Shannon Callahan
Shannon Callahan is a Senior Project Manager at Luminace, a Brookfield Renewable company, where she oversees California solar projects from inception through PTO and handoff to asset management. With a focus on interconnection across multiple utilities, she emphasizes accountability, adaptability, open communication, and strong people-management skills to keep large portfolios on track while balancing customer relations, contractors, and internal teams. Over the past decade, Shannon has developed a niche within renewable energy, supporting engineering, construction teams, developers, and school-district customers across multiple projects and school sites.
Shannon began her career in construction, progressing from project coordinator roles in commercial and retail construction to project management positions in renewable energy with PFMG Solar (now Luminace). Over her 15+ years in the industry, she has built expertise in managing complex projects, ensuring safety and regulatory compliance, and delivering results in highly collaborative environments. Her approach combines technical knowledge with strong leadership, enabling her teams to successfully navigate challenging projects and dynamic schedules.
A graduate of the University of Southern California with a BA in Psychology, Shannon has pursued ongoing professional development, including OSHA certification, to complement her extensive field experience. Beyond her professional work, she is actively involved in community and volunteer efforts, including Multiple Sclerosis fundraising walks and support of the American Legion. Shannon’s dedication to mentorship, teamwork, and advancing women in construction has earned her recognition as an Influential Woman in her field for 2026.
• OSHA Certification
• University of Southern California- B.A.
• Multiple Sclerosis Fundraising Walk
• American Legion
What do you attribute your success to?
My overall success has been my work ethic. I come from a long family line of strong, hard work and morals. Psychology is my background - that's what I got my degree in. I'd say it comes naturally. I didn't have to go to school for most of it. Reading people and reading the room has come into play way more often than not. Even though I'm a psych major, it doesn't mean I have to be a doctor to figure out how to work with people. And that, to me, is the most valuable thing.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received is to maintain a sense of humor and practice open communication in every situation.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
We don't have that many women in our field, and we never have. It's always been a few sprinkled here and there, and I encourage it 100%. They're just as brilliant. We've had a couple come in as students, and they ended up staying full-time, and they're incredibly valuable. We have one particular girl that's been there almost as long as me. She came in as an intern from college and we ended up keeping her on. She's an engineer, and her temperament is amazing. She's extremely knowledgeable, but the way she carries herself on phone calls and meetings - I could say some of the men don't have that quality. It's actually saved some of our projects. I love having that edge as a female, being thought of as very smart in the field with construction engineering. It's a good balance with the men. We all kind of work really well together, that yin and yang, and it's been great. I don't think we have enough of them in our field, to be honest. I think we could definitely have more. As far as specifically in construction engineering, I would highly encourage women to get more involved. It's a great field. Renewable energies is amazing, and it's always evolving. We're always finding out more streamlined ways of conserving energy, and it's a fantastic field. It's not going away.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The challenge right now, from what I hear through the grapevine from the higher-ups, is that politically, the tariffs and all that might have an effect on whether or not renewable energies is as effective. Our utilities don't like it, I can tell you that. That takes money away from them, so they're always the challenge. We're in the business of trying to save the school districts and city buildings money, and utilities don't necessarily love that. The other challenge is the state of California. In the last 10 years I've been in the business, they've come down a lot harder, and it's a lot more difficult with their regulations anymore to get things through. It's become a lot more challenging in general with trying to file and trying to get things passed with the state of California. The utility too - Southern California Edison - they've had fires, they've had change of staffing over and over, they just changed from NEM 2.0 to 3.0. That has been a struggle. But, you know, again, it's just a challenge that we have to learn to face, and deal with it and conquer.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Hard work is most important to me. Lots of communication, being open and willing to take criticism. Being flexible and adapting to a specific client and their temperament. The psychology of it, I believe, is just as important as the technical skills. Knowing who you're working with and who you're working for, managing and navigating people - it's almost as important as being book smart as you can be. And the flexibility is most important - being flexible and willing to learn, willing to never say no, having your limits, but always letting them know that you're willing to step in and be part of the team. I'm really good at one thing, and they'll pull me saying they need me someplace else, I gotta learn this. As many times as I've wanted to say I don't want to, it's not my comfort zone, I have found myself saying, okay, let's do it. I've had to jump in a few times and turn a corner and reshift all my gears to something completely different, because they know they can count on me, even though it's something I'm not familiar with. I know that they can count on me, that I'm always available, I'm always accountable. I'm not limited, put it that way.