Solar-panel training brightens job prospects for Ohio inmates

Columbus Dispatch

MANSFIELD

When Marc Lockett entered prison, he was 18 years old.

It was 1986. Cellphone use was a rarity. The first documented PC virus had spread. The Challenger spacecraft exploded shortly after launching.

Lockett, who served more than 30 years for aggravated robbery, kidnapping and involuntary manslaughter, is now 50.

When he walked out of Richland Correctional Institution in Mansfield earlier this year, he found the outside world to be a much different place. He left as a felon convicted of violent crimes who spent decades behind bars.

“I was worried about that,” Lockett said. “That’s a mark against you.”

How does the state’s prison system prepare someone for that?

Lockett, who enrolled in the photovoltaic program while he was an inmate, left prison with a certification in installation of solar panels through the Electronics Technician Association. Within a month, he had a job at Dovetail Solar and Wind.

He is “very much a dedicated employee. He showed up on time. He worked,” said Alan Frasz, president and majority owner of Dovetail, who remembers hiring Lockett a little more than six months ago. It was the first time the company had hired a felon.

Lockett is one of the first success stories for what the prison’s 12-week photovoltaic program can mean for inmates re-entering society – hope. For those who can earn a living wage after learning how to install solar panels, the hope is that they will be less likely to commit violent crimes and return to prison.

The classes are three times a week, with two days in the classroom and one day in the lab. Students in the program have to take an alternative energy class, have a GED or high-school diploma and take safety training for job sites. They can’t enter the program if they have had rule infractions in the last year.

Only a handful are given an opportunity to get the certification because of costs, or are prevented from getting certified if they have years left on a lengthy prison sentence. Certifications expire after four years. So far, 22 men have obtained certification through the program.

The program, which began in 2016, relies on experts in the solar industry volunteering their time, grant funds and donations from companies.