Project Vanguard Podcast

Kevin Doffing

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Updated Weekly

A podcast about leadership, energy, and service — told by the veterans shaping America’s Energy Dominance. Project Vanguard brings raw, mission-first conversations with those who’ve led in the military and continue to serve their country, building our energy future. Real stories. Clear insight. Focused on an All of the Above energy strategy where Energy Security is National Security. media.projectvanguard.com

Aug 12

Landowners have more power than they use

I sat down with Jeff Risley, who grew up on a wheat farm in western Kansas and spent his career in public affairs with energy developers as clients. One of them asked him why nobody was looking out for the farmers across the table. They had the idea, he built it. Farmers have a group for wheat and one for corn. Now they have one for electrons, and his own family has oil and gas wells on the same ground. When a developer comes knockin about leasing ground, the farmer is negotiating something he has never done before, against people who do it every day. So Jeff’s group runs the same analysis the developer runs, on the same tools, and hands the landowner a number before the offer comes. What raises that number is not too complicated, like how close you sit to a place the grid can take the power and whether anything on it is protected. “Landowners have way more power than they think,” he told me. He is just as blunt about how developers give that power back, deciding on a project, announcing it, then defending it when the county pushes back. I have done community engagement in these areas and that is how it goes. He is fair about it too. Some do this well, and some are two guys in a truck. That and much more in today’s podcast episode. Chapters 00:00 – Introduction 01:43 – What REFA does for farmers and ranchers 03:17 – The name, and how energy got politicized 06:41 – What the ground is worth, and what landowners can ask for 12:57 – How Jeff built REFA 18:38 – Membership, pricing, and advocacy 21:32 – Veterans getting into farming 24:20 – What's squeezing farmers, and renewables as a lifeline 28:08 – Regret, and why farmers trust other farmers 29:55 – Getting in without owning land 34:30 – Why developers lose rural communities 38:53 – Social license after the project is built 41:04 – Close, and why the messenger matters Get full access to Project Vanguard at media.projectvanguard.com/subscribe
Jul 30

The Sitreps Guys on Hiring Done Right

I sat down with Max Cormier and Wyatt Frasier, the guys behind Sitreps. If you’re a veteran in business you already know the meme page. What you might not know is that they turned that community into a recruiting firm that places vets into leadership roles at defense tech startups and private equity portfolio companies. We got into how that actually happened. It started as beer money from advertising lip balm, and it became something real once companies realized Sitreps could find trusted people fast, inside a community that already vouches for them. Max and Wyatt walk through where they fit that nobody else does, and why the volume play, a hundred bodies at a job site, was never their game. Both of them have hired and been hired, and they are blunt about what each side gets wrong. They will tell you about companies that drag out interviews for months and then lowball the good candidates, and about vets who assume their rank alone should open doors. The line that ties it together is one they say to clients all the time. Being cheap is expensive. I had them on because I want that kind of high-grade military leadership moving into energy, not just the volume roles. Timestamps * 00:00 - Being cheap is expensive * 01:19 - Singapore and the semiconductor trip * 05:07 - From a meme page to a veteran community * 10:15 - Why the volume play was never the game * 14:30 - Where they fit: defense tech and PE portfolios * 20:05 - Speed to market * 22:00 - Why Max and Wyatt joined * 27:12 - Getting out: MBAs and the GI Bill * 31:00 - The pig-waste startup that didn't work * 35:47 - What companies get wrong about hiring * 38:53 - What candidates get wrong * 43:00 - Skin in the game Resources Resources People & Organizations * Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn) * Project Vanguard (Website - Linkedin - Newsletter - Apple Podcasts - Spotify) * Sitreps (Website) * Max Cormier (LinkedIn) * Wyatt Frasier (LinkedIn) * Kyle Eberly, co-founder (LinkedIn) * Sitreps2Steercos, the community and newsletter (LinkedIn - Substack) * SkillBridge, the DoD program Wyatt used in his transition (Website) Company & Industry News * CHIPS Act overview, the semiconductor policy referenced in the Singapore discussion (Website) Related Project Vanguard Episodes * Don’t Play Small with Marcus Barnes, NextOp Vets on energy careers for junior enlisted veterans Get full access to Project Vanguard at media.projectvanguard.com/subscribe
Jul 16

More projects than people to build them

I sat down with Jim Sardonia, who just won the first PowerVets Veterans Leadership Award from ACP, a program they run with us. When I asked him about it he barely talked about himself. He called it a team award and started telling me about his guys in the field, the ones out at two and three in the morning restarting turbines in feet of snow and twenty below. Jim spent seven years in the Air Force as a launch weather officer at Cape Canaveral. Now he’s VP of technical support at Exus Renewables North America, where his team decides whether a piece of land can hold a project at all. That means telling a bank what twenty years of weather will produce when you’ve only got two or three years of data from the site. The bank stress tests your number against the worst year it can imagine. Jim remembers 2015, when the drought out west put California wind farms at 65 percent of their long-term average. Get that math wrong and people don’t make payroll. This is what I mean when I say you can’t get by on vibes in this industry. The project produces or it doesn’t. That’s why veterans fit here, and Jim’s been hiring and mentoring them for years. He says there are more projects right now than there are people and money to build them. Timestamps * 00:06 - Cold open and welcome * 01:25 - The PowerVets award and the guys in the field * 03:06 - Turbine height, wind shear, and site suitability * 05:18 - What Exus does, and how a polygon becomes buildable land * 07:46 - Solar land use, agrivoltaics, and revenue per acre * 11:26 - Who owns these assets: Everpower, pension funds, and hurdle rates * 16:45 - Pricing the weather: met towers, P50/P90/P99, and bank stress tests * 22:46 - A military family and the SR-71 crew chief * 26:01 - Launch weather officer: 137 launches and shuttle ferry flights * 28:21 - Data center demand and the interconnection bottleneck * 30:53 - Why veterans fit: ownership, safety, and no getting by on vibes * 33:33 - Turning Point USA and student-led organizations * 37:15 - Advocacy without the trigger words * 42:23 - Advice for veterans considering the industry Resources People & Organizations * Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn) * Project Vanguard (Website - Podcast - Apple Podcasts - Spotify) * Jim Sardonia (LinkedIn) * Exus Renewables North America (Website - LinkedIn) * American Clean Power Association (Website) * ACP PowerVets Veterans Leadership Award (Website) * PowerVets Veteran Program at CLEANPOWER (Website) * Center for Energy Workforce Development (Website) * Troops to Energy Jobs (Website - LinkedIn) * Get Into Energy (Website) * Student Veterans of America (Website) * Pattern Energy (Website) Company & Industry News * Exus Renewables North America Closes $400 Million Facility to Meet Surging Power Demand * Exus Renewables North America Secures Over $300 Million in Financing for Zia Solar Portfolio and Keystone Wind Projects * Energy Industry Needs More Veterans as Demand for Skilled Workers Grows Related Project Vanguard Episodes * From Geopolitics to the Kitchen Table with Andy Davis Transcript Kevin Doffing: Welcome to Project Vanguard Podcast, home of the community of Veterans in Energy, where we explore the journeys of veterans leading in energy. We’re building American energy dominance through an all-the-above approach where energy security is national security. And our mission is to double the number of veterans working in the energy industry. I’m your host, Kevin Doffing. Today I’m talking with Jim Sardonia. Jim’s an Air Force veteran and meteorologist who spent years as a launch Weather Officer at Cape Canaveral, supporting space shuttle launches for NASA. Now, he’s the VP of Technical Support at Exus Renewables North America. And drumroll, he just won the first ever Power Vet Leadership Award from the American Clean Power Association. I don’t know how it took winning this award for Jim and I to finally connect, but I’m really glad we did. We talk about what it takes to make a project pencil, how banks stress test the weather itself. And why demand is outrunning everyone’s forecasts. Who actually owns these assets and how to turn wind data into a number a bank will lend against? If you’re a veteran wondering whether there’s room for you in this industry, Jim’s answer is this whole episode. Let’s get into it. Jim, thank you so much for joining us today. Jim Sardonia: Absolutely. I appreciate the invitation and it’s great to speak with you. Kevin Doffing: Yeah. You know, the first time we spoke, I was actually in Iowa as we were kicking off that chapter last month or so. And I was real excited to talk to you because you recently won an award through the American Clean Power Association. Can you talk a little bit about what that was? What did you do with the big cash prize? Jim Sardonia: Yeah, I’m still waiting for that, but no. The award is the first inaugural ACP, it’s American Clean Power Association’s Power Vet Leadership Award. And based on the write up, they wanted to identify and recognize veterans and their contributions to the renewable energy industry. I was nominated by my company, Exus Renewables North America, which was a huge honor. We have you know, almost a dozen veterans in our company. Kevin Doffing: Yeah. Jim Sardonia: Itself and just be nominated by my company was a huge honor. And then we got notification it was a top five finalist at Clean Power in Houston was in the s crowd there when they announced and very honored and privileged to be standing and sitting next to my fellow veterans and accepted on everybody’s behalf. To me I like I told my folks here, this is a team award from my perspective for all the veterans here. We have veterans in the field operating our sites. They’re out there two in the three in the morning. Getting these turbines restarted in the middle of the winter with feet of snow on the ground and twenty below. So they’re the ones that motivate me, you know, to work harder in the back office here and make their job easier and better and work the best I can for Exus here. Kevin Doffing: Yeah. And I’ve been out to the Exus offices. I love how there’s that ground mount wind turbine that’s in there. Yeah, the vertical. Yeah. I’ve had some friends that have talked to me about that, but it’s you gotta get a lot more height on top of buildings or whatever. G get out of the friction at the base. Jim Sardonia: Yeah. And out of the shadow of the big building. Kevin Doffing: And you’ve designed a lot of projects. So you know exactly probably the numbers behind the increase in efficiency as you get higher. Yeah. Well. Jim Sardonia: Absolutely. That’s a huge part of our core business. And being on the technical side, we look at those conditions, the climatic conditions at each site, at each wind farm. You know, these turbines are getting massive. They’re going up to a hundred and twenty-five meter hub heights, you know, three to four hundred, three hundred and fifty to four hundred feet just at the hub height. That’s at the nacelle level. And then the blades are another eighty meters above that. So we’re really stretching into the lower levels of the atmosphere. We’re really extending high. Into that and wind shear is a big part of that element where you as you you go higher winds you typically increase in some cases they actually decrease and at unique like mountain passes in California or out west you get some very unique wind flow dynamics which we have to study that’s our job on the technical side is to study all these sites, make sure the conditions are suitable for good production, but also not to beat up these turbines. They’re designed to last 20 years, but if you have conditions that are really rough, turbulent high wind shear, they could beat these turbines to death in two or three years. So we’re looking at a balance between good production, positive revenue, projects that make money and produce well and can last for a lifetime. That’s what the Kevin Doffing: That’s what I always liked when I talk to companies, you know, asset management companies like Exus is it’s not a hearts and minds things. It’s a dollars and cents. Right. People will be like, hey, you you say all the above. What about a coal plant? I’m like, do it. If it pencils, like do it. But good luck without some massive subsidies to make it pencil. And that has nothing to do with greenwashing or whatever. That’s just market economics, commodity pricing, just the market, yeah, like free markets. So take a step back. Jim Sardonia: Yes. Yes. Kevin Doffing: What would you say you do at Exus and tell everybody about Exus as a company? As y’all are hiring more vets and things like that. I love what y’all do. Jim Sardonia: Yeah, absolutely. Exus Renewables North America is a owner, operator, developer, and builder of utility scale renewables, wind, solar, and battery storage. We’re basically A to Z. We Greenfield Prospect, we’re prospecting actively right now for new projects across the country. We’re looking at potential acquisitions of projects maybe further along in development or even operating assets. So we look at everything that is, you know, could bring value to the company to increase our pipeline, our portfolio. As I mentioned, we, you know, we’re a developer and a builder too. We have an EPC group and that’s the group I’m assigned to. I’m the VP of technical support in our EPC group. And EPC stands for engineering, procurement, and construction. My role is more in the E and the P part of that, the engineering and procurement. And then we have our another silo with an another vice president who’s head of construction. Once the project is developed and designed, and we have signed contracts to procure wind turbines or solar modules, then it shifts over to our active construction group. We have very experienced folks in our construction team that have built gigawatts, multiple giga
Jun 17

From Geopolitics to the Kitchen Table with Andy Davis

When Andy Davis first heard “energy security,” he thought what most people think. Oil. Nuclear. Geopolitics. A problem that lived somewhere far away, between governments. He had more reason than most to think that way. As an Army Ranger, he parachuted into Iraq on the night of the invasion and later spent ten days in a firefight on top of the Haditha Dam, one of the largest power-generating facilities in the country. There was intel it would be blown to flood the Euphrates and trap American troops. His mortar crews were hitting the substations below. At the time, it was a mission. Years later, working for one of the largest dam owners in the world, he found himself giving public tours of hydroelectric dams and realized he’d been standing on top of one of these structures under fire long before he ever explained one to a crowd. That full circle is the heart of this conversation, but it isn’t really the point. The point is what changed in how Andy sees the work. His argument is simple: energy security stopped being a geopolitical abstraction for him and became a kitchen-table issue. People want the lights to stay on and the bill to stay predictable. Most of them have no idea where the power actually comes from or what the charges mean. He thinks the industry has a job to do there, and that most of these arguments are won or lost not in Washington but in a town hall or at someone’s kitchen table. Kevin pushes on this from his own experience riding out hurricanes in Houston, where a small home microgrid is the difference between his kids streaming on their iPads and the neighbors huddled around a candle. There’s also a straight answer here for veterans wondering how to break into energy, and it has less to do with credentials than you’d expect. Andy didn’t plan any of this. He’ll tell you the best move he made was being willing to walk through a door he hadn’t planned on. Timestamps * 00:00 - Introduction & Andy Davis * 01:39 - Welcome & Spotting Fellow Veterans * 05:05 - His Work in Community Engagement * 07:08 - Finding Project Vanguard * 11:05 - Joining the Army Rangers * 13:39 - The Combat Jump Into Iraq * 16:31 - The Haditha Dam Mission * 22:41 - From GI Bill Struggles to Politics * 27:49 - Advice for Veterans Entering Energy * 29:27 - Energy Security at the Kitchen Table * 33:36 - Becoming a Project Vanguard Leader * 37:19 - Closing Thoughts & Sign-Off Resources People & Organizations * Andy Davis * Brookfield Renewable (Website - LinkedIn) * NYISO (Website - LinkedIn) * Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn) * Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube) * Community Leader Fellowship (Apply) * Other orgs mentioned * Atlantic Council Global Energy Center (Website) Company & Industry News * Section 247 Hydroelectricity Incentives: Brookfield Renewable Selections (Department of Energy) * Solutions to the Energy Talent Gap Are Hiding in Plain Sight (Utility Dive) Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard * How a Marine Lands in Energy Policy * Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It Related Substack Posts by Kevin * Make Energy Boring Again Get full access to Project Vanguard at media.projectvanguard.com/subscribe
May 20

How a Marine Lands in Energy Policy

Most service members start thinking seriously about life after the uniform six months out. Jim Purekal started two years out. He networked, he sat down with people who had nothing in common with his career, and he treated the whole thing like a mission with a deadline. That discipline is how a retired Marine Corps major with twenty years in aviation ended up running Virginia legislative work for Advanced Energy United, a national trade association. It is also why this episode is useful for anyone who is actually thinking about energy as a second career. Jim spent his last active duty stretch on Capitol Hill as a congressional fellow in Senator Perdue’s office, then retired out of the Pentagon. He used SkillBridge to land at SunPower for twelve weeks during the pandemic, learning the industry from the inside on a DOD paycheck. His take on that program is direct: if a service member is six months from getting out and their command does not have a plan for them, that is a leadership gap. The conversation gets into the work itself. Most days, Jim is in Richmond during the General Assembly session, working bills, educating lawmakers, meeting with member companies. Virginia sits inside PJM, the regional grid operator covering thirteen states and DC. Demand is climbing fast. Data centers, building electrification, transportation. The decisions that shape how the grid actually gets built happen in state capitals, not on cable news. Jim and Kevin also dig into the harder question for transitioning veterans. What soft skills actually transfer. What the learning curve looks like. Why sales, policy, and project development are real landing spots, not just the technical trades. And what Jim wishes he had known when he was the one buttoning up his resume and asking strangers for a conversation. The Solar Ready Vets program that helped Jim get placed has since been cut. That makes the question of where veterans find their next foothold in this industry less abstract, and more pressing. Project Vanguard Podcast is produced by ClarityForge Studios. Timestamps * 00:00 - Introduction & Jim Purekal * 01:10 - Inside Advanced Energy United * 04:42 - The Virginia Legislative Beat * 05:51 - What’s Driving Virginia’s Demand * 07:27 - The Day-to-Day Policy Work * 11:27 - Why He Joined the Marines * 15:25 - SkillBridge and Landing at SunPower * 18:30 - Choosing Energy Over a Defense Contractor * 23:04 - The Congressional Fellowship * 25:43 - Preparing the Transition Early * 29:28 - Advice for Veterans Getting Out * 33:49 - What Energy Security Means to Him Resources People & Organizations * Jim Purekal (LinkedIn) * Advanced Energy United (Website - LinkedIn) * Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn) * Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube) * Other orgs mentioned * DoD SkillBridge (Website) * Solar Ready Vets Network — IREC (Website) Company & Industry News * Virginia’s 2026 Legislative Session Delivered Major Clean Energy Wins — by Jim Purekal * Virginia lawmakers seek to balance energy affordability, reliability in 2026 — VPM News Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard * The Network After Service with Ken Webre * Take a Risk on Yourself with Laura Gardner Get full access to Project Vanguard at media.projectvanguard.com/subscribe
May 6

Don't Play Small with Marcus Barnes

About seven percent of Americans have served in the military. The number who actually make it from a uniform into a career that fits is smaller than it should be, and the people who fall through the cracks most often are not the officers with MBAs. They’re the junior enlisted. That’s the gap Marcus Barnes works in every day. Marcus is a Marine Corps veteran and the Energy Program Manager at NextOp Vets, the Houston-based nonprofit Kevin has long called one of the best junior enlisted placement organizations in the sector. NextOp focuses on the E3 to E7 sweet spot, the rank range where transition is hardest and the industry’s recruiting machinery is weakest. Marcus’s specific job is to take that pipeline of talent and connect it to oil and gas, utilities, and renewables. The conversation gets practical fast. Kevin and Marcus walk through how NextOp actually works, how employers plug in without paying to play, and where Project Vanguard’s swim lane ends and NextOp’s begins. PV builds the peer network. NextOp does the placement. The handoff matters, and most veterans don’t know either piece exists. The other half of the episode is the human side. Marcus gets out of the Marines after six and a half years, walks into a staffing agency, and gets told his job is called HR. He didn’t know what HR was. He’s open about how often transitioning vets assume free resources are for somebody else, not them, and how much that single mindset costs people. His parting advice is simple: Don’t play small. If you know a transitioning service member, especially a junior enlisted one staring at a graduation date with no plan, this is the episode to send them. And if you’re an employer in energy who keeps saying you want to hire more veterans but can’t find the pipeline, the pipeline is in here. Timestamps * 00:00 - Cold Open & Introducing Marcus Barnes * 01:56 - Where NextOp Stands Today * 05:03 - Why Veterans Fit Energy & Finding NextOp * 06:56 - Networking and Telling the Right Story * 11:40 - Reaching Bases & Transitioning Service Members * 14:26 - Project Vanguard and NextOp Swim Lanes * 17:31 - Sponsorship, Donations, and Funding * 19:10 - How Marcus Ended Up a Marine * 25:54 - What Transition Looks Like for Junior Enlisted Now * 28:30 - How to Support NextOp * 31:37 - Energy Security and Storm Response * 34:15 - Don’t Play Small & Wrap-Up Resoures People & Organizations * Marcus Barnes (LinkedIn) * NextOp Vets (Website - LinkedIn) * Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn) * Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube) Company & Industry News * Veterans are ready to power America’s energy future, if we give them the chance * Energy Workforce Fast Facts * Kiggans, Houlahan Introduce Bipartisan VET Act * How NextOp Helps Veterans Get Careers in Skilled Trades Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard * Training the Energy Workforce with Nick Martocci * Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It * Take a Risk on Yourself with Laura Gardner Related Substack Posts by Kevin * Combined Arms of Energy * Make Energy Boring Again Get full access to Project Vanguard at media.projectvanguard.com/subscribe
Apr 22

Take a Risk on Yourself with Laura Gardner

Laura Gardner enlisted in the Army Reserves at 17. She was one of 11 kids, seven of whom served. She didn’t have a grand plan. She needed one. Her parents kept sending recruiters to her job at a pool supply store until she finally said yes. She started in postal operations, then switched her MOS to chemical warfare when she moved to Houston. After the military, she went into oil and gas, managing subsea drilling systems and complex field operations at TechnipFMC. Today she’s the CTO of Nova Source Power Services, leading technology for solar and battery storage. That path matters here because Kevin and Laura both came up through oil and gas, and they get into why that background is an actual advantage in newer energy sectors. The operational discipline and the project management instincts carry forward. Laura also gets into what she’s seeing on the technology side: companies want the AI solution before they’ve fixed the process or the data underneath it. As she puts it, everyone skips the boring stuff, and that’s where things break. But the thread running through this whole episode is Laura’s message to veterans considering the energy industry: you already know how to do this. You’ve moved from base to base, changed jobs on short notice, and figured it out every time. The structure is the same. The values are the same. It’s just a different boss. Laura recently joined the Project Vanguard advisory board. In this episode she sits down with Kevin to talk about what she tells transitioning service members at career events, why leaving your comfort zone gets easier after the first time, and what the energy industry needs from people who’ve served. Project Vanguard Podcast is produced by ClarityForge Studios. Timestamps * 00:00 - Introduction & Laura Gardner * 01:38 - Meeting at CERAWeek & Oil and Gas Roots * 04:01 - Digital Twins and Technology Adoption * 08:22 - Moving from Oil and Gas to Solar * 12:38 - AI Adoption and Skipping the Boring Stuff * 15:15 - Joining the Military at 17 * 17:07 - From Postal Operations to Chemical Warfare * 21:21 - Deciding to Get Out * 26:00 - Veterans Transitioning into Energy * 28:32 - Advisory Board & Community Leaders * 29:35 - Take a Risk on Yourself * 33:28 - Advice for Getting into the Energy Industry * 38:57 - Rapid Fire & Closing Resources People & Organizations * Laura Gardner, CTO, NovaSource Power Services (LinkedIn) * NovaSource Power Services (LinkedIn) * Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn) * Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube) Company & Industry News * NovaSource Launches NovaVision AI-Enabled Platform for Asset Optimization * NovaSource Selected as Long-Term O&M Partner for Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub * NovaSource Partners with Doral Renewables for Mammoth Solar Project Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard * Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It * From Sea Daddy to Mrs. Virginia with Lourdes Spurlock * The Network After Service with Ken Webre Related Substack Posts by Kevin * Your Next Mission: America’s Energy Future * Veterans in Energy & Infrastructure Get full access to Project Vanguard at media.projectvanguard.com/subscribe
Apr 15

Power Is Not Political with Frank Macchiarola

Energy has a messenger problem. Not a technology problem, not a cost problem, not even a policy problem at its core. The people doing the work and building the projects are winning. The people telling the story are struggling. Frank Macchiarola has spent 20 years on the advocacy side of energy, first at the American Petroleum Institute and now as Chief Advocacy Officer at American Clean Power. He has worked both sides of the fuel spectrum and both chambers of Congress. When he says the divisions in energy used to be geographic, not partisan, he is speaking from direct experience. And when he says that shift is now the single biggest obstacle to building what the country needs, it carries weight that cable news commentary never will. Frank is also the first non-veteran to sit down on this podcast. That was intentional. The advocacy and external affairs lane in energy is one veterans should know about, and Frank’s perspective on what actually moves policymakers connects directly to the grassroots work Project Vanguard is building. One of the sharpest moments in the conversation is Frank’s case that renewables and oil & gas are not actually in market competition right now. Demand growth from AI, data centers, and domestic manufacturing is so large that every resource is needed. The political war between fuels does not match the reality on the ground. Frank lived that reality at API. He is living it now at ACP. A former boss of his used to share an anecdote from a senator: “I always vote with my favorite lobbyist until I hear from my constituent.” That line sits underneath the entire conversation. Who shows up matters more than who has access. Veterans, landowners, frontline workers, local business owners. Those are the voices that stop a legislator in their tracks. Frank explains why, and what ACP’s Power Votes program is doing to put that principle into practice at scale. We also get into what the external affairs career pathway looks like for veterans and why Frank’s best piece of career advice cuts against most of the guidance people hear during transition. Timestamps * 00:00 - Introduction & Frank Macchiarola * 01:41 - ACP’s Role in Clean Energy Advocacy * 03:31 - How Energy Became a Political Football * 06:59 - Energy Security as National Security * 10:30 - Renewables and Oil & Gas Are Not in Conflict * 13:35 - Why the Messaging Still Gets Mired * 17:56 - Power Votes and Grassroots Advocacy * 23:16 - Constituents as the Real Messengers * 29:19 - Authentic Voices on the Ground * 33:38 - Showing Up with Facts and Data * 36:04 - Clean Energy’s Competitive Position * 38:54 - External Affairs as a Career for Veterans * 43:33 - Closing Resources People & Organizations * Frank Macchiarola (LinkedIn) * American Clean Power Association (Website - LinkedIn) * Power Votes * Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn) * Project Vanguard (Website - LinkedIn - Facebook - YouTube) Organizations Discussed * American Petroleum Institute * Farm to Power * Conservative Energy Network Company & Industry News * Clean Power Adds Record 50 GW in 2025 as Surging Electricity Demand Accelerates * ACP Clean Power on the Hill * Clean Energy’s Ground Game: ACP Grassroots Strategy Session Related Podcasts by Project Vanguard * Energy Needs a New Pitch, Veterans Are It * Veterans, Policy, and the Hidden Energy Battlefield with Michael Dunn * The Cost of Energy Chaos with Joshua Bice Related Substack Posts by Kevin * Make Energy Boring Again * Veterans at ACP CLEANPOWER 2025 Get full access to Project Vanguard at media.projectvanguard.com/subscribe

5

out of 5

4 Ratings

A podcast about leadership, energy, and service — told by the veterans shaping America’s Energy Dominance. Project Vanguard brings raw, mission-first conversations with those who’ve led in the military and continue to serve their country, building our energy future. Real stories. Clear insight. Focused on an All of the Above energy strategy where Energy Security is National Security. media.projectvanguard.com

Creator

Kevin Doffing
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

38
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Kevin Doffing
Show Website

Project Vanguard Podcast

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