This presentation is a project management case study documenting how Fairmount Presbyterian Church took a rooftop solar initiative from an initial idea to a fully operational, financially successful system. It traces a 10+ year business-case journey — beginning with the church's 2011 Earth Care Congregation certification and years of stakeholder resistance — through the December 2023 breakthrough driven by rising energy costs, improved technology, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) incentive. It then walks through planning, requirements, procurement, risk management, communications, execution, and financial results.
Project Outcome: A 66-panel, 2-inverter grid-tied system, activated July 3, 2025, delivered ahead of schedule (8 vs. 10 planned days) and exactly on budget ($115,561).
Financials: A $34,500 IRA rebate was secured in June 2026, with funding split across donations, the rebate, and church investment repaid via electricity cost avoidance.
Notable thread: An AI-assisted benchmarking effort located a peer church (Vashon United Methodist, WA) for knowledge transfer on navigating the complex IRA rebate filing.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Build a durable business case — how to sustain and eventually win approval for a long-horizon capital project against persistent resistance.
- Manage stakeholders and external factors — identifying all parties, reconciling conflicting requirements, and navigating politics and environmental constraints.
- Run disciplined procurement and risk management — multi-criteria vendor evaluation, due diligence, and structured risk mitigation.
- Plan finances and manage federal incentives — funding-mix strategy plus the mechanics and hidden dependencies of securing the IRA rebate (ID.me credentials, tax forms, professional filing).
- Communicate strategically — tiered messaging and reframing the narrative from "cost savings" to cost avoidance."
- Capture lessons learned — documenting success factors and identifying future opportunities like battery storage.
Speakers
Project Manager, Fairmount Presbyterian Church
Christine is a project and operations professional focused on transforming leadership's ideas, vision, and strategies into practical processes and actionable plans that deliver services and solutions with value and meaningful results. Her career has taken her from marketing, sales, and public relations in the dynamic music industry (Warner Music Group), to leadership roles within nonprofit administration, and event and operations management (YMCA, Fairmount Presbyterian Church).
Across every setting, Christine's focus has remained the same: deliver meaningful, measurable, and valuable outcomes, build relationships, strengthen teams, and design processes that last. She is particularly interested in identifying practical ways to leverage new technologies and ideas to improve everyday work within an organization. She enjoys learning how emerging tools can be used to implement solutions that streamline processes to free up time for higher-value, people-focused work.
How the work gets done and the result matter just as much as the team. Christine leads with empathy and understanding, welcomes collaboration, and respects the strengths each team member brings. Clear communication, thoughtful planning, and shared ownership are the foundations she relies on to move projects from idea to completion.
Christine is committed to continuous growth and is currently deepening her expertise through ongoing project management study. She is always interested in discovering better ways to connect strategy, people, and performance, and in learning from others along the way.
Outside of work, Christine makes time for the people, places, and causes that keep her grounded and alive. She loves staying active, from exploring the remarkable local park systems, to working toward new fitness goals, gardening, and spending time with family, friends, and her beloved dog, Simon.
She is endlessly curious about Northeast Ohio and rarely passes up an opportunity to explore its neighborhoods, arts, and food. Christine is also a loyal sports fan and can usually be found cheering on the Ohio State Buckeyes, Cleveland Guardians, and Cleveland Cavaliers. She often finds herself offering game-time strategy advice (from her couch) to her favorite sports teams.
Giving back is deeply important to Christine. She is proud to support the Cleveland Walk to End Alzheimer’s and to stay active with PMINEO, building connections with other professionals who value learning, generosity, and shared success.
