Greg Smith

Military Background

I joined the U.S. Navy in 1987 at the age of 17. In fact, my mother had to sign the paperwork before I could even leave home. Like most teenagers, I thought I had life figured out. The Navy quickly corrected that misunderstanding.

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Over the next 20 years, I served as a Sonar Technician aboard nuclear submarines, eventually accumulating nearly 11 years of sea time. Along the way, I lived and worked in places I had only heard about growing up, including Hawaii, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Guam, and the Philippines. Three of my four children were born in Hawaii, and it will always feel like home.

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The military taught me lessons that would shape the rest of my career. On a submarine, assumptions can be expensive. Procedures matter. Details matter. Understanding how a system actually works matters. Equipment doesn't care about opinions, shortcuts, or wishful thinking.

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Those same lessons would later become the foundation of my approach to solar and energy storage training.

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​​When I retired in 2007 after 20 years of service, I stepped into civilian life just as the economy was heading into one of the worst downturns in decades. The transition wasn't easy. Like many veterans, I found myself trying to translate military experience into something employers would understand.

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I worked wherever I could, including jobs at REI and IKEA, while continuing to search for an opportunity to return to what I enjoyed most: teaching. Looking back, those years taught me just as much about perseverance as the Navy ever did.

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​Then a small solar company called SMA America called me back.

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​Solar Career

SMA was the U.S. subsidiary of a German solar inverter manufacturer that was growing rapidly. They needed a technical trainer. I knew absolutely nothing about solar. But after spending 20 years as a Sonar Technician, I figured solar couldn't be that different. After all, it was only one letter away from sonar.

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That assumption turned out to be both wrong and one of the best career decisions I ever made.

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I joined SMA in May of 2008 and dove headfirst into the renewable energy industry. What started as learning how solar inverters worked quickly turned into an obsession with understanding the entire system. I attended every conference, training, and industry event I could find. I asked questions. Lots of questions. Then I asked more.

Over time, I became a subject matter expert and found myself teaching installers across California and beyond.

 

Between 2008 and 2012, we estimated that I trained roughly 40% of all solar installers in California. That was both exciting and a little terrifying if you think about it too much.

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Field training at Solar Power International in Paonia, Colorado. Real equipment. Real installers. Real questions.

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Those years were a whirlwind. I wrote articles for industry publications, spoke at conferences, and was interviewed by media outlets ranging from Greentech Media to The New York Times. For a guy who started out knowing almost nothing about solar, it was quite a ride.

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While most of the industry was focused on solar production, I found myself increasingly fascinated by energy storage. Solar was becoming mainstream, but batteries still felt like the Wild West. People understood solar modules. Batteries were still surrounded by confusion, misconceptions, and a lot of unanswered questions.

Not much has changed.

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By 2015, I had reached the senior technical trainer level at SMA and was looking for the next challenge. That opportunity arrived in the form of sonnen, Inc., a German energy storage company that was well known in Europe but largely unknown in the United States.

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Joining sonnen felt a bit like jumping from a comfortable ship into a speedboat during rough seas.

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The energy storage market was exploding. Tesla's Powerwall dominated the headlines, and everyone wanted one. Customers were lining up before products were even available. The challenge wasn't convincing people that batteries were important. The challenge was convincing them there was life beyond Tesla.

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It was an exciting time to be in the industry.

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I traveled throughout the United States training installers on sonnen's unique approach to energy storage. Along the way, I developed an online certification program and made it mandatory before installers could purchase a system. Predictably, some installers grumbled about it.

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Also predictably, service calls dropped by 60%.

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That was one of the first times I had hard data proving something I had always believed: training works.

As sonnen grew, I continued building my own presence in the industry. After the company moved operations from Los Angeles to Georgia, I remained in California and worked remotely. I even used my own sonnen system as a training platform, hosting local workshops in my garage and teaching installers using the same equipment powering my home.

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There is something deeply satisfying about teaching energy resilience while sitting in a house that stays powered when the neighborhood goes dark.

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In 2021, another opportunity appeared.

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I joined Tigo Energy, a company known for module-level power electronics, optimization, monitoring, and rapid shutdown technology. Moving from German engineering culture to an Israeli-founded company was an adjustment, but it also gave me an opportunity to apply everything I had learned over the previous decade.

 

Today, I serve as Director of Technical Training, developing training programs, creating educational content, and helping installers, sales teams, and service organizations navigate an industry that continues to evolve at a remarkable pace.

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NABCEP training session in Milwaukee, 2026, standing room only. Apparently, some people still show up when you promise to explain complicated solar topics.

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The technology changes.​ The products change.​ The regulations change.

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What hasn't changed is the lesson I learned years ago on submarines: understand how the system works before you trust it.

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And if you're going to make mistakes, try to make new ones.