Isaiah Ness is the CEO and Founder of Sun Bear Industries, a company he started 2 years ago to serve disadvantaged communities nationwide and help create sustainable and reliable power sources.

Isaiah became interested in clean energy in college when his friends started moving out West to take sales jobs in California’s booming solar industry. By Sophomore year, Isaiah decided he didn’t want to sit on the sidelines. He’d get through his classes as quickly as possible and spend the rest of the day building a market for solar in his home state of Wisconsin. He learned from electricians and installers about the technical aspects of solar while building a network of customers. Instinctually, Isaiah knew to always prioritize building relationships over selling a product. That mentality led to the growth of customer base over time.

Isaiah decided to start Sun Bear Industries so he could build a company that’s primary focus was serving with disadvantaged communities. Since he was a kid, he understood how significant a power bill can be to a family that’s trying to make ends meet. Many of Sun Bear Industries clients are tribes. Working directly with tribal nations seemed like an approach where he could make an outsized impact, given the opportunity sovereign land creates to build large systems that can operate independently from the utility.

Instead of focusing on installation and sales, SBI focuses on technical services like design engineering, feasibility studies, energy planning, construction management, and sustainable investing. Isaiah sees the company’s role as more than a renewable energy developer. They even perform trainings and workshops to make sure a tribe understands how to get the full benefits of their renewable energy system.

And those benefits are significant, as Isaiah works to transition disadvantaged tribal communities off expensive and dirty propane and diesel-powered communities to independently owned, reliable, clean electricity.