Jose Phillips Rangel, Battery, Idaho
Jose Rangel, who has been in the industry for years, is a sales and project Manager at KORE Power and lives in Idaho.
Why is clean energy important to you? There are countless scientific studies and UN reports that show us the need to move to clean energy. But the potential for local projects that keep money in communities that need those investments really excites me because it means opportunity. We can do so much from manufacturing and engineering new technologies, to harnessing and storing wind energy and solar power, and we can do it all right here in the United States.
What’s your proudest accomplishment in clean energy? I came to KORE Power as an intern who was intrigued about the role energy storage will play in our lives moving forward, and today I am helping make those projects a reality by connecting project developers with products they need. Soon, I will be able to bring those same customers to the facility where those batteries are being made by American workers. I can’t wait.
What did you do before entering clean energy? I grew up in an oil and gas family. My father was a pretty high-up manager for a multinational company, and early in my career I followed that lead and worked for a small oil and gas contractor.
When were you first introduced to clean energy? When I was in graduate school I had the opportunity to work for our local utility’s long resource
planning department. Through that I got a glimpse at our resource plan and it was my first real glimpse at where the electric sector was going, and the potential the battery market had. So, from there I knew where I wanted to go, and it wasn’t back to oil & gas.
What should more people know about your role? I don’t think people realize yet how interacting with batteries and energy storage is going to become a part of our everyday lives. If you look at the growth of EVs, and at wind and solar you quickly realize our electric infrastructure isn’t ready. We need a lot of batteries, and we need to make a lot of those batteries here in the United States. There is tremendous opportunity growth in this field and KORE is leading the way.
What does your job mean to you and your family? Working at KORE Power, the leading domestic manufacturer of lithium-ion batteries, has given me a chance to work at a young company on an emerging technology. I am at the forefront of something that will bring benefits to families and businesses across the country. As an immigrant to the United States, it holds extra importance to me to be a contributor to the growing domestic manufacturing and increasing energy security efforts.
Why should Congress invest in clean energy jobs, not fossil fuel jobs? Fossil fuels are in my past and while I know we can’t flip a switch and be done with them, our planet needs us to go in a different direction. Improving the environment is only one benefit of clean energy jobs. We can rebuild our manufacturing base, KORE is showing that. We can bring private investment in projects across the nation, it’s happening everywhere. We can change the way we move people and goods.
It is not my state, but KORE is building a gigafactory to manufacture our batteries in Arizona and will unlock incredible economic opportunity. About 70% of the jobs at the KOREPlex will be open to people with a GED, meaning we will be opening a door for almost 3,000 people to not only work in clean energy, but to have a chance to make energy storage manufacturing their career.
Each step of the way we can create jobs, put American innovation to work, and give the next generation a cleaner, safer, more secure electric grid. Investing in the future will deliver the best returns.