Solar Landscape — a hometown company doing national good

By:  | September 27, 2024 |  |  Monmouth County

By Emma Sylvia

The headquarters of Solar Landscape stands proudly in downtown Asbury Park. It’s a testament both to the town’s growth, as well as the very DNA of the company — it’s Monmouth County born and bred.

The CEO of Solar Landscape is Shaun Keegan, a Monmouth native. He grew up in Wall, alongside co-founder Corey Gross. Both of their mothers were teachers, Keegan’s mother teaching in Freehold Township.

Thirteen years ago, Keegan started Solar Landscape, primarily with the goal of building and real estate. He describes the beginning of the company: “In solar, you have different parts of the value chain. We were the contractor, the construction company. We worked on the roofs for a while and became a developer.” The team expanded, with CFO Clayton Avent and President Mark Schottinger joining the company five years ago. Keegan explains, “Now we do project finance and asset management. When you think of a solar project, you have to sell it, build it, and pay for it.” Solar Landscape tackling all three of these points is quite unique for the company. “Most of our competitors just do one or two; we’re very different in that sense,” says Keegan.

Clearly, the company has grown exponentially from the bottom-up initiative that it began with, with Keegan and Gross having just $5,000 when they started the company. Even just looking at the numbers, the growth and immense impact of Solar Landscape is obvious: “We’re at 240 employees, give or take. We’ve opened an additional office in Asbury. We’re at 17,000 square feet of office space. We have four different locations in Asbury; it’s like a campus.” Not only is Asbury Park akin to a campus for Solar Landscape, but it’s also become a home. With the CEO still living in Monmouth County, Solar Landscape purchases real estate in Asbury, and also aims to give back to the community. 

Solar Landscape partnered with the Asbury Park school district to give the schools free electricity. Along with this, they provide classroom training, teaching students how solar works and how the industry operates. Aside from working with the schools, Solar Landscape is additionally partnered with Interfaith Neighbors, having completed workforce development training with the nonprofit on how to install solar panels. Semaj Vanzant, Sr., Development Manager of the Launch Center at Asbury Park-based Interfaith Neighbors, said, “In Asbury Park and Neptune, community solar is providing job opportunities and affordable clean energy. We have seen first-hand how New Jersey’s clean energy economy can benefit residents. One of our SOAR alumni completed Solar Landscape’s solar installation training program and is now a full-time employee with their company. We’re also pleased that nearby residents can take advantage of the program to lower their energy costs and fight climate change at the same time.”

Testimonials from Monmouth County residents truly exemplify the impact that solar energy is having on residents in New Jersey. Janet Baldwin of Avon-By-The-Sea, living in a home with a roof not fit for solar panels, is excited to get the benefits of solar energy without the panels. She says, “I see cost savings every month, and that is especially helpful as I am retired and on a fixed income.”

Chris Cappiello of Wall Township, another happy customer, adds, “Being a community solar subscriber has been great. I save money, especially during the high electricity usage in the summer, and I feel good about contributing to the fight against climate change, which is important to my whole family. Plus, I get all these benefits without the need to install or maintain my own solar panels.”

Keegan is endlessly proud of Solar Landscape’s commitment to both Asbury Park and to New Jersey as a whole. “We’re proud to be from Monmouth County. New Jersey gets a bad rap, but we all share a pride in our often-overlooked home state.” He elaborates that New Jersey has been the “launch point” not just of Solar Landscape, but of innovations in the solar industry itself. Keegan says that the company has gotten a historic number of solar projects awarded. They have launched three partnerships with the largest real estate companies in the world. “We outdid ourselves,” he admits. “That’s national news.”

With all of these innovations coming to fruition this year, Solar Landscape attributes this achievement to being a New Jersey-based company. “New Jersey has grown its program significantly, allowing us to develop these projects. It’s sparked adjacent growth in markets like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Delaware, Maryland. You’re seeing the Jersey model of community solar being replicated and growing nationally, and we’re at the forefront of that.” Keegan says it’s hard to imagine that 13 years ago, the company was just him and Gross in a truck, and now, they’re the biggest solar company in many states. “We’re getting solar all over the place. We’ve helped chart the course on where policy should go.”

Another point of pride for the Monmouth-made company is the large percentage of employees that are friends and family from Wall. “It’s an on-going joke about all of the Wall High School alumni that work here,” Keegan says. He remarks on the great company culture and the tremendous attitude and work of the staff. Additionally, Solar Landscape has other work partnerships that they are proud of, that allow them to focus on underserved communities. “We have huge union involvement and partnerships. I want to shout out the IBEW electrical union, which is enabling us to build so many of these megalots. We support what this represents in New Jersey: Families being supported by these wages.”

Keegan says that it’s delightful to see Asbury Park become a “true four season town.” “Even on a weekday in December, we see a hundred people on the street on any given day.” He notes that Solar Landscape isn’t constructing any new buildings in town — just putting solar panels on them. He likes to think that Solar Landscape is part of the resurgence of Asbury Park. “When I was 21, Asbury came on the map. Even before we got here with the company, being able to see the town turn over … we’ve been huge supporters of that. We embody that sort of funky, musical, blue-collar sort of Asbury Park.” He notes that they have plenty of Asbury Park locals working for the company as construction workers, in addition to their office personnel and full-time electricians. “It’s being part of the community.”

As for the future of Solar Landscape, Keegan is entirely optimistic, saying, “We are in the most exciting and high growth industry in the greatest country in the world, and we are the largest player in a necessary segment within that framework. What people don’t realize is the scale and impact the company is having. On a national scale, we’re helping transform and modernize the electrical grid to become renewable and carbon-free. We’re playing a real role in that.”

Brendon Shank, the Executive Vice President for Engagement at Solar Landscape, said it best: “It’s a story of hometown growth. It’s like seeing a Johnson & Johnson or a Prudential grow up in real time. We’re in seven states now, and we’ll probably be in 20 in the next two to three years. This is about a hometown company doing national good.”