My name is Justin Rachel. I am a student at Napa Valley College, majoring and working towards a degree in Digital Design Graphics Technology. Before I became a student, I was a solar surveyor working for Vision Solar in Concord. I learned a lot very quickly including using a surveying stick efficiently, creating rooftop plans with accurate measurements to scale for solar plans using CAD and hand sketches, using a measuring tape efficiently and accurately, residential design, crawling through attics, panel staging, installation, panel placement aesthetics, ground mounts, basic national electric code pertaining to solar, using and uploading site shade analysis using the Solmetric Suneye, and customer service. I was also working face to face with homeowners as well as relaying on-site info back to the CAD team which unfortunately operated out of Utah (there are many Utah based solar companies these days for some reason). Since I am in California, I could not be mentored by anyone in-person within the company. I found that I really enjoyed doing design and solar CAD. I reached a wall as I was unable to learn what I desired to learn because I did not possess a formal college education or have formal training in CAD software. This is where I started getting into AutoCAD, Revit, and Autodesk products. I took what I learned from Vision with me to attend classes at Napa Valley College to further my knowledge of Computer Aided Design to attempt to increase my career options inside the solar and CAD industry.

In my spare time I am either learning CAD software such as Revit, AutoCAD, Inventor, Phostohop, Illustrator, and other Adobe products in the creative suite, playing guitar, or building up my desktop PC/creating PCs for friends or family. I am hoping I can benefit a company as I continue my education in CAD and computer science, I believe I would quickly be able to offer more to a a business while allowing me to continue to learn real-world applications of CAD solutions for people while I go to school and be active.