Andlinger Fellow Tom Leyden ’77 Fosters Careers in Sustainability

“Do not enter,” read the signs on either side of a rough path off South Harrison Street, between the new Meadows Neighborhood and U.S. Route 1.

“You don’t mind taking a risk?” Tom Leyden ’77 asked with a chuckle. His electric car bucked wildly over what appeared to be the chunkiest gravel in the tri-state area. “This is just for the project,” he explained of the road.

The car emerged from the tree-lined path into an expansive clearing. On one side, there’s a PSE&G substation — wires and lots of gray metal. On the other, there are more than 20 acres of solar panels lined up in rows.

The solar panels at that one substation save the University several million dollars a year, Leyden explained. Princeton uses solar panels to power the campus, but since some days the panels are able to generate more electricity than others, at times the substation needs to make up for it. When the panels are especially productive, they can literally roll back the ticker on the energy meter, meaning the University can earn money off its solar investments.

Leyden is a new nonresident fellow at the Andlinger Center focused on bringing recent alumni into the field of renewable energy. He’s also the vice president of business development at Nexamp, a solar company based in Boston.

Before he had an official role at Andlinger, Leyden worked in the solar energy industry for many years and helped facilitate many of the University’s solar projects.

Leyden told PAW that he didn’t want to go to Wall Street after graduation, but he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do instead. He got started at a real estate company in Maryland, where he connected with a builder. Together, they decided to take advantage of tax breaks for renewable energy sources.

President Jimmy Carter “put a 40% investment tax credit in place for solar and that kind of started the whole solar-thermal industry,” Leyden explained.

Leyden left the industry briefly after Ronald Reagan was elected and pulled the solar tax credit. When the prices of solar panels began to come down again, he joined a company that made smaller solar panels. For years after that, he bounced around solar companies, amassing contacts across the industry.

He’s also advised Princeton over the years on how to invest in solar energy. Solar panels stretch from the land next to the Dinky tracks beside Lake Carnegie all the way up Washington Road to Route 1.

“Yeah, this is a lot of freaking solar,” he said, surveying the panels.

After years of experience, Leyden is well positioned to shepherd younger people into the industry, which is now booming. He started a LinkedIn group, “Princeton in Solar and Cleantech,” to connect Princeton alumni to people in the renewable energy business; it now has more than 645 members.

“He’s like the father figure of the Princeton solar industry,” said Morgan Wiese ’24.

“I told him that I was looking into working in renewable energy… . He was like, ‘We’ve got this awesome LinkedIn group. You should join it.’”

Hans Imhof ’21 was connected with Leyden through a mutual friend.

“We had a lot of conversations … which were really helpful and great, which kind of helped me … figure out exactly what I wanted to do, since renewable energy is such a broad industry,”

Leyden’s contacts, Imhof said, were especially helpful in his job search.

Wiese played soccer as an undergrad and had an extra year of NCAA eligibility, so she took off a semester and became a clean energy fellow at an Ohio-based solar company. When she graduated, Leyden was her sounding board, helping her navigate her offer letter and advising her about market standards for salary and benefits.

“He was definitely that main figure in helping me determine where I kind of fit in the space, and what I could expect out of a first-year role.”

Ultimately, Leyden wants Andlinger to invest in a career center that focuses specifically on helping students and recent graduates pursue jobs related to climate and energy.

“I’ve helped dozens and dozens of kids getting into our sector, and the [LinkedIn] group is just multiplying that.”