Members of the Ironworkers are literally building the framework for a cleaner energy future in Minnesota at the St. John’s Solar Farm near Collegeville, Minnesota. St. John’s Solar Farm could become the largest in the upper Midwest, with an expected 1,800 solar panels producing up to 400 kilowatts per hour.

We talked to three workers who are involved in building the metal framework for the solar panels.

Rick Nasby, a union organizer for the Ironworkers District Council of the North Central States whose father was an ironworker, says projects like this are important for him, because they will leave a cleaner world for the next generation and set a good example for other countries to move to a clean energy economy.

Ironworker Phil Aderson was asked to provide his ideas on how to erect the framework and says that ironworkers can provide new ways to speed the process up by helping with the planning and layout of solar projects like these.

John Allen is member of Ironworkers Local 512 in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area and his father in-law was an ironworker. He  builds and erects buildings, bridges, and, he says, whatever else has metal in it. He feels that “what we are doing is a step in the right direction, but we need to do more.”