Our Climate Journey with Jake Olafson
“To me, sustainability is about re-using what we have–and I mean everything.”
Jake Olafson
Electric Vehicle Charger Technician
Jake is an Electric Vehicle Charger Technician with a passion for advancing green technology. In his free time, he enjoys playing baseball, bringing his energetic and friendly spirit to the field. Known for his dedication and approachable nature, he is extremely grateful for the opportunity to make a difference with his trailblazing attitude.
At Zum, we’re revolutionizing student transportation in order to build a green, sustainable future. What does sustainability mean to you?
To me, sustainability is about re-using what we have—and I mean everything.
I grew up in northern Minnesota, in a town called Blackduck, which had not quite 700 people. My parents worked a lot, so I didn’t see them so often. Instead, I was mostly raised by my grandparents. I spent a lot of time with my grandfather in particular. He and I used to spend our time finding and fixing up old tractors from the 1940s and 1950s. We’d find them in the woods, where people had abandoned them—covered in vines, and trees, they were completely overgrown. But we dug them out, and fixed them up, and got them working again, and painted them, and sold them to people who wanted them for their farms and gardens. Another favorite of ours was lawnmowers. I learned that you can salvage just about anything.
Today, I try to take the same mentality. Rather than buy a new piece of furniture, I’ll get something used and stain it, paint it, work with what’s already there. That saves money but it also increases the useful life of things that would otherwise go into a landfill. If we could all do that, we’d have a lot less waste.
Climate change is the single greatest threat to our way of life, but it can sometimes feel abstract, far away, a problem for another time. How has climate change affected you personally?
I grew up in Minnesota, but I live in Stockton, California now. I commute to Zum’s Oakland yard, where I work with the EV chargers.
On that commute, I see the signs of wildfires all the time. There will be smoke in the air, it will be so hazy I can’t roll down the windows. The air quality is terrible. Or roads will be blocked, or there will be fire equipment piled up on the side of the freeway. Wildfires aren’t new, but they’re getting more frequent and intense.
The opposite is happening in Minnesota. Growing up, I remember consistent snowfall—you don’t get that anymore. You’ll get entire seasons with no snow, then you’ll get a freak whiteout in April and wake up to two feet of powder. I remember snowmobiling back in Minnesota too, which of course, required consistent snow. I wouldn’t be able to snowmobile in my hometown anymore, not with weather like it is now.
What can Zum do to be a leader in sustainability, to spearhead the charge in the fight against climate change?
At Zum, I’m the company’s first designated electric vehicle charger technician. It’s my job to make sure the EV chargers at the Oakland bus yard are functioning, that they’re serving our buses, and that our charging system works smoothly. So I’m definitely in the thick of the electrification.
One of the things I’m most focused on is coming up with an entire system, a protocol—a way to deal with cold weather issues, if they are, making sure we have maintenance schedules, and troubleshooting tips, and that I catalog a list of potential issues. All of that information will create a playbook that we can follow going forward, especially as we expand to future markets.
Creating an EV charging system from scratch is all new for us, so we’re trying to standardize everything to make sure what we’re doing is repeatable, scalable.