After his QVS year, Walter stayed in the Boston area and took a job working at a  community solar company, helping manage operations for the customers who subscribe to their projects.  After working in community solar for a few years, he started a new job at another clean energy company, providing market services to solar and storage assets, helping to optimize the scheduling of those assets. “In order to make the desperately needed transition from fossil fuels to solar and wind, clean energy needs to be available around the clock, even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.  My company is responsible for scheduling the charging and discharging of utility scale batteries so that our society doesn’t have to set things on fire to turn on the lights or heat our homes.”

Way opens to QVS

Walter grew up getting “dragged” to Presbyterian Church in Plano, Texas on Sunday mornings. By the time he was out of high school, Walter was “so done” with the church because of the stifling Texas suburban conservatism that informed the spiritual life of that community . While attending Carleton College, he began practicing Buddhist meditation and got to explore this further while spending a semester backpacking in Thailand. Upon his return to campus his junior year, Walter found Cannon Valley Friends Meeting ( the Monthly Meeting in the same town as his college, Northfield, Minnesota) and began participating in Meeting for Worship. Although he wanted to continue the mindfulness practice he developed through Buddhism, Walter became familiar with the local Quakers and felt this was the right next step in his spiritual journey. 

Walter also began dating his now wife, Kayla, around the time of his spiritual exploration in college. Kayla was about to embark on a post-college faith based service year through a UCC church in Bethesda, MD.   This along  with his experience with Friends and the social justice aspects of QVS all led Walter to apply for the program. 

A Spiritual Journey Coming Full Circle

During his QVS Boston year, Kayla entered seminary and was “under care” of  Fourth Presbyterian Church  in  South  Boston. Fourth Presbyterian was on the same redline T stop as Walters’ site placement, BHCHP , and he started attending there. He realized this community is a very socially engaged congregation with a vibrant music scene of folk and gospel, which was  a refreshing change of pace from the more conservative Presbyterian congregation he grew up with. 

“Beginning in high school, I went from ‘I am atheist,’ to ‘I am agnostic,’ to ‘I like meditation,’ to ‘I like the Christian context in Quaker meeting,’ to being back at a Presbyterian Church that is so different than the one I was raised in. It was a very circular [spiritual] path that led me back to where I started.”