groSolar

This is the week of “StepItUp”, the campaign led by Bill McKibben one year ahead of the ‘08 elections. The idea being to reaise awareness of climate change and make it a campaign issue. This was certainly a StepItUp week for me personally and groSolar.
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I attended 5 different events in 4 states, making a presentation or being on a panel in each one. That was:

So that was bad for carbon emissions, and good for getting our message out more broadly. And based upon response, I’ll be speaking quite a bit more going forward.

Dori, my wife, co-founder, and continuing partner, was active in getting the StepItUp message out. We had some signs made up and distributed. Photos are just coming in to our website and the StepItUp web site. It’s not too late to add your photo, the action continues! Go to Take Action now and get a yard sign, then follow the instructions we’ll send with it to submit your picture. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it helps get the message out!

As part of our action, we also financially supported the StepItUp actions in Burlington, Vermont and Concord, Massachusetts. groSolar also attended the StepItUp event in Concord, MA. (Thanks Kevin!) Like most locations in New England, the weather was dreadful, keeping numbers down. But what impressed us was that no elected officials failed to show. U.S. Senator John Kerry, U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas and several state legislators were right on time. And the location!!! Just steps from the famous North Bridge in Concord where the first shots of the Revolution were fired. And a few more steps from The Old Manse, the house owned first by Emerson’s father and then by Nathaniel Hawthorne and visited frequently by Thoreau. What would they be thinking today as climate change legislation is slowed in Congress by legislators worried about preserving the carbon-based economy?

About 50 hardy souls braved the monsoon-like weather and delivered their pitch to the political leaders. Kerry said not one more old-fashioned coal-fired power plant should be built anywhere in the world unless it has the latest in clean technology and has the ability to sequester the carbon. He called also for major new funding for solar, wind and other renewables, nothing short of an energy revolution. Thoreau would have been proud.

the whole thing about StepItUp is to START actions, not be the only action. Keep it moving. Stay tuned to StepItUp, and 1Sky. Meanwhile,

Make this the subject of cocktail party, dinner time, and office conversation!

If we all work on this, we CAN not only make a difference, we can make the difference we need to make.

I spent Monday afternoon, for the first time in a long time, on one of our solar installation crews working on a solar energy project in Vermont. And it was an honor to be there for several reasons. First, it’s an honor that the crew still let’s me work with them. They are a great group of people, working through adversity (also called rain), continually smiling. Of course, they let the new guy (me) do the caulking, so my hands will bear the marks of my work for a while (SikaFlex is good stuff. Does NOT come off). This crew was Amos and Hal on the roof with me, Andy at the inverter, and Dan Kinney, (the original Dan of our 4) running the show. Doc managed the logistics, and of course the rest of the groSolar team supported in their standard, but excellent, ways.

Second reason that this was an honor, is the project is for an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition house. The Vitale family has a great and touching story, which you can read more about here, and at the McKernon Group web site, where you can also donate to the family. The entire house is being built in less than a week, 106 hours to be precise, around the clock, through all kinds of weather. I was on site Friday and it was still being cleared of the former house. Today, the house was, well, a house. Not done, but more complete than many I’ve seen that are being lived in! So being involved in providing clean, renewable solar power to this deserving family is a great feeling, and great that groSolar can do it. It’s a theme that runs through a lot that we do. Our page on Social Responsibility tells a lot of what we do, including our work with Habitat for Humanity.

groSolar donated all the equipment and installation labor for the entire solar power system, except for the inverter, which was donated by our new partner, PV Powered.

And third, well, I cannot tell you the third reason it was an honor to be on site, as I’m not allowed to give away story line. (No, I don’t think I’m on camera.) So you will just have to see the show in January (Sundays at 8/7c) to find out what makes us proud to be part of this particular Extreme Makeover.

So Tuesday I will ache. It takes different muscles to stand at an angle on a roof for a few hours. But I’ll feel good and groSolar will feel good, about making a difference in a small way, as we continue making a difference in the larger world.

I’ll be presenting the full-length version of the Al Gore Inconvenient Truth slideshow at the groSolar offices on Friday, May 11, at 4:00. This presentation will be open to the public. We expect a good number of people in addition to groSolar’s White River Junction staff to attend. Click here for directions to groSolar’s offices.

Even if you’ve seen the movie, the slideshow is eye-opening. Significantly updated from the movie, it presents more depth and more focus. New slides reveal even greater evidence of the speed that climate change is occurring, as well as presenting what we can each do now, to solve the problem. For those who believe in climate change and for those who have doubts, for those who think they understand the science, and for those who do not, this is a great slideshow.

We’ll have a time for questions and answers after the presentation, and we’ll also have light refreshments so people can network around actions.

As always, I’m available for additional presentations to your group. Please contact me at JeffWolfeTCP@groSolar.com to schedule.

Three of us head to Cornell University today (Alma Mater for Dori and me) to be on a panel at the Entrepreneurship@Cornell Celebration 2007, “Investing in the future”. Should be quite fun to take our youngest daughter back to our school. She’s humoring us with the idea that show might even apply to Cornell, although probably not the College of Engineering.

Our panel on “Advancing Innovation as an Entrepreneur: Transforming the Sustainable Industries”, is right on target for what we need to do. For too long the “Sustainable Industries” have not been run as solid businesses in the capitalist model. Not that I’m any Adam Smith, but we can either try to make a great business within the model everyone else works in, or we can try to change the entire construct of business in the US. Personally, I’m a little daunted by the second challenge, so instead I’m simply trying to create a solar company that can beat global warming while being capitalistic. Much easier than trying to change capitalism, and I think considerably more productive.

I come at business from an incredibly pragmatic, logic driven viewpoint. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all pluses and minuses, and I spend far more time now working on marketing ideas and strategy than on engineering. But my business philosophies and practices are much more motivated by what I see work and by trying things to see if they work, than by text book solutions. (A sticker in my office says “Always make new mistakes”.) Text books are great for replicating a business model, but when you’re in an emerging, fragmented, infantile industry, there are no “real” cases to study. With any luck, people will write the case studies about us in the future. So it’s with at least a little amusement that I am appearing on this panel.

I’ve never taken a business course; I’ve never read a marketing book. (Well, I read half of Blue Ocean Strategy, great concept, no time to finish the book.) I have, however, developed a fine appreciation for those who acquire great business process skills, and I am not knocking those who have the Business degree. It’s also an honor to be with my fellow panelists. And I am very heartened that my Alma Mater’s B-School is holding a symposium with this theme. I’ll let you know how it goes.