This content was published: March 17, 2014. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Visitors from the Republic of Korea tour Rock Creek’s solar array
Photos and story by Amy Mintonye
March 17, 2014
Written by Amy Mintonye
On March 14 PCC welcomed five visitors from the Republic of Korea to view the college’s large solar array installation on the Rock Creek campus. The solar array, operable since 2012, was made possible through a voter-approved capital improvement bond passed in 2008. Energy generated from the array provides 60 percent of the energy needs of the campus’s Building 9 and ensures access to low cost energy over the next twenty years.
The Korean visitors were in the United States as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program sponsored by the U.S. State Department and hosted by the World Affairs Council of Oregon. This professional development program works to create mutual understanding between citizens of the U.S. and other nations.
With a particular interest in green growth and climate change, group members represented a number of energy and environmental entities in South Korea. The group toured the solar array and the farm where they spent time with the spring lambs.
Pictured from left: Mark Barton, commercial construction manager with SolarCity; Todd Sanders, mechanical engineering instructor at PCC; Tae Yong Jung, managing director, Planning Department, Korea Green Foundation; Seok Jai Choi, team manager, Renewable Energy Promotion Division, Korea Energy Management, KEMCO Corporation; Dr. Ho-Mu Lee, Research Fellow, Korea Economics Institute; Dong Wook Kim, Chief of Staff to Representative Kim Sung-gon, Republic of Korea National Assembly, Democratic United Party; Sehong Yun, Environmental Policy Advisor to the Mayor of Suwon, and Grant Bennett, PCC Bond Program Architect and solar array project manager.