, I'm so happy, you said yes after I stalked you on the TEDx event, and I asked if you'd be interested in being on the show, and you said yes, and here we are. So welcome, welcome. Thank you. So we have a lot to talk about. I wish we had more time, but I want to start learning a little bit more about you and your career path, and then what led you to become the founder co-founder of Charger Health with Camille. Okay, well, I'm Yvette, and a little bit about me, born and raised in California, Southern California, Compton, California, to be exact. You know, my career history has been in workforce development from the beginning. My first job was working for the Compton Summer Youth Program, went in to get a job to work at a local park and got there and saw what they were doing in the office, and I said, oh no, I want to do that. So I asked the lady helping me, will you guys let me work here? And she said, let me check. So I became like, it was a clerical position, but by the end of the summer, I think I was 14, by the end of the summer, I was, I had, you know, ramped me up a name. I was something coordinator. So I liked helping people, and I liked putting people to work, even at young. So my career history has been in workforce development with the Department of Labor's job core system. Last 10 years spent there, I've done contract work as career, as a career coach for Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator. So yeah, I've always worked with getting people to work. That's awesome. And then, how did you, you kind of told your story as a TEDx, but for our listeners, how did you get to charge your help? Like how, what was that evolution for you? So my co-founder, Camille Terry, and I, we were both contractors on a project at Lake Sea Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator, and she had written a curriculum for EV charging station repair, pretty much. In the cohort, I was the career coach, and she had wrote the curriculum. She was in charge of getting the group through on the technical end, and I was, you know, working with the soft skills and gearing them up to apply for jobs and be contractors. And by the end of it, she said, can I talk to you? I said, sure. I think we had maybe total four conversations prior to this. And she asked me to be her co-founder. I asked me to consider it. And I did not say no, but I did wonder why, because I wasn't techie. I wasn't environmental list, you know? And she said, well, I really want, you know, the heartbeat of the company to be workforce development. And you get that. You know, I really want to hire folks from all communities. And I need to strategically plan to do that. And that sparked my interest. And after talking over with my husband, I decided, yeah, I'm going to give it a try. So that's how we, that's how we started Charter Health. So are you juggling then your full-time work with being a co-founder at the startup as well? Yes, I did for a little while. And that's coming to a close, thankfully. I won't be doing that in 2021. We will be 100% Charter Health. So I'm excited about that. Oh, congratulations. Wow. Yeah, so I think what was so interesting about Charter Health to me was, well, just even the story of how you guys identified that there was a, that this was a problem. This was like a massive problem and nobody, nobody put their finger on it, you know? So talk a little bit about the problem that you identified and what you're trying to solve with Charter Health. Okay, so Charter Health is the on-demand repair company for EV network charging stations. So our customer is the network provider. What we do is when a charging station goes down, the driver probably calls an 800 number to the EV network provider, who is our client, who is our customer, they will then send us the ticket. We will dispatch our techs who are trained to go out and maintenance our repair the machine. And then the biggest deal is we get to send this information on why it broke, what happened, photos, videos, back to the network provider to ensure that this does not happen again. So what my co-founder discovered, her history has been working with an EV electric company before now. And what she discovered in standing up all the business that she was doing was that she was actually going out fixing the charging machines. So she would literally go out fixing the charging machines and figure it out. And she said, this could be someone's job. So that's why she decided to start Charter Health. And so, yes, we're solving a practical problem of the charging stations being fixed in a timely fashion. But also, again, the heartbeat of Charter Health is the workforce to get folks jobs. And it didn't take rocket science to do it, right? So this is not only opportunity for work, but also exposure to an industry that I believe folks in our community that we grew up in, she grew up in South Central Los Angeles. I grew up in Compton, Long Beach area, part of Southern California. I don't believe that there were many entry points for entry-level jobs. So that's what we want to create. So how many people do you have on your team right now? Yeah, on our team, we're a very small team, maybe 10 people. But we have trained 60 techs over since January. We've trained 60 technicians. Okay, that's great. Oh, and there you are. And now, the second photo here, tell us about this. Is this a class or what was going on there? Yes, this is a cohort. We've trained two cohorts of 30, you know, equating to the 60. This is one of the cohorts that we completed. They went through the technical training, the career coaching. They got a certification for safety the whole night. So when they were completed at Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator through the Charter Health curriculum, they were ready to go out. Now, out of that group, we, of course, took some for Charter Health, and others, we aided them in getting jobs. Well, Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator, you know, where they're aided to get other jobs. So project management, some work for EV car companies, some people work for charging station companies. So they're everywhere. So are the people that come into this program, do they have any background at all? Or they're just, just like coming from all walks of life and then just learning the stuff? Yeah, that's the amazing thing. You know, we, I won't say that we didn't have anybody that never heard, that ever heard of it, but most of our trainees came in with no technical background in this in particular. Of course, work history, all of them have worked before. So that part was a lot easier to do, but ever seen a charging station or working with EV network provider? No. And the wonderful thing is, it is again, you don't have to be this deeply seated person to be able to learn this, you know, we all have a cousin, a brother, a friend, a neighbor that may not have went to college, but can fix anything, you know, can can catch on, you know, and we wanted to find a space for folks like that as well. So in workforce development, some of the things that we talk a lot about are transferable skills, right? Like where you can have those transferable skills, maybe you weren't an EV technician, but you may have done something else that those skills can now transfer into this profession. Absolutely. Are there a set of skills that you've seen a pattern with, like where they might, the types of skills that might be transferable that would work really well as a bridge into this field? Yeah, you know, really anyone can do it, but I will say that, for instance, our our lead trainers in tech, one came from the gas and oil industry. So he understood the just the logistics of working in an industrial kind of setting. So that was very helpful. And his insight was really valuable to us coming from that industry. So he was really valuable. Another lead technician worked for a cable company. So he he had some experience with wiring, and it wasn't foreign to him. But we also had one person that had never seen it that picked it up and it's great at it. So, you know, it's helpful if you've seen it before, but the fact is all three of them had to go through the same training. It doesn't skip you or you can't move around it. So if you're committed to learning and maybe burning the midnight oil to really understand what you need to do, you can do it. So I wanted to focus a little bit on the training program. How long is the training program? What kind of commitment would these folks who sign up for it, like can they work another job and work full time? Or do they have to commit themselves full time to the program? Like, how does that, how does that work and fit into people's lives? The training is two weeks. Oh, that's all. That's all. And now I will say, you know, in the past, we've had their full attention. We could do it all day. You know, we did a lot more than just training to work on the charging stations. We did exposure to the industry. They had guest speakers, like it was a whole thing. Now, moving forward with just simply being training and us understanding that some folks may be working or trying to decide what they're doing or have other commitments, we may do have day trainings, but it would still equate to the two weeks. It still would be two weeks long, even if you took out the guest speakers and everything. So one week they do the electrical certification, safety certification, and then the next week is focused on really the industry, because that's the big deal is understanding how the industry works. Now our app, our technology that we created will actually help them when they get to the charging station, will help them step by step what to do, right? And they would have seen it before, but it's really not as in depth as maybe we would imagine it to be, because we're working with the software part of it, not the hardware. Of course, if an electric engineer is necessary contractor to come out, then that's who needs to come out. And that's not who we're training. We're training folks to go out and troubleshoot the machine, see if the machine can get back online and get going, communicate with the network provider, if they can't let them know what's going on with the machine, what kind of behavior the machine is having. So it's just a lot of communication. Oh, okay. Well, thanks for clarifying that, because I imagine them going out with tools and breaking out there are some because it may be something as simple as exchanging one part, right? But there are set parts, there is a parameter to what our techs can do. And if it becomes anything electrical, we need to call a electrical contractor out. Okay, well, that makes more sense. Yeah, all right. So they're really focusing more on troubleshooting the software just to make sure that the software is connecting to the network and then they're talking to each other. Yes. And if they're not, or we need to change something, then they're able to do that. But the second part of it that I think is great is again, the exposure to the industry, if they decide that they want to move further in it, they kind of get a glimpse into it, they kind of get to see all the players, you know, the network provider person on the phone, do you want to be the contractor that comes out and deals with the hardware or the installation of the machine. So there's a number of options that you are exposed to as well working in this field. So it's a great entry, you know, one thing to have an entry-level job and not see anything. And then it's another thing to have an entry-level job where you're really exposed and you're like, oh, okay, I see the career path here. So what would be the career path from this stepping stone into this clean tech industry? What have you seen people being able to go with this? One of our techs, he's in an apprenticeship for electrical contracting. So he eventually wants to be our second tier person that we call out to do some of the deeper things. So he really was interested in that. One wants to work for the network provider, they like that in, they like being the knock is what we call it. So they're interested in that and they're learning what they need to do to prepare to be that. And then one really loves what he does. And he wants to be a lead trainer and train others. So he likes the training, you know? So yeah, there's options there. And of course, when you pair this training with, say, project management, this training with other certifications that you can get in other programs, then you just beef up your resume, your skill set, and you become more marketable. So I'm not saying our training is it is all, but it is a pretty nice one to have in your build. Yeah. So in regards to the training, it sounds like right now you have a partnership with Lacey. Are there any other, are you looking at expanding that into other environments? Like, I don't know, maybe the community colleges or some other types of incubators where people can have access to this. And of course, I'm looking at Hawaii. I'm wondering if we have this problem. I'm sure we have this problem over here. I've heard you guys have that problem actually. So what are your plans for expanding the training beyond Lacey and having more people being able to avail themselves of this? Well, one thing we are committed to is not selling a false idea of green jobs everywhere, right? So we are definitely trying to secure the contracts. And as we secure contracts, we can stand up workforces in those areas. So Southern California, for instance, because we secure some contracts here, we can hire people here. So for instance, if we want to come to Hawaii, then we would have to, before we just train folks, right? We would have to have some work. We want to train and send you to work. We don't want to just train you and then get you to run around for six months. And there's really no work for what we're trying you to do. So it's really building a workforce alongside of work. So right now we are really focused on standing up business in those areas because it's a lot easier, believe it or not, to train folks than it is to stand up the business. So and we are not a gig economy kind of company. So it's not like train everybody. You know, we want to make sure that you have a sustainable, equitable pay. And the way we do that is to ensure that there's enough work for you to do. So we would love to come to Hawaii. Me personally would come and train you myself. We just have to make sure it's work there. So, you know, if we start working with the folks in Hawaii and kind of seeing like how many charging stations you guys have, you know, regular maintenance needs to be done on them. As we build that up, yes, we'll take some folks and train them absolutely. Yeah, I mean, as far as I know, we've got a very ambitious goal, I think, to be net zero, you know, the carbons are net zero level, I think by 2030, which is not that far from now. It's only 10 years, right? Right. And so we're going to need, you know, these charging stations for electric vehicles and all kinds of things. And I've already seen quite a few charging stations and parking lots and, you know, shopping malls and different things. So it does exist here. Of course, we're much smaller footprint than you are in Southern California. So, you know, probably wouldn't be nearly as much. But it does seem like it might be something that we could take a look at as a potential source of jobs in clean tech for the islands, especially probably not just Oahu, but, you know, all the islands, right? No, I mean, it really is exciting to think of the possibilities, not just with Charter Health, but as I learned different companies and what folks are doing. It's really exciting to think if we really put our minds to it, how awesome this could be and how many jobs we can create, because that really is workforce development, is creation of jobs, right? Not just the passing around of jobs, but the creation of jobs and the innovation that is necessary to do that will take all hands on deck. Everybody's going to have to think. So it's not just, oh, Charter Health is a great company, but is there work in my area where Charter Health can come and train folks in my area to work here, you know? So I think it's like the essence of workforce development is Charter Health. Yeah. Well, you're doing, you're doing the, you know, the whole, until a lot of you will, where you're providing the training and then you're being able to put, move people into the jobs, because I've seen, you know, there's been a lot of training programs out there and all kinds of things, but I think where they fall short is actually helping people move into those jobs. You have training programs and then you have companies, right? Like business. And so sometimes they're like, oh, no, we only train. Are we only do business? And we are a company, okay? And we are not a nonprofit company. We are a company and we are planning to grow in a great way in 2021. And I think we can do that and help people at the same time. I mean, it seems foreign, but it's, as my co-founder says, wild. It's wild to me that workforce development is not in the fabric of all companies, but it will definitely be in the fabric of Charter Health. If it were to work for development, we wouldn't be where we are. So I'm kind of curious in terms of wages, what can people expect in terms of a salary range in that very first step into the industry with this type of work? Well, because we are the first to do this, I can't speak for everybody. I'm sure, I'm positive like we're the first to make this like our main, you know, bread and butter. So I don't know what everyone else may pay, but we are really big on decent pay and pay that you can actually take care of your family. So I'm not a fan of minimum wage. I don't know who can live on minimum wage. And I think if you're trained and you do a good job and you are essential, whether anyone tells you you're essential, you are essential to maybe mass EV production, you know, getting our air back together. We are starting our techs off at no less than 25 bucks. Wow, that's really quite, I mean, that's I'm actually surprised. I was, I had a figure in my head and I was thinking maybe around 15 to 18. Yeah, you know, we really want to give good service. And remember, we're not hiring a million people at one time, you know, we want to grow, but we want great employees. We want folks to grow. We want people to be trained and we want our clients and our customers when they go and try to help to know that, oh, no, these folks, they don't do trash work, you know, we really want to make a dent in this mass EV adoption. We really are serious about that. And seeing everybody get a piece of this huge pie that, you know, a lot of people are eating. And I don't think I don't think entry level folks when the top tier is well into your millions, you know, $18 is crumbs. Yeah, you know, good thing when you're looking for work. Don't get me wrong, because I've made $18 and was very proud and happy about it. So I am not not going $18. But if we can do better because there is better out there, then we want to offer that to our employees. Yeah, that's that's great. So I wanted to spend a few minutes talking also about COVID because obviously COVID has been, you know, the snake that's bitten everybody. So I know that you had live in in person classes, right? And so now with COVID, what how have you adapted? Like, what kind of pivots have you had to make? Well, definitely our training, right? When COVID hit, we were going into our second cohort. And we just said, oh, it just can't be done. Like, who can teach this online? But we went ahead and and did it virtually. And we use all the tools, we got to know Zoom, we got to know happen and all the different platforms and what they do and how quickly they move. And we made it work. We actually hired a curriculum specialist to kind of revise our curriculum to make sure that it was understandable, virtually, because it's different when you're teaching virtually. And we wanted folks with all different types of learning styles to be able to participate. So maybe what we would have done in class did not come off the same virtually. So we want to try to troubleshoot that as much as possible. So the biggest thing we did was we invested in ourselves in a, in order to be able to offer it virtually. But we got through it, we did it. And they we we also at the end, we had them trained in person, like one by one, two by two, it was very slow, because we had to take all the passions and we were spread out all over the market about it, you know, but they needed some something, right. So yeah, we did it and they passed with flying colors, they're very dedicated. So we're really proud of them. Wow, that's excellent. I think we only have a maybe a couple of minutes. I wanted to find out a little bit more about your elemental accelerator experience. Are you still involved? Yes, okay. We will be on the team for a little while. We are proud, proud to be a part of elemental. They are a great group of folks that let, you know, they just everybody so open to helping, you know, it's not one person, it's like the entire team helps whatever their particular thing is that they do, they do well. So we're really excited to partner with them. The environment really is the heartbeat of their organization and really getting entrepreneurs up and out. And they're very serious about it. So they're just the right amount of accountability that we needed to push and go a little further. Their resources are out of this world. So I would definitely suggest if you are an entrepreneur that's looking for an accelerator to really, really challenge you. Elemental is great. Lacey as well was great. We are also a part of group 110 that's here in Southern California, group 110s accelerator. So yeah, we used all the accelerators. We needed all the help because we had never done this before. Yeah. Yeah. Well, good for you. Well, unfortunately, we were out of time and we'll have to wrap this up. And I just want to let everybody know I'm Ruby Menon and this is Hawaii, reimagined on Think Tech Hawaii and a vet. Can people get in touch with you? Is there a website? Chargerhelp.com www.chargerhelp.com. You can send us an email from there, read about us, whatever you need. Awesome. Great. Thank you. And I want to thank you so much for being here and also thank our audience for listening in and check back for our next show. I'll be talking to Sean Hinton, who is the CEO of Skyhive that provides AI technology to facilitate workforce planning to identify future and emerging skills that are needed in the labor market. Until next time, please be safe and be kind to one another. Aloha.