Jim Pytel has taught at Columbia Gorge Community College's Renewable Energy Technology program since Fall 2008. He has taught the basic electronics series, hydraulics, digital electronics series, introduction to wind energy, motor control, wind turbine safe access and rescue, and power generation classes.
Jim has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. He has worked as an electrical engineer for IBM, Hyundai, ADE Semiconductor, and GE Wind. Additionally, Jim served in the US Army as a Captain in the 4th Infantry Division. He is NABCEP certified for Basic PV and has produced a number of popular flipped classroom resources to supplement his lectures and labs.
He has attended the NSF ATE Basic and Advanced FPGA workshops resulting in the modernization of the digital electronics courses to include HDL and programmable logic devices. Additionally, he has attended the NSF ATE Microcontroller workshop and been a participant in the NSF ATE US-Australia Learning Exchange and US-Germany Learning Exchange. His recent partnership with CREATE has resulted in the YouTube channel "bigbadtech", a channel with an increasing number of flipped classroom resources to support technical education for renewable energy technicians.
Jim sincerely believes energy independence through development of renewable energy sources is the correct course for our nation's future and actively promotes and supports development of renewable energy projects in the Pacific Northwest.