Revolutionizing Solar Roofing: Dr. Gabriela Bunea on Building the World’s First Nailable Solar Shingle

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth sits down with Dr. Gabriela Bunea, the Chief Solar Innovation Officer at GAF Energy, to explore her groundbreaking work on the world’s first nailable solar shingle. With over 20 years of experience in solar and microelectronics, Dr. Bunea shares the journey behind developing the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle, which merges traditional roofing with cutting-edge solar technology.

Dr. Bunea discusses the challenges her team faced while rethinking solar from a roofing perspective and explains why the solar roof of the future is designed to be installed by roofers, not electricians. By focusing on roofer-friendly innovations and simplifying the installation process, GAF Energy’s solar roof has the potential to make solar energy as common and easy as replacing an asphalt roof. Dr. Bunea also touches on the rigorous testing and certification process required to ensure the roof’s durability and efficiency in all climates.

Throughout the conversation, Dr. Bunea emphasizes how innovation in solar technology is reshaping the future of renewable energy, with the potential to make solar roofs a standard part of every home. She discusses GAF Energy’s expansion, including the opening of their second manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Texas, and how scaling up operations is crucial to meeting the growing demand for solar roofing.

Tune in to hear Dr. Bunea’s inspiring insights on what it takes to turn a vision into a reality, the future of solar in residential markets, and how GAF Energy is positioned to lead the charge in transforming the roofing industry into a renewable energy powerhouse.

Key Quotes:

• “We approached the product from a roofing perspective, not from a solar perspective. That’s what makes Timberline Solar different.”
• “If you want solar to be mainstream, it has to be as easy to install as a roof—and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
• “My hope is that one day, putting a solar roof on your home will be as common as buying a smartphone—it’s not just a choice, but a necessity.”

Show Notes:

• Introduction to Dr. Gabriela Bunea – Chief Solar Innovation Officer at GAF Energy (00:01)
• Dr. Bunea’s Background – From Romania to Silicon Valley: A journey into solar innovation (00:38)
• What is a Solar Roof? – Explaining the game-changing Timberline Solar Energy Shingle (04:51)
• The Roofer’s Perspective – Why thinking like a roofer revolutionized solar installation (11:12)
• Challenges and Breakthroughs – Overcoming design and certification hurdles (13:59)
• Scaling Up – Opening GAF Energy’s second manufacturing facility in Texas (22:52)
• Looking Ahead – The future of solar roofing and making solar a household necessity (26:43)
• Dr. Bunea’s Vision for the Industry – Transforming the solar roof from a want to a need (27:05)
• Closing Thoughts – Dr. Bunea’s legacy and advice for those in renewable energy (42:19)

Don’t miss this deep dive into how GAF Energy is revolutionizing solar roofing and what it means for the future of clean energy! Subscribe now and share this episode with anyone passionate about solar innovation.

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

Transcript

Transcript

Welcome to Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, the podcast where insights and innovation meet. Every episode, we dive into conversations with industry leaders, experts and change makers, bringing you the stories and ideas in the renewable energy sector that shape our world. And now let’s jump into today’s episode with your host, Wes Ashworth.

Wes Ashworth (00:01)

Welcome to another episode of Green Giants, Titans of Renewable Energy. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Gabriela Bunea, the Chief Solar Innovation Officer at GAF Energy. With over 20 years of experience in the solar and microelectronics industries, Gabi has been at the forefront of combining solar energy generation with sustainable building materials. Her impressive career includes leadership roles at SunPower Corporation and Lucent Technologies, and she also holds a PhD in physics from Boston University.

Gabi’s commitment to advancing solar technology is truly inspiring, and I’m excited to dive into her insights on the future of renewable energy. Gabi, welcome to the show.

Gabriela Bunea (00:38)

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Wes Ashworth (00:40)

Yeah, of course. So we’ll start out at an easy place. Can you share just a bit about your background and what led you to pursue a career in the solar industry?

Gabriela Bunea (00:49)

Yeah, I really left my home country, Romania, a while back due to economic reasons. Borders were finally open. I grew up in communist regime. And maybe try our luck in another place called America. And lucky enough to get a scholarship and do my PhD studies at Boston University. I spent most of my beginning of my career in telecommunications and working on your microelectromechanical devices, primary semiconductor physics. And with some of the challenges that telecom was in 2000, my husband’s PhD advisor suggested that we are two high-tech professionals and we should try our luck in Silicon Valley. I started at a startup called SunPower at that time. As a research and development engineer, SunPower was like about 50 people at that time, and what started more like a job at this startup company, it truly became a career. And I’ve learned how important the solar energy generation is for our planet, for our future generation. And through my job, at some point, I basically became a, trying to become a leader and try to do my best to make solar energy a mainstream form of energy.

Wes Ashworth (02:22)
Yeah, that’s incredible. And then fast forwarding now to your current role with GAF Energy as Chief Solar Innovation Officer. I guess, can you tell us about your role and maybe how it’s evolved from when you started till now?

Gabriela Bunea (02:36)
Yeah, my role is basically innovation at GAF Energy. What this means is any new technology and products that are being developed and released by our company, they are the responsibility of my team, they are incubated by my team. And how it’s evolved, well, you have to imagine that was really when I joined GAF Energy, when GAF Energy was formed, I was within the first five people, I think. So, you know, it’s basically I started as a SVP, Senior Vice President and I was given a challenge to come up with the solar roof and in time you know you have to build a team you need to come up with the product so it’s it’s a startup internal startup within the umbrella of standard industry and I would say it just started from the time in which I was doing a lot of the work in research or trying to do the work because there was nobody to really try to hire as much, you know, as fast as I could and build a team because you work in any industry, you cannot really do anything unless you have a team. I’m going into today, I would say I’m still doing some hands-on work mostly because I cannot let go. I like to be involved in the details of the work we are doing and I want to be together with my team as we go to some of the decisions. But yes, as my job has changed in the last five years, I get to speak to you, for example, about the amazing work that we do here at GAF Energy.

Wes Ashworth (04:18)
Yeah, and I’d love to transition to more of the product and your career behind that and how that all came to be, which is really a revolutionary type of product when you look at a solar panel that is somewhat unchanged over the last 25 years to now presenting your product. And so I’d love to understand what was the inspiration behind developing Timberline Solar Roof and Timberline Solar Roof, our solar energy shingle.

Gabriela Bunea (04:51)
Yeah, the problems that, the challenge that I was given as I was recruited for this job and embarked on this journey was to come up with a solar roof of the future. And I was like- I was asking the owners of the company at that time, what does that mean to you? And he said, we really think they trust strategically that solar is going to be the future of roofing and they wanted GAF energy to lit that. So in looking at the tri-, you know, I come from a lot of experience in making the rectangle panel if you want to look at it. By the way, they’ve been like this for a hundred years more, yeah. So one of the first ones, I looked at it, I gave a talk about that one, it’s like they have been a rectangle with a glass and frame for about 100 plus years.

The challenge was knowing how challenging it is to actually have a profitable business if you want to look at it this way in residential solar and trying to make it through all the solar coasters that we’ve been through in the last 20 years and looking at the roofing, which is been, it looks more or less like it hasn’t changed in the last also 100 plus years. Then the challenge that I had was to try to understand how is the roofing, you know, evolve, and what do they offer? Why is it a sustainable business? When I talk a sustainable business, it’s like it’s self-sustaining. It’s a profitable business and they don’t seem to go through this up and downs like you would see in more of the retrofit solar so I often kind of refer to the challenge that timberline solar addresses. It’s basically trying to come up with a product and an idea which is more like fitting more into the roofing practices than into the solar practices. And when we came up with the concept of, it takes forever, well not forever, but like three years, more or less, which is not a lot in today’s startup world. But that was basically, I think, the fundamental change that we approach. We approach the product from a roofing perspective, not from a solar perspective.

And I like to say a lot of things, that the first year or two that we spent here at GAF Energy was actually learning about what does it mean to be a roof? Most people don’t really think about it. Honestly, when I joined the company, if somebody would ask me what the roof is, it’s like, there’s three of them, you know, asphalt, metal and tile, and that’s about it. But I had no idea what does actually the roofing do for a homeowner or for a house. So learning from that and trying to, with a lot of experience that the first people we brought on board had solar experience, primarily, and try to kind of merge the two worlds together. So this is really kind of how all came about and it took a lot of, of course, pivoting and trying, the product definitely doesn’t look right now like the way our first concept looked like.

Wes Ashworth (08:10)
Yeah. What did that look like? Maybe some of the early prototype products versus, like, what it is today. I’d love to hear just kind of like where it started, where it is now.

Gabriela Bunea (08:20)
Yeah. Well, at some point, you know, the engineering team that did research at Verban, there were people who were like roofers. You know, we actually had people, people from the, you know, some experience in VIPV. There’s a lot of people who are technological people. Then we actually work quite close with GAF, our sister company who has a lot of roofing experience. And, you know, we’ve basically always kind of assumed that we need to have a roof and then the biggest challenge that we had was what do you do with electrical interconnections because you get rid of the frame you know and then it’s like so yeah so we you know coming from glass and basically metal frame the first thing we we kind of say is like we can’t have them because they are too tall you know and that’s basically not not looking good that’s not that’s not the roof you know and the other one was like contourable like a asphalt roof or not. Then, we kind of try to elevate the entire kind of roof plane and then to hide the electrical connection under it. The roofer just didn’t want it.

At the end of the day, I think one thing we realized and we did really early in our explorations of idea was to come up with really prototypes and then actually give them to our partners, the roofers, both that we had on staff as well as through GIF and say, how does it look like? Does it feel? Touch and feel. That’s kind of what help us you know we got customer feedback and partner feedback at the end of very early in the game to help us kind of guide on what it is why the product looks the way it is like that and is not bigger like the solar panel so it’s because it’s an economic function you know the roofers are basically handling very you know, as far as the roof while they are walking at incline, and that’s something that you need to experience. I’ve never been on a roof in my life before, you know, with all safety. But I think the team that we had developed this product, I wanted them to put themselves into the customer’s shoes. And, you know, the partner shoes, if you want to look at it, who’s going to actually want to sell this product and is going to want to install the product.
So most of our decisions from a product were made to basically enable the roofer to install our product, our energy shingle, as basically in the same way as they do on asphalt. So once we figured that one out, then we kind of work on the product to be like that.

Wes Ashworth (11:12)
Yeah, no, that’s incredible. I love that from the perspective of the roofer who’s installing it and really taking that stance, I think is incredibly simple, but genius. tell me, I guess for those that don’t know, the significance. So this is the world’s first nailable solar shingle. Like how does it revolutionize the solar roofing industry? What’s the significance of it being the first nailable solar shingle?

Gabriela Bunea (11:40)
We really think the product is a game-changing because of how simple it is to install and the design changes we had to overcome in order to make that happen. So, you know, the roofer we’ve learned and we’ve designed the product in a way that when they transition from asphalt roof to the solar shingle, when they built a timberline solar roof, they really do not change their tools and they do not change the way they actually are installing. Today, as Kali was saying, the first nailable because all you have to do is take the product that comes packaged, somehow similar to the asphalt roof, and then the roofer does the same motion which is they lay down on the deck. There is some alignment methods that they need to do it anyway for the asphalt. All they have to do is basically put a bunch of nails and then they move on to the next one. That’s really what we did.
The other thing which I think is super powerful is the fact that the product is designed to be a roof and the building integrated. So you can think about that the roofer will install Timberline Solar Roof and they cannot turn it on. You know, just hypothetically, you don’t have to turn it on and it will function as a roof for the warranty period, which is 25 years. And that was one of the biggest challenges that we had to overcome, how to meet those requirements and be. Also, not only the challenge from a design perspective, but also from certification right any product that is electrical or a solar product need to be certified with certification agencies and it’s super funny the first version almost took us two years to certify because the certification agency had no idea you know they give you a quote because it’s like it’s a solar product so cool but then once you show them the drawings and the product, there was a pause. And then my mind was like, they didn’t know how to test it. So it took a while for them to come up with the methodology and for us, because again, this product is kind of sitting in between the two worlds, the roofing agencies and the VIP agencies.

Wes Ashworth (13:59)
Yeah, that’s incredible stuff. And I’d love to hear, so you mentioned some of the key challenges you face while developing the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle. I’d love to hear about some of those maybe, some of those design challenges or some of those challenges and really how you and your team overcame them and what was that process like?

Gabriela Bunea (14:18)
So I mentioned earlier, the first thing was for us to learn what the roof is. And we learned that it needs to withstand, you know, protect the home, which means they have a certain requirement for waterproofing for around the elements, a certain fire rating and a certain wind rating, so those are kind of ticked. And again, we learn all this from courtesy of collaboration with our sister company, GAF. And very, very soon we kind of understood what those requirements are as a roofing. And then the challenge was how are we going to make a solar product that is basically meeting those requirements.
For example, a roofer, when they will install a roof, they will have to walk on the panel. So everybody is going to tell you that, you know, in any warranty you read on the retrofit panel that don’t walk on the pane’. So the challenge to the team was you have to design a product which you need to walk on the panel multiple times. It cannot look bad. It cannot crack the cells, you name it. The, and by the way, it has to last for 25 years after you walk on them and all you drop, whatever tool you have, et cetera, or the people slip, hopefully not, but definitely there’s a lot of movement. You walk multiple time on one roof element or one energy shingle before you actually move to the next one. So that was the first one. The second one which was very challenging also for us was the classifier. So the asphalt roof that we were, it’s a classifier rating by design, like no specific underlayment. So how to make the product to meet that requirement was one of the challenge and you- the fire testing is super difficult to repeat because inherently fire is difficult to reproduce even with certification agencies. So a lot of work went into some of the work.
And then, you know, the fact that we had a very different solar panel than, you know, per se. And as the question is like, you know, it doesn’t fit into the world of the roofing, but it doesn’t really fit in the world of the solar standard panel. So we also have to come up with quite unique tools to manufacture it, to test it and package it. So this kind of like complete journey of, kind of try to integrate to commoditize to a certain point worlds, which are the roofing world and the solar world. So that’s where we end up with this.

Wes Ashworth (17:07)
Yeah. And I’m curious through that too and leading through that, right? And a product that doesn’t necessarily exist in the market today, sitting in between two things, like it’s not technically a roofing, it’s not technically a solar panel, it’s the blend of the two and some of those unique challenges that you mentioned. How do you lead through that and how do you get the team, I guess, thinking the right way or pushing in the right direction to be able to do that? Really kind of breakthrough type of product.

Gabriela Bunea (17:38)
So we had solar people, we had material people, we had device people. At the end of the day, at GF Energy, we built a team that is a blend of the two worlds. And that was maybe one of the things that we learned as we went, because you had to have multiple opinions. And that was quite a lively debate which we should vote because those people who are very, it’s like no this should be like the highest efficiency solar panel in the world and then you have people which is like you cannot make it bigger than this because I cannot align it. So everything that you see in today’s product is the result of quite lively debate across the company that was at that time because you know the bigger the larger make typically the lower your cost it is how do you have the right, you know, compromise or the right balance between making what the customer we think it needs and versus you know the rest of it how many new tools we need to invent or metrology or you name it in order to do that.
So a little bit is like hiring the people who are willing to step out of the norm and then have quite a diverse opinion since you basically have roofers who don’t really know much about materials. In our team, we have people with more than 20 years experience as a roofer, people who owned a roofing company before. And I think that was instrumental in teaching the rest of the team of the practicality aspect that the product needs to meet in order to be accepted by the roofers.

Wes Ashworth (19:29)
Yeah. And I love you hit on a key thing there and just that kind of disagreement, right? Like you need those different opinions coming in. And I think creating an environment where people are willing to speak up and voice that as well too. Like, is that something that you leaned into or encouraged in terms of that healthy kind of disagreement or debate? I’m curious about leading through that because it can’t be easy just, you know, if you just let it happen.

Gabriela Bunea (19:56)
Yeah, I think it’s it’s we have in general we encourage a lot of discussion collaboration and I am a very hands-on person because I like to know how things are. Like to put myself into the shoes of our customers or our partners and has you know it’s like bite the bullet and go and be on the roof. We were trained to go on the roof you know so one of the things is like so you have to just understand how the product is actually in the field and how that is and then you come back and then, OK, maybe that one is not, you know, kind of the best idea because I don’t know how to lift the panel from the ground up to the roof, for example, or have that.

But I think at the end of the day, it really comes to creating and fostering trust between some of the people that I have. I’ve worked for many years or I’ve known for years. And that trust is implied if you know somebody for a long time. I think also having the people comfortable that you know conflict you know from our decision it’s, I cannot make all the decision I don’t know enough about it and the product is too complicated and in general you know I think the most important thing is the willingness to learn and we are fostering a lot of weekly exchange, for example, in which everybody is welcome to bring their idea. So you will see the person who are in charge of the solar cells give a presentation about their latest work. But you are also going to see people from the application design team who are going to tell you about how the latest idea in installation worked or didn’t work. So I think overall it’s everybody’s willingness and motivating the people to truly learn from each other and step out of their comfort zone and help. And the other one is just my, you know, generally it’s a culture, at GAF energy of trust conflict results. So he’s, every company meeting or every chance he gets, you know, he’s really give us examples about that. And because he, we firmly believe here that that is core to create a environment which, you know, it’s required in our culture in order to come back with, come up with more game changing solutions.

Wes Ashworth (22:35)
Love it. And kind of transitioning a little bit to the current day and where things are. So I know you had a recent opening of your second manufacturing facility in Georgetown, Texas. What does that expansion mean for GAF Energy and just the future of solar roofing as you see it?

Gabriela Bunea (22:52)
Yeah, we are super proud of the scaling and our opening of our second factory so soon after our first one. What really this means it’s the fact that the testimonial is the product, it’s ready to be scaled and the adoption that, you know, we believe it’s going to kind of come as the product it’s being manufactured in the fab2. Sorry, we call it Fab2, it’s Georgetown. The other thing that’s really important for us is once that factory is fully around, we will be like the largest solar roofing company in the United States. We believe that the solar market in the United States will continue to be strong and we really kind of, it’s just maybe the first next natural step for us to be able to serve our customers and continue to grow as we work to transform the roofing into a solar roofing.

Wes Ashworth (23:47)
Yeah, so from here, what’s thinking about what’s next? So what other advancements or innovations are you currently working on? I guess that you can share with us. And what can we expect from GAF Energy in the near future?

Gabriela Bunea (24:01)
So we constantly innovate sometimes. The innovation is invisible to the partners or the roofers and the homeowners, but we’ve done a lot of work on scaling the product. So with a factory like the Georgetown factory you need to increase and make sure the supply is there. So we’ve done some work to make sure that as that factory is scaling there is enough supply for all the components that we are requiring. We’ve continued to improve what you would call power density which is the output of the same because the economics is quite strong as you continue.
We continue to make progress on the functionality of the product as a roof and continue to basically evolve the product such that it’s scalable and ready to go across the United States. We test it in all the kind of areas. We have the same product going in four seasons in Minnesota, for example, all the way to Texas and Florida. So we are continuing to evolve our learnings and make sure the product is meeting its warranty all 25 years.
For what’s next, I think foundationally, I like to look at our product the way I think it’s not going to change significantly the way it looks today. Probably it’s going to be the same as like the rectangle panel in the retrofit. Some version of it, it may change, but yeah, we are continuing to basically think about what other products are required in the market for us. There will be customers which are more about mainstream solar but also we are talking about what other the customer needs. We are prior looking at aesthetics, how to combine the product more seamless with the rest of the asphalt roof and so kind of across the board, technological changes as well as really focus on aesthetics, which was something that we pay a lot of attention from the get-go.

Wes Ashworth (26:15)
Yeah, love it. So you mentioned not really envisioning the product as a whole. Maybe aesthetically, might have been what you said, changing a whole lot. If you were, I guess, fast forwarding 30, 50 years with no, you know, you remove the limitations, like, do you have a vision of what you would eventually want it to become?

Gabriela Bunea (26:37)
So it’s fine, should talk to the owner of the company. Recently, I was asked that question recently. I think, I don’t know exactly how the project is going to look 30 years from now. I know it’s going to probably evolve, but I can tell you that what we are working here to do is truly transform the roofing industry. So I think about the fact that today a roof on top of your building, a house, it’s a need. So, it’s like kind of given. And I think today a solar roof, it’s still a want. So people need to make the conscious decision to do that. So as I was looking probably 30 years from now, I really hope that we play a role in making a solar roof a need, and however the product is going to look like in order to meet that requirement, we’ll hopefully we’ll figure it out and like that so I think it’s more of a you know meeting the need of the customer whether that is a aesthetic need a cost need or a functionality need and you know, it will be a version of what we have today or whatever else, you know, we need to invent.

Wes Ashworth (27:52)
And those are the important pieces, right? It’s turning each of those levers, and those are the barriers for entry with a lot of customers who are kind of like, don’t like the aesthetics or the efficiency isn’t good enough or what cost isn’t where it should be. And so the more we start to pull on those levers and go, okay, aesthetically it looks nicer now, it’s integrated. And then the install, to your point, just from the perspective of the roofers to make that easy to install. They’re using the same tools they use today and making that as seamless as possible.
Obviously that’s what consumer adoption is going to go up and up and up and there’s still so much room for that opportunity. We’re thinking the beginning of it. That’s incredible. kind of digging into it again, maybe some of the comparisons because I’m sure people that are listening, that’s where your mind goes to. How does this compare to a regular solar panel in terms of things like cost, efficiency, does it make sense in certain use cases, maybe not in others? I guess if you were to sort of just compare the two, between the two, what are the major differences there, advantages, and maybe disadvantages, I guess.

Gabriela Bunea (29:01)
Yeah, I don’t think there’s any disadvantages. But get that out of the way. I think you had a look at it as we have from a cost to the homeowner at the end of the day, the product is best call it on par with what you would call today a retrofit. So if you think about the homeowner, when they have to change their asphalt roof, they have the option to change the roof and add basically a solar retrofit kind of big rectangle panels that typically is two separate companies, sometimes you know that’s kind of it. When we go and offer a basically it’s an integrated roof, it’s one one company, one construction project, one, you know, warranty from a company who’s been around for more than a hundred years. So generally speaking even in today’s I would call it subscale, you know that we have just at the beginning, are able to compete with retrofit options in Baskale anywhere. And I think as we continue to grow, and why I’m saying that is you need to look at the fact that today is the asphalt market in the United States about five million roofs. What this means five million roofs in the United States get re-roofed every year. And our capacity it’s like in tens of thousands of houses right now. So we kind of have a long way to go. you know, again, the roofing, you know, it’s commoditized. It’s a large scale industry. So is the retrofit panels. We’re really at the beginning. and we are able to compete today. And I think in the future we are going to be way better.

Wes Ashworth (30:45)
Yeah, no, I love it. Well said. I love it. No disadvantages. We’ll leave it at that. Yeah. I like it. Just thinking about your insights and overall just with the industry. So I guess what are you most personally most passionate about when it comes to solar innovation and the renewable energy sector as a whole?

Gabriela Bunea (30:49)
Yeah, I never imagined I’m going to make a career out of it. Having two children, which are in school and something I always say is like, be open to anything, you never know where life is taking you. So I really, at the end of the day, I’ve embraced this industry and tried to advocate for it and tried to do my best to actually move it forward. So it becomes widely adopted. I am passionate about this. You get to a point in your career, why do you wake up every day in the morning and go to work?
I feel like many ways, like I’m still at the beginning and as much as the solar is getting adopted, and continue to increase, it’s kind of still, you know, only scratching the surface. So I’m really hoping that, you know, the work that we do here is just make it as seamless as integrated into your future life or your everyday life. Maybe 10 years from now maybe 5 maybe 20 hopefully no more than that when you are going to change your roof in your house putting a solar roof should be like a no-brainer and I sometimes kind of look in it is like today you wouldn’t really buy a car which doesn’t have pressure sensors on your tires or cameras, it’s like, it’s me. That’s kind of, it’s like given the norm. That’s how I look at the solar functionality of the roof. It’s like, we have to get it to do such a way that, it’s like, to buy a roof that didn’t have a solar, what was that? A little bit like the kids right now, it’s like, what was that before an iPhone? don’t, how did you live before that?

Wes Ashworth (32:35)
I love that analogy, even seeing the evolution of phones, there was a time, not too long ago, none of us had smartphones, and now everyone, almost everyone, there’s a small percentage of them, but most everyone. So I love that, I love that vision. Yeah, exactly, yeah, so that’s Mecca, right? That’s the goal. Any thinking about solar or specific to renewable energy? If you’re looking at the industry, looking at growth, this year, in many ways, has been very challenging. Other areas it’s been great. There’s growth and a lot of great things happening. What’s your confidence level? Any bold predictions in terms of just how you’re feeling about the industry and growth and what’s ahead for the next year to five years?

Gabriela Bunea (33:44)
Yeah, I personally and also GAF Energy we are super bullish on it. I think we’re not really trying to compare much with the solar industry because we don’t think that business model is, you know, it’s been working. We are truly kind of following and trying to follow more the roofing business model. And that’s quite humbling to understand, you know, again, first time when I joined the standard industry family was like, what? You make roofs and your factories are in the United States and coming from a solar kind of business where the factory were overseas. And the question was like, how do you compete? How do you actually make it work? So super bullish on that, super careful about, we don’t want to just grow, we want to grow a business which will be sustainable and make sense in the future and we are working very closely with the ownership and our sister companies to make that.

That’s why you see it’s like we put factories in the United States and that’s because it’s like we are trying to follow or we are following the business model of the roofing solar and we’re trying to make it I’m not saying it’s easy, okay, you know it’s like but but that’s I think that’s required in order for the industry to truly move in the forward and you know at the end of the day we’ve installed a few thousand roofs so far and I’m looking at the five million which are only available in the United States and know Standard Industries is a global company right they own about 30 % of the roofing as a market share globally so yeah we have our work cut out for us but I’m super energized about all this opportunity.

Wes Ashworth (35:32)
Yeah, I’m glad to hear it. And it’s such a cool concept just thinking about it from a roofing industry perspective and it makes so much sense. Especially GAF, it’s known, it’s recognizable and you kind of recognize Timberline and for shingles and it just got that acceptance already. This makes a ton of sense. But yeah, there’s tons of, like you said, five million roofs. Is that what you said? Yeah, lots of opportunity. Five million a year get replaced, I think that’s it.

Gabriela Bunea (35:57)
Only five million a year. Think about it. As I said, this is my learning. Information was there, but I learned it when I came here.

Wes Ashworth (36:00)
So anybody out there listening that’s about to replace a roof if you’re there, now’s the time. I’m curious too, as you are, something near and to my heart, obviously recruiting, hiring, finding the right people for companies in order to make these things happen.
So if you are building that team and you rewind a bit to early days of, it’s just a handful of individuals and you’re thinking about, we’ve got some really complex problems to solve. We’re, we’re kind of in a, you know, disruptive type of product that’s unique and unusual. When you’re hiring those people for your innovation team, what are some of the key things that you look for? Like an individual is when you’re, you’re interviewing, when you’re talking to them, like what are those keys that make a successful team that’s able to, to make something like that happen.

Gabriela Bunea (37:06)
I try to be as honest as I am with the people and I always tell them that I don’t like average teams. I don’t run average teams, I don’t build and run average teams. I like to be super competitive. I know, was born like that, I always kind of reinforce that we are a high performing team and what that means is not that you work 20 hours out of 24, it’s more about the ideas that are coming. So the people that or some of the skills we’ve been looking at and continue to look  at, it’s really people not afraid to step out of their comfort zone. And that usually happens in discussions. We give them problems to solve, you know, thinking, we don’t expect them to solve the problem, but we are interested more about how they approach the problem and how they think about the problem. people who are comfortable out of their, you know, zone, people who are not afraid to fail fast. A general title is like if you don’t fail a component I don’t think you understand how we actually that component works and how are we going to make sure that that’s a 25-year reliable product.
So I like people to fail the components and go in the lab and do your best. But the people need to be able to be comfortable to fail and pick up and come back. So it takes- it’s most of our life in research and development, our ideas don’t work, so it takes a special kind of a person and a special, and, know, to be able to pick up, you know, and then start with yet a new idea next day to try to do that. So we are doing a lot of that. And, and in general, I, I constantly reinforce with the team that it’s okay to fail, but please fail, ideally you want to fail as early as possible. So later when you are ready to ramp up production and you see a problem, you know, it’s, it’s okay, we’ll deal with it, but it’s not. So those are the type of people that, that we kind of want on hand on the other hand you know we also have to be quite recognizing the fact that this product needs to scale and this product needs to meet certain quality requirement so we have a combo of people who are like you know pushing the envelope you know and coming up with you know quite a out-of-box ideas but we also have some people who’ve been in this industry for a long time and they are more like the wise people which are conscious like yeah that you can’t really scale that one or something like that. You’ll have that. So you have to have the same, but foundationally you need to be able to step out of your comfort zone, you have to be open to new things and don’t reinvent the wheel. That’s the most boring thing ever. So I don’t really want to work on boring stuff.

Wes Ashworth (39:59)
Yeah, no, I love that. That’s a great roadmap there and just key to success and building an innovative team. And I think some of those traits that you hit on. So as we’re getting closer to time, I want to ask a couple more questions. One, and this will be pretty open, but anything, so anybody listening, whether they’re a part of the industry now, whether they’re interested in the industry or just starting to look into it or intrigued, whatever that might be, are there any things that you would want them to take away? If they would learn one thing about GAF energy today or two things, like what doesn’t everybody know and what should they know?

Gabriela Bunea (40:35)
I never imagined in my career that I’m going to end up working on the roof. Okay. Or that actually working on the roof is going to be exciting, and you can innovate and write patents and actually come up with it. So I would say don’t discount the boring stuff or what you perceive with boring stuff because there’s opportunities to actually go in and innovate in that one as well. I think the other one is for many of us that work here at GAF Energy, we truly do it because we feel it’s our calling to try to make solar mainstream of energy. I think it’s very strong motivation for everybody that works here. Not 100% of the people with that, but the majority of them, they work in the industry because they’re truly dedicated to make that happen. So I think being motivated by something like that is very powerful and it makes for great employees and great attention.

Wes Ashworth (41:34)
That’s great. And I think that is critical. You know, it’s just, it’s aligning that passion, right? And you have to have a bigger why then, especially when it is challenging, especially when it’s, when it’s a, you know, it’s a tough go and it takes a lot to get to a point of a lot of failure, failing quick and failing often. And that takes a certain type of person, as you said, but when you, when you have that alignment of passion and you, get up every day and it’s like, you know, but I’m helping, I’m helping push this forward. That, goes a long, long way. So I agree wholeheartedly. And next question, because we wrap up thinking about, and you mentioned like you’ve nowhere near done, you’ve got a lot of gas left in the tank, a lot of electricity left in the tank, we’ll say that. What do you hope your legacy will be? So if you look back, when you’re finally done retired and looking back at it, what do you hope your legacy will be in the renewable energy industry?

Gabriela Bunea (42:19)
Yeah, I kind of just take it as we go. Honestly, I didn’t have an agenda coming and working in this country or coming at it. I’m hopeful that, you know, the type of roof and the foundation work we are doing in the solar roofing at GAF Energy will actually thrive and become the norm. And I think if that’s happening I’ll be happy. It doesn’t say designed by know R&D team of GAF Energy you know that it doesn’t really matter for us. I think the most fulfilling thing that I see is driving around the neighborhood around our San Jose location and see already some of our roofs which are next to the rest of the you know competitive product and I think you know I’m just hoping before I’m done I see more and more of them. If solar roof is going to become a need versus a one, I’ll be super proud of all that, and nobody really needs to know my name.

Wes Ashworth (43:31)
Yeah, well said. Well said. And that’ll kind bring us to the end of our conversation. But Gabi, thank you so much for sharing your journey and the incredible innovations you’re leading in the solar industry. It is really clear that your work is not just about advancing technology, but also about shaping a more sustainable future. And to everyone out there listening, as always, we appreciate you joining us for this episode of Green Giants, Titans of Renewable Energy.
And if you found value in today’s discussion, don’t forget to subscribe, share it with others, stay tuned for more inspiring stories from the forefront of clean energy and check out GAF Energy. Give them a follow and look into all things from, you know, roofing options to also careers and everything else into the like. So until next time, we will see you then.