Mastering Land Acquisition for Renewable Energy: Insights from Land Acquisition LLC - E130

Welcome to this episode of the Clean Energy Chronicles! Today, we have Dillan Wilson and Mitch May, co-founders of Land Acquisition LLC, sharing their journey in the renewable energy and land acquisition space. Starting with Mitch’s early career in construction and solar, and Dillan’s background in real estate and environmental compliance, they’ve come together to form a dynamic partnership.
In this episode, we cover:

• Mitch and Dillan's backgrounds and how they came to start Land Acquisition LLC.
• The challenges and opportunities they faced in the first few months of operation.
• The process of expanding their team and training new members from the ground up.
• Their focus on finding prime sites for distributed generation (DG) and community solar projects.
• The significance of tracking state legislation and the varying risk appetites of developers.
• Creative solutions for overcoming land acquisition challenges, including negotiating lease rates and addressing municipal ordinances.
• Their perspectives on the future growth of the renewable energy market and the increasing importance of land origination in the industry.

Dillan and Mitch share valuable insights on how they differentiate themselves in a competitive market, their approach to expanding into new areas, and the importance of building strong relationships with landowners and communities.

If you’re a developer looking to learn more about Land Acquisition LLC or interested in potential partnerships, reach out to Dillan and Mitch.

Tune in for an enlightening conversation on the intricacies of land acquisition for renewable energy projects and the future of the industry.

Paces helps developers find and evaluate the sites most suitable for renewable development. Interested in a call with James, CEO @ Paces?

Transcript

00:02.17
carbtonic_admin
Hello, today we're speaking with Dylan Wilson and Mitch May, co-founders at Land Acquisition LLC. Welcome to podcast Dylan and Mitch.

00:09.50
Dillan Wilson
Thank you for having us on.

00:11.45
carbtonic_admin
Very good.

00:11.47
Mitch
Yeah, thanks so much.

00:13.23
carbtonic_admin
Perfect. I guess to start, we'll start with you, Mitch. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up starting Land Acquisition LLC?

00:20.57
Mitch
Yeah. So, um, actually I started pretty early in my working career doing construction. I started around 14 years old doing construction. Uh, did that all throughout high school. And then when I went off to college, I, uh, I also had some different furniture making businesses. And, uh, at the end I slowly we found the solar industry. So, uh, whenever I stepped out of college, I went over to California and started in the solar industry and quickly formed my own business over there in Cali and moved it down to Florida, then back up to PA.

00:48.04
Mitch
And, uh, we were, we were pretty wide reaching and, uh, we were doing construction mainly started in sales. And then one day, uh, Dylan approached me with something pretty interesting. Cause he knew I was pretty involved in the industry. And, uh, heck it's, it's been a, it's been a wild one and we've kind of just, uh, really, really taking this on. He's a, he brought it over to me and we just kind of sent it off into the moon. So.

01:12.69
carbtonic_admin
Love to hear it.

01:13.13
Mitch
that's kind of how That's kind of how I ended up here, just starting the solar world, and then we kind of merged that with the real estate world, and here we are.

01:19.91
carbtonic_admin
That does it. And I guess for you Dylan, um you know what kind of led you into ending up reaching out to to Mitch?

01:27.27
Dillan Wilson
Yeah. So I have a background in real estate and environmental compliance. And earlier in 2023, I was working for an environmental consultant firm, Dawn Land Origination. And I was kind of, it kind of was like a perfect storm. I was getting a little backlash from my firm for working more than 40 hours a week. And then also the developers pulled me aside and said, Hey,

01:52.41
Dillan Wilson
you know, you're you're outperforming like five of other teams that we have hired. We'd like you to just come work for us directly. And we want to get rid of the excess team. So at that point, I quit my job, started working for them as a 1099 instead of W2. And then like Mitch said, I knew he just got back from either California or Florida, doing residential commercial ah solar. I was like, Hey, man, I got this opportunity. I think this would be a great thing for us to tackle together. And then Yeah, we we finished that developer and just expanded completely outwards.

02:26.99
carbtonic_admin
Why was there a backlash with that team as you were trying to figure out you know what's next for you?

02:34.72
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, like the backlash for working the 40 plus hours is just the billing to the developers.

02:41.45
carbtonic_admin
How interesting.

02:42.07
Dillan Wilson
so And I was also doing stuff for like three or four other developers at the same time. so my My bandwidth was spread a little bit thin and that developer knew that. So like, hey, just come work for us directly. So I couldn't pass up the opportunity.

02:57.10
carbtonic_admin
And I guess then when you started Latin acquisition together, um yeah what did that first couple of months look like and and and how did that kind of work evolve?

03:06.74
Mitch
Well, do you mind if I take this real quick?

03:08.83
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, go ahead.

03:09.43
Mitch
Yeah. So actually, um, we started off, um, he, he brought me in because we, he was, uh, stepping into the part where he was negotiating what we're going to do. And it was kind of like a first, first step into the, uh,

03:22.47
Mitch
work for performance. So performance-based work is, of course, you know, highly rewarded if you succeed, but like nothing to the developer if if you don't do anything. So we negotiated a contract that was fair for everybody. And it's just like, heck, if if we don't bring you anything, it doesn't cost you anything. um And we found a fair number that if we do bring them stuff and succeed, ah they they'd pay us. And honestly, they they thought it was going to take us quite a long time to do it, ah two years, in fact.

03:47.84
Mitch
And three months after I came on board, I mean, me and Dylan already sold up that contract. They couldn't take on anymore. So it's been, um, just and an experience in, in the sense of just like, it's a complete different product to sell. And we found just instant success doing it. So, I mean, it's so much to the point where it was equaling my other businesses revenue in one month. and And this is a business that's been around for about five years and we were doing a couple of million dollars in construction a year. So it's just like,

04:15.87
Mitch
the the opportunity was was there. So, I mean, it's just been a wild ride ever since then. and After we filled that first contract, we kind of did it independently. And at the end of at the end of fulfilling that, we were just like, heck, let's go find more developers. We brought in a bunch of our our guys and trained them up well, but um that's when we formed land acquisitions. right After we filled up that contract, it's like, let's start a business together.

04:38.82
carbtonic_admin
Yeah. And I guess what type of developers are you working with, Dylan? And, you know, I think this kind of like, performance-based pay is like, very, very interesting. It's even something, you know, we we think about at Paces in terms of like, are there ways that we can even more align with our end users in terms of like, them getting benefit for the product. um So yeah, so I'd love to hear about both your kind of typical customer, um as well as, ah you know, I guess the structure of that performance type pay and and and how that looks.

05:03.25
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, so so primarily we work in finding great field sites for DG and community solar. But we've we've expanded into like utility solar battery storage. And here in the next couple of weeks, we're going to start probably going rooftop and parking lot community solar. um Like Mitch said, we we expand it. we We hired seven other team members. We had to kind of start it from the ground up, you know, build a training plan.

05:30.21
Dillan Wilson
I'm doing like a crawl, walk, run phase. In about two months, we get them fully self-sufficient. And then pretty much anything we have to do is handle some of the higher level questions or some one-off stuff. Just weird weird circumstances that the land editors might bring to them that's not not normal. And so essentially all all we do now is just meet with developers, discuss target parameters, find the land, and then get the contract signed. And and so far this year, we we probably have about one gigawatt worth of energy that that developer submitted through us finding the landflam. And we'll probably get another 100 by the end of the year. I think that's around the goal that we're going to get.

06:14.63
carbtonic_admin
And so do you typically hand off at site control or will you get involved into pre-apps and those kinds of things as well?

06:21.52
Dillan Wilson
ah No, not right now. Right now, we're primarily getting it to just signature to where it's a fully executed contract. But the way this is kind of panning out so far with how much growth we're having, we're we're probably going to start looking into the once and more of the development side of things.

06:40.59
carbtonic_admin
Very cool. And I guess, you know, it's also something we've had, you know, as as we've kind of grown and added folks, particularly folks who are not from the industry and I'm not from the industry and and have to kind of self teach. It says, you mentioned it takes a couple of months get folks up to speed with the team. What are the kind of main things that folks are trying to learn, so that they're most effective and in the roles at Land Acquisition LLC.

07:01.77
carbtonic_admin
um but

07:01.90
Mitch
Yeah, I mean, it's it's mainly the knowledge base. That is definitely the thing that really separates them. And nobody, nobody on our team, that nobody came from the solar industry. I am the only person that came from the solar industry. So that's been a big thing is trying to teach everybody to um enough to get close enough to be able to talk with like, um developers, because whenever these guys are are going out there, like we we say that they are handling everything. So whenever they're in the red line stages, there might be questions asked. There might be things that come up regarding the site. We want these guys to be able to answer those. So big thing is getting them trained up on the knowledge and there is just so much because it's you have a different set of rules applying to these projects if they are DG rather than this commercial rooftop. And then you've got all these different states that have different PPA laws, NEM rules. And you have there's just a whole whole set of things that you need to be aware of when you go into this.

07:53.86
Mitch
And that's the biggest thing to get them trained up on that knowledge. And then of course, you know, identifying three phase, all that sort of stuff. And just just being able to be on that level of knowledge is the toughest thing. And that's honestly like what takes the whole two months. I mean, these guys, we can get them up in training, do the job in about three days, but it's the knowledge base that they really need to work on. And that's what takes the most amount of time for them to get down.

08:14.72
carbtonic_admin
And I guess, Dylan, you mentioned like some of the of other development opportunities that you're going into. um I guess, like as you kind of look at the industry and and specifically your place within it, where are the the big these are the big exciting opportunities, both in terms of development type, geography, and so on?

08:30.70
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, I mean right now mainly for what community and DG's like PA, Maryland, um ah a little bit of battery storage in like the New England states and then some utility stuff in like Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, stuff like that. But yeah, we're really just looking to expand anywhere anytime state legislation opens up. um We like to get there as quickly as possible because obviously first to the the door eats the most.

09:04.09
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, I guess how closely you do you track some of that state legislation, you know, because we've we've heard from different folks, some folks are like, you know, once a bill is even written before it's even in the state house, you know, in Michigan, they'll like start kind of looking at sites, you know, other developers and and and folks working with developers will like wait until you've a fully passed bill. And then, you know, you're you're kind of, you know, some people would say that's like too late or even that's early, right, depending on like the strategy. I guess what what have you seen in terms of like folks and the developers kind of risk appetite for early versus late relative to like state legislation?

09:37.94
Mitch
yeah i'm Yeah, I mean, whenever you're looking at all that stuff, and you're talking about like, so there's, there's, um there's, ah different levels of situations across the nation.

09:38.78
Dillan Wilson
It varies a lot, I would say.

09:40.60
carbtonic_admin
Yeah.

09:41.21
Dillan Wilson
ah You can take a match if you want.

09:50.77
Mitch
So you have um states that are currently adopting like their first solar plan. So they're essentially opening the floodgates of solar. um We've seen that whenever people get on that early, I mean, that's where you want to be because you're getting obviously the best lease rates, you're getting the best land, you're scooping up the most.

10:06.00
Mitch
I mean, and and it's a lack of competition as well. So by far, those are going to be the most successful people. If somebody's looking to go Like stack their pipeline with a ton that's that's where you bring us um a lot of developers that do come to us it's it's more of a situation of they have failed to meet metrics and they're kind of in a desperate situation with their investors and That's honestly where where we've come in in a lot of times now that that we've we've seen that there are other reasons why that happens and such but

10:36.88
Mitch
um Yeah, as as far as waiting waiting on this stuff, that's really where we see people put in a situation where you're kind of being forced into this super competitive environment where you're possibly pushing lease rates above the point at which the project is viable. And so like, the longer you wait, i of course, the the more um the more difficult it's going to be, of course, every time.

11:00.93
carbtonic_admin
And I guess for you, Dylan, like when you're you know especially in a very competitive market, right you mentioned Maryland, very competitive market, not a ton of sites, a lot of restrictions on on the places in Maryland. um And you know obviously, don't share your secret sauce. But like how do you think about like differentiation? like Some of these landowners are getting inundated with mailers and like different ways of engaging them. um I guess, how do you kind of like try to separate yourselves from the pack?

11:26.11
Dillan Wilson
Yeah. um

11:27.45
Mitch
We just do.

11:27.55
Dillan Wilson
um Yeah.

11:28.50
Mitch
We just do, man. That's why we get people signed. People remember us, honestly. I mean, we we beat out higher lease rates all the time. We beat up, uh, DD payments all the time. And it's just like, really it's, it's just, we, we hire a certain type of guy.

11:43.39
Mitch
We make sure that we're very on top of stuff and, uh, you're, you're dealing with an extremely professional person at all times. So I think that's what really sets us apart.

11:51.07
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, we don't we don't we don't normally go into it too deeply anymore because in in the beginning stages, while me and Mitch were like getting this up and gone, we would tell people the process of how we handle things. And then, you know, we kind of get word from landowners that we've already signed up like, hey, this XYZ is contacting us and they're doing this now. Like, oh, that's strange because they didn't hire us, but they're using our exact playbook.

12:15.54
Dillan Wilson
and

12:16.25
Mitch
Yeah.

12:16.92
carbtonic_admin
so so yeah fully fully get that

12:18.68
Mitch
Yeah.

12:18.75
carbtonic_admin
and then like

12:18.92
Mitch
That's the thing is like we, we, we've been able to casually bring in 200 landowners to the table in a month. So it's just like but we, we have proven that we we know what we're doing. It's consistent.

12:30.29
Mitch
Um, we can also expand guys to make that number higher. It's just like we obviously we have a very proven process. Nobody on our team has ever sold solar before. So, and they've never done land deals before. So all these people were fresh and we're putting 200 with nine people.

12:44.34
Mitch
So. It's just like, I don't really care how we got there. We are performance-based. If you want if you want to see what it is, if you can afford it, great. Find out what it what it is.

12:55.04
Mitch
that That's it. I mean, and we we have no interest in telling anybody how we go about our stuff. We have we have results.

12:59.91
carbtonic_admin
Before I get that, before I get that. Then I guess like, you know, so those are some of the opportunities. um I guess like in terms of like some of the kind of, you know, biggest challenges you face, you know, um what might some of the, they've been, Bodhi is a firm and I guess what you're seeing in the industry overall.

13:16.25
carbtonic_admin
I mean, Dylan, thank you.

13:17.14
Mitch
Okay. So, um, honestly, the the biggest thing for us is finding somebody who can handle our volume because we do bring in a ton and quickly. So being able to process 200 people in a month is, is crazy. You need, you need a huge workforce. That's why we work with so many different developers. And we kind of just like break off pieces of our team to solely work for these people. So nothing's getting crossed over. Um, but I mean, the, the biggest, um the biggest hurdle for us, honestly, uh, it's,

13:47.08
Mitch
And this is going to sound a little harsh, but it's it's a lack of preparedness as far as um knowing what municipal ordinances are. So we kind of run a situation where we're told to go like, Hey, we want a lot of projects in this area. And then we we bring exactly what we were asked for. And it's just like, Hey, this, this municipal ah ordinances like this is municipal, some but We feel like it would be a lot easier if people came to the table and maybe it's like instead of telling us to go after the whole state, maybe you have three or four counties are going after, but you have gathered all the municipal zoning so you know exactly which areas to go after and not to go after, what's forbidden and what's allowed.

14:23.91
Mitch
That would make things a lot faster, honestly, as far as like, because you run into these situations where these developers will get all hot and antsy, be excited. And you bring them, you bring them 40 people ready to sign in a couple of days. And it's just like, then they're wanting to do pre-apps, then they're wanting to go check ordinances zoning. And then they drag the deal on four or five months. They go sign with somebody else. And it's just like, Oh, what the heck happened? Well, you could have had them if you were prepared, we could have gotten this done in two weeks, but drag it out four or five months. The customer got mad. Boom, it's gone.

14:54.29
Mitch
by far the biggest challenge we're facing.

14:57.10
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, I'd say, uh, and then lower level is just like, like you said, like entering into heavily competed markets, like Maryland is just getting in your foot, the door with that landowner and trying to have a conversation with them. Cause cause like you said, they they get like, I get contacts from liners. Like I get like four or five mailers a week or something. So once they've got like 20, 30 touches, 20 phone calls, it's like,

15:22.42
Dillan Wilson
This is the kind of part of the job that I really enjoy. You have to kind of do this delicate dance and like try to read their body language and tone and and kind of mold your pitch towards them to just to get them to have a conversation with you.

15:34.26
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, that's fair Jay and I guess like on Mitch's point of you know the the understanding of if this is a decent site and then being able to like execute on it if the landlord is is a aligned, obviously we do a lot of some of that kind of insights at at paces but it's something we've heard like from other ah developers as well and and folks working with developers.

15:54.88
carbtonic_admin
is, you know, you have often this tension of like, do we understand something maybe I'm about the interconnection side and we're very excited. um But maybe you literally, they have a moratorium or there's some sort of like restriction on permitting you can't build in, you know, prime farmland or whatever it might be and then all of a sudden it's like okay.

16:10.61
carbtonic_admin
It doesn't matter that there's capacity on the on the grid or on the network there. You literally are not going to be able to navigate Saldo or whatever might be in PA. So fully fully get that. I guess like any specific you know recent lease options you've signed or agreements you signed that you have to be creative with to kind of get through to the end. I think you're talking about some title issues that Dylan or anything like that.

16:34.52
Dillan Wilson
ah Yeah, I'd say one of the most unique situations I've had here in PA, for one project in the in the past, we had one landowner who was in the middle of the project, and he he did not want to budge on anything. So we had to just sit down. We tried like eight different things. like Nothing was given. or like Okay, one of the landowners inside of our project area signed up, but he has another piece of property outside of the project area. So we purchased that one, did a land swap so that he could form that one, sign this one up, and then it was like the ultimate one for this for this guy. He got to keep that property that we signed up for the solar, and then he got to farm and own the other property.

17:21.43
Dillan Wilson
But that's that's probably the ah most unique situation i' I've ran into so far, Dolan this.

17:26.90
carbtonic_admin
and And how about you Mitch, any kind of interesting ah like like deals that you've kind of worked on recently?

17:32.37
Mitch
Oh, heck yeah, I mean we've done like Restructure D payments to make sure the developer and the customer are happy. like Maybe the customer wants like $1,000 more a year in DD. So ah the middle ground there, we found to ah give them that, but there're their first year payment instead of being at NTP is at PTO. So that gave the developer more time, but they found it was worth it for like basically five grand extra because it's five years of DD. So it's just like finding a middle ground like that. Wonderful, wonderful win there. um And then we had another developer

18:04.34
Mitch
that they had a property where the gentleman had commercial, like more commercial land in the front of the property. And it was obviously the best land for the solar. And then as you went down, the land got a little little worse, but the developer wanted all of it. And because we're doing like co-location, there was, it was like a hundred acres. So.

18:21.94
Mitch
there was a ton of projects in there. And the middle ground we found that made everybody happy was to basically start at the bottom and just structure these projects. So it was ah essentially done in the order of what gets approved. So if only got three got approved and all these, the bottom three got built and just so once we just kind of went up like that and ah just structured it. So it just snaked into the least about a desirable property up to the most valuable. And so that was, that was another creative one that we came up with that got done.

18:48.00
carbtonic_admin
You mentioned, you know, obviously farmland and agricultural land is is like a major component of this. um Listeners on the podcast will know that I grew up on a sheep farm in Ireland and and we have very similar issues there.

18:52.50
Mitch
Um hmm.

18:57.23
carbtonic_admin
And often one of the kind of responses to, you know, square the circle on some of these deals is agri-voltaics, right? You have some sort of like grazing or, you know, things like that.

19:07.28
carbtonic_admin
um Has that come up up much in your, you know, because I've heard from some folks, it's like, okay, it's kind of like a panacea.

19:08.11
Mitch
ah

19:12.88
carbtonic_admin
It's going to be, it's going to make a lot of these deals easier. And I've heard from others that it's actually kind of very, very difficult for farmers not you know already kind of thinking in those terms. They're very unlikely to actually adopt that, and it actually doesn't necessarily make that many deals that much easier. I guess what's your experience of that?

19:27.55
Mitch
Yeah, so um we had we had one client that um it's pretty much our been our own hard only hard request for it because she bought a historical conservation home and the one stipulation was that it had to have sheep grazing on the property. So those had to stay there and and and But that was like the only way she would do it, is if we could um keep a sheep there. So it was agri-growth takes, but the lease rate is so much lower. So you're looking at like lop and a third of that off pretty much, if people are going to do agri-volt takes. And that's kind of what like holds up these deals, is these these like farmers want their their cake and eat it too. So they want basically full lease rate. They want agri-growth takes. That doesn't work out in the budget. So you can't be asking like top dollar for the land and get agri-volt takes, which makes the project more costly. and that's That's been the biggest hold up there.

20:14.93
carbtonic_admin
Yeah. And then I guess, you know, as you kind of think through, you know, the kind of way the market might kind of evolve over the next couple of years, you know, you're obviously going very, very rapidly, you know, you see all this kind of new opportunities and these other geographies and other project types. um Where do you think like the market will be in two, three years out? Dylan?

20:33.98
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, I think it's going to absolutely explode. Honestly, I think what just this year it went up 40 to 60%. And I think as as just because it's just still consider like kind of niche, but the more that it grows and the more that states kind of open up to it and like open up and adopt community solar, um it's just going to absolutely explode across the US.

20:59.08
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, I think one so I agree with that. And I think we're we're seeing like this state by state, you know, you see these new emergent frontier states, you know, like the Missouri's of the world who are starting to talk about new solar and so on.

21:11.19
carbtonic_admin
um I guess one challenge we've seen, you know, if we look, we've we've recently completed some analysis of paces around how many sites are on a parcel that have at least a megawatt of host capacity in Illinois and New York.

21:11.22
Dillan Wilson
Mm hmm.

21:22.81
carbtonic_admin
And New York, more established states, you know that lost 10% to 12% of sites that are possible to build projects on in the last year. Illinois lost something like 40% of sites in the last year and are intractably losing, or 25%. And when I say lose, it means like there are just fewer sites that have enough housing capacity to to develop the project.

21:42.41
carbtonic_admin
um And so it's one of these elements where it's like a lot of the low hanging fruit, I think that some of these markets are getting grabbed. And, you know, I think it's going to need some major upgrades by the utility in a, you know, in a concerted way in order to actually fuel it and allow that the state level targets to be hit. um Because like places like New York have these big state level targets and like we've already done the analysis, they're not literally going to be able to build enough ground on solar and hit them based on the current you know restrictions of local permitting plus where the interconnection lies.

22:03.51
Dillan Wilson
so

22:10.26
carbtonic_admin
So I agree. I think we're going to see ever more states added, but I think the the more established states are really going to struggle to to actually get enough of these products built two or three years out. So I don't know if you'd agree or disagree with that.

22:21.44
Dillan Wilson
No, I agree.

22:23.08
carbtonic_admin
Very cool. And then I guess um you know as we're kind of like thinking through about the industry today and kind of future. Any, I guess, hot takes about the industry, things that, ah you know, as you're kind of talking to your peers and folks at conferences and all that kind of thing that people are like, oh, I don't know if I fully agree with you guys on that. um I guess, starting with you, Mitch.

22:43.00
Mitch
Yeah, no, no. i ah so So I like to go to RE Plus and stuff like that and go talk to these guys. I mean, co-ops are out of hand. That's just what everybody can agree on. I mean, you're you're dealing with somebody who's basically like, it's it's you're you're disadvantaging people in rural communities so badly from that. I mean, not only are you ruining their ability to put solar on their own home, but you're ripping away an investment opportunity from them. So it's just like, what what better way to disparage the wealth gap between rural and and city ah city communities. I mean, it's just like there there needs to be rules we've put in place that hold them to a standard. They aren't allowed to go do this one fifth buyback stuff. They got to have the same rules as the utilities, as the public utilities, because if we're doing this in the

23:28.84
Mitch
like good faith of our nation's infrastructure, they should be on board too. It shouldn't be something where they can just like hold all the areas captive. There's there's no opportunity there to make money because it's just like, like I said, one fifth buyback. So you're just like, absolutely kneecapping any potential of any project in that area. Plus homeowners, they basically have to install batteries not to get like um ripped off on the back end because they're just essentially buying their power back at night. And it's it's a it's a terrible deal for anybody looking to be more sustainable and like ah adapt with the grid. I mean, that's what it's there for, net energy metering to be able to bank your credits, dish it out. And if there's no advantage for anybody outside of the city, then like you're you're really looking at sparse areas in which these IOUs, investment utilities are going to these people. And they are. and And also the other thing is the zoning, because you will have,

24:20.19
Mitch
you'll have an area where you'll have 300 people in Pennilac and then four people on an REC and there's nothing you can do. if you If these people want to build a project, it's done. Like it's obviously done. So I mean, I think these co-ops, like I said, are the most out of hand thing in the nation and by far holding back this um more than anything.

24:42.13
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, how about you, Dom?

24:44.08
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, I'd say more in the industry time. that This is one of my like biggest pet peeves, especially when we were first starting out. Time and experience in the industry doesn't equate to more success. um And so like more experience in industry knowledge is definitely beneficial, but for land origination side of things, I think it really comes down to is who's willing to work harder and who has the capability of building rapport with the landowners.

25:11.58
Dillan Wilson
aht that That was one of like one of the biggest things. Even interviewing like other developers were like, oh, you guys only have been doing this for like a year. um I don't know. We kind of want somebody with five years experience. But it's like, yeah, but who else is doing a a gigawatt a year that has five or 10 years experience? They just don't have the drive, I think, that our our team has.

25:34.08
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, it's it's one of these interesting we've seen as well. um it It depends on the part of the industry, but sometimes you see this gatekeeping, right, where it's like, you know, you smart person, you know, coming in, and they might have a unconventional background for this for this industry.

25:49.63
carbtonic_admin
and are very willing to learn. But it's like, oh, you don't know the difference between ISO and RTO. And you don't know you know this and that kind of thing. um and you know Or you didn't see you know the the rise of clean tech 1.0.

26:03.06
carbtonic_admin
You're all folks who came in since COVID and and and you know everyone's like changing your careers or whatever.

26:05.40
Dillan Wilson
Yeah.

26:07.36
carbtonic_admin
um and so It's something that we see a lot. And you know actually, one of the things we started doing here at Paces is an industry day and like this industry-specific training where we now have a few and former developer you know Power developers at the company and they'll like bring new hires through like all these things and we actually have them do some mind origination like desktop analysis outside of paces to kind of test them out and a lot of that I think is just to like get people to be able to have The two to three minute conversation when you run into them at re plus bar or whatever it is so that like you're kind of like in the club to a certain extent like you can kind of talk and Now, maybe you know once they start talking about you know PPAs and like some more complicated part of interconnection, that's beyond you. But I think a lot of things is, like can you just have those formal informal like little moments to build trust? And then that's how you also learn. Because now that person is going to like push you to like learn a little bit deeper. And then you know the next conversation, you can be a bit more informed than the one after that, et cetera.

27:01.05
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, completely agree. I think that's why ah me and Mitch make such a great duo here. Because what when it comes to the PPAs and stuff, I have no clue what's going on with that. But when it comes to land origination, I'm i'm on top of it and keeping things organized and and just getting it done.

27:16.57
Dillan Wilson
But any time it comes to the PPA stuff, I'm like, hey, Mitch, get on the phone.

27:21.09
carbtonic_admin
yeah to Get on it.

27:21.10
Dillan Wilson
and

27:22.17
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, yeah.

27:22.28
Dillan Wilson
and

27:24.38
carbtonic_admin
I mean, we talked a little bit about both of your backgrounds, but you know i I guess like you know speaking to the folks who want to move into the industry and so on, um I guess like you know being from where you're from, Mitch, um how does that, I guess, impact your approach to things?

27:37.47
carbtonic_admin
um you know i guess How does growing up in the town you grew up in shape what you've done?

27:42.73
Mitch
Well, hey, i'm I'm sure you relate to this being a ah sheep farm from Ireland. I mean, yeah we, me and Dylan brook both grow pretty rural. I mean, i Dylan, I don't think you, you did you even have 200 people in your town?

27:54.34
Dillan Wilson
ah Yeah, I was like 2000, but I graduated like 70 people. ah so

27:58.17
Mitch
Okay, yeah, so I grew up in this little town, Prospect, PA. um And, but like, we were both just like way, pretty much out in the woods, but out there, I mean, I see, I think that people tend to like work a little harder out there and you just kind of like,

28:10.66
Mitch
develop a grit. yeah I mean, you got winners every winter, you got a chop wood, all that sort of stuff. You got a farm in the summer. Um, but I think it's just a work ethic thing. I think that's pretty much been the biggest thing. And honestly, partnering with Dylan, having somebody with that kind of work ethic also by your side, like it's, it's been unreal. I mean, I've had, I've had multiple business partners in the past and none of them worked that hard. So it's just like,

28:31.96
Mitch
As far as where I'm from and partnering with somebody in the future, if if you're gonna be doing something like this, I would always suggest getting a partner, but you definitely want somebody who works as hard as you. That's by far the biggest thing, because as soon as that imbalance takes place, everything just goes goes crazy. It's like almost like a trailer that gets unbalanced, you're dragging behind your car, it's just gonna flip eventually if you got that thing off balance.

28:53.21
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, it's like my, my co-founder Charles, I was like, co-founder dating with quite a few folks for, for a year as he was as well. And what I found was often I talked to software engineers and like, I'd be kind of trying to pull out of them and like, Hey, we should do this and do that.

29:05.71
carbtonic_admin
And they'd be kind of like a little bit resistant. And like the second time I met Charles, he was like, did you do the five things you said you're going to do? Right? Did you do it?

29:12.67
Dillan Wilson
to

29:13.28
carbtonic_admin
And I was like, finally, I was like, you need that mutual push, right? So that you can kind of be stronger than the some of your parts. um And then I guess, like, related for you, Dylan, you know, if I was somebody who wanted, you know, as a young person, younger than I am now, and I wanted to either get into industry or even join um your company, I guess, what would your kind of advice be for that person who's trying to, like, make that change?

29:32.65
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, i I think the the best advice that I would have is find a good mentor or developer to work for, like just low level and just try to absorb absolutely everything that they know about the industry. And then after that, it's all repetition and mastering the craft.

29:49.97
carbtonic_admin
Very cool. um And so that's pretty much um all the questions. I guess before we finish off, really enjoyed the conversation. But I guess for both you and you know you, Dylan and Mitch, is there anything I should have asked you about but did not?

30:04.55
Mitch
dude i should I feel like I should have asked you about the Irish sheep farming.

30:08.59
carbtonic_admin
Yeah, I'm happy to answer.

30:08.76
Mitch
That's what I wanted to hear about.

30:10.54
carbtonic_admin
yeah so so we Yeah, so we had a couple hundred heads of sheep and then we had a few cattle just for the house. And yeah, we it was a farm that we, the family got it in the late 1880s and we sold it three years ago.

30:25.71
carbtonic_admin
I was the eldest son, I'm not the one left to farm and um there's no there's no men in the family left in Ireland, we all like utter.

30:26.25
Dillan Wilson
on them.

30:33.33
carbtonic_admin
left or left in other ways and so yeah so that's that's this and you know and and that was that was kind of growing up with us um and it was you know your sharing just because the the cost of sharing was more expensive than the price you'd get for wool so that was like the economics of it was just like an absolute mess and it was like it was like 130 person village I went to the local bus to the local town to to go to high school but similar sizes to what Dylan scribes but yeah

30:34.97
Dillan Wilson
yeah

31:00.78
carbtonic_admin
So I go back every once a year to see ma'am. That's what I did.

31:04.89
Mitch
Yeah, no, that's awesome.

31:06.47
Dillan Wilson
you

31:07.36
carbtonic_admin
Very good.

31:07.55
Mitch
That's a heck of a way to grow up.

31:09.54
carbtonic_admin
Very good. Perfect. And so you know if if any developers, I guess, wanted wanted to you know learn more about land acquisition and the kind of work you do, you what's the best way for those folks to kind of engage with you, reach out to you, and and so on.

31:10.70
Mitch
ah

31:21.74
Dillan Wilson
Yeah.

31:21.80
Mitch
Heck, I mean, email, text, whatever they want to do to get ahold of us.

31:22.89
Dillan Wilson
ah

31:25.74
Mitch
Um, we, we honestly don't, we didn't put up a website at all because we just figure when we're out there, some of these developers like us to represent them. So we didn't do really any branding besides our business cards and everything like that.

31:36.98
Mitch
I mean, we, we could probably put up a website. Um, but right now, I mean, you can just reach us, either one of us, michard, dylan.landac at gmail dot.com. Um, that's, it's pretty easy to reach to get ahold of us.

31:47.33
Mitch
I mean, we're, we're all over the internet. You can reach us through LinkedIn. Um, we're, we're pretty available and we'll get right back to you.

31:54.19
carbtonic_admin
Perfect. And we'll um we'll include all those links and in the show notes for the podcast.

31:56.45
Mitch
Oh, perfect.

31:58.21
Dillan Wilson
Awesome, thanks.

31:58.56
carbtonic_admin
Perfect.

31:59.51
Mitch
But yeah, I mean, we're we're James, we're looking for, uh, any, any work in the U S like I said, because of paces, we're able to reach like pretty much any corner of the country.

31:59.71
carbtonic_admin
All right. Well, it's been good.

32:06.23
Mitch
So if somebody needs land, we we can find it. That's pretty much the end of it.

32:11.21
carbtonic_admin
Absolutely. Love to hear it.

32:11.91
Mitch
Yep. Thank you.

32:12.99
carbtonic_admin
Well, thank you, Mitch. Thank you, Dylan. It was great chatting. And yeah, I look forward to continue working with you.

32:17.55
Mitch
All right.

32:17.87
Dillan Wilson
Yeah, thanks for having us on.

32:18.75
Mitch
Appreciate you.