My Life at Palmetto: Ryan Barnett

Ryan Barnett is Palmetto’s senior vice president of policy and market development. He sat down with us to talk about what his job looks like and his experience at Palmetto.

How long have you been at Palmetto, and what is your role?

I've been at Palmetto since September 2019, having previously spent 10 years in clean energy in installation, operations, public policy and regulatory roles. 

My focus and the focus of my team shifts, but most recently, my role has been very tethered to the founding and deployment of Palmetto LightReach and Palmetto Capital. As SVP of policy and market development, I oversee a small but really proficient team of experts on electricity markets and all things electrification. They have years of experience monitoring all things utility, solar, battery energy storage, electricity markets, etc. So, consumer contracts, pricing, competitive rate indexing, incentive program participation and monetization, market expansion, underwriting, state regulations are kind of all within our purview. 

Just about everything we do as a business is subject to some type of state or local market construct that informs our go-to-market strategy and the depths of our consumer value proposition. So getting a handle on the landscape and tailoring the business to capitalize on market conditions is a big part of what we do.

We also try to be good external partners to other stakeholders and allies that are advocating for similar market and policy reforms that protect and accelerate clean energy deployment. So my team and I definitely show up and represent Palmetto in state and regional trade orgs, and we strategically intervene based on feedback from Chris [Kemper, Palmetto’s founder and CEO], Omar [Amin, Palmetto’s President, Corporate & General Counsel,] and the leadership team. 

It's a pretty broad and diverse role, but we stay pretty tethered to the needs of the business on a week to week, month to month basis.

What does a typical day for you look like? What's your day to day? 

It depends on the week, but generally we spend at least half of our time staying proactive, monitoring market changes that affect our products or our consumers in some way. Some of those changes require a lot of collaboration across divisions and business segments to be prepared for a month from now or six months from now. 

Other times it's just reacting to a change or business need. We pride ourselves on being very responsive to the business while other policy and regulatory groups tend to insulate themselves from the day-to-day business needs. 

That type of reactivity cuts both ways. It's enormously distracting, but it's also very rewarding and impactful to be such a standby resource to the business partners. So things like Palmetto Partner and consumer pricing, overseeing utility rates, compliance and incentives requirements in each market, implementing things like domestic content pricing, and supporting program development on the Palmetto LightReach side — all that is disparate and resource intensive, but also very rewarding in that we see how much that resonates with our install partners, and how differentiated that is from competitors. So while reacting can sometimes be nerve wracking or distracting, you definitely see more proof of the impact when you stay so tethered to the business.

You worked elsewhere before. What excited you about joining Palmetto and what keeps you excited now that you're here?

It’s very simple: the people.

Six years ago, I was drawn to Palmetto by a handful of people that I'd worked with in my career that I really admired and respected. I was really attracted to the opportunity to come in at an early stage — series A raise going into Series B — and I really liked the vision for Series B, and I knew I could impact it in a positive way. 

Talking to people like Chris and Sean [Hayes, Palmetto’s SVP for Palmetto Finance], it was pretty inspiring. I liked their approach to openness and how they empowered each of the leaders to live and die with their own decisions and be accountable for them.

And now I think Chris does a good job of sticking and reinforcing those values of openness and longevity. I think Palmetto uniquely has the ability to feel like a big company and a small company at the same time. It tends to draw on the advantages of both of those types of organizations, but it all feels very intentional and organized from the leadership on down. Leaders empowered to make decisions, empowered to own outcomes, and pivot and iterate, staying lean, staying nimble — I think that's all proven to be our secret weapon and a real differentiator in an industry that swings a whole lot. I love that Palmetto is naturally and very intentionally resilient and I feel like a part of that.

What excites you about the impact Palmetto might have on the world?

I've got three kids, I’ve got a dozen nieces and nephews. I'm all about leaving the world a better place than I found it. It’s our core mission. Climate change mitigation, affordability, and the vision for The New Utility Revolution is something that really resonates with me. I've been in the room with utility leaders, utility engineers, policymakers, and I see how challenging and hard these market reforms are to get to deployment. I love being a part of a company that gets all that and has real tangible solutions. 

I really feel it's one of our generation's great mobilizing efforts — reforming the grid and making it sustainable, distributed, and flexible. We're going to play a larger and larger part in that revolution going forward and I’m really proud to be a part of it. 

What's the best piece of advice you've received? 

I've had the opportunity to work around really impressive people that became mentors, whether formally or not. It was never one “a-ha” phrase or discussion that got me, but the ability to be in the room, listen, and sponge around people that I knew I should be learning from. Recognizing that if I have my ears open and ego down - then there's a lot to learn. 

There is one quote I always come back to: “If you can't do the little things right, you'll never do the big things right.”

It's important — whatever your role is — get after it. Prove you can become an expert at it, master the crafts, then earn the right to grow into the next or take on more impactful work. That feels very consistent with the values here of earning our way with consumers in this new energy economy. So my personal mantras very much line up with where I see Chris and the values of the company, which is comforting and grounding.

And that’s unique. I look around and I see a lot of really successful people that do not have that type of pride, satisfaction, or support where they work. Not every day is perfect, but I do count my blessings and realize how fortunate I am.

What outside of work keeps you energized and ready to go?

I've got three little kids, Jack (8), Claire (5), and Cora (2), and a phenomenal partner in Kelli, my wife. All happy, healthy, a really funny crew. I just get the biggest kick out of them. I've also got great siblings, parents, and in-laws. We definitely lean into family a lot right now. We take a lot of trips together. 

I try to expose my kids to a lot of different things. I coach them in their sports. We take them to the arts and museums and get outdoors. My son loves hiking and fishing. He's a different person when he's fishing. He's so loose and funny, and that's different from how he is in the regular day to day. 

I personally love baseball and basketball at all levels. I'm a big New York Mets fan. I grew up in New York. I haven't seen a professional team of mine win a championship yet and baseball is the sport that I still track and follow the same way I did when I was 14.

I've worked and volunteered in and around golf my whole life. I was fortunate enough to have earned a golf scholarship throughout college and still dedicate a portion of free time to practicing and playing competitively. Today I'm a very proud and active Board Member of the First Tee Foundation in Philadelphia that brings educational, character and life skills development opportunities to youth through the game of golf.