Por Morgan M. Hurley | Editor contribuyente

Back in the early 2000s, young San Diego resident and journeyman electrician Daniel Sullivan said he’d grown frustrated and even angry with California’s energy crisis and the country’s “unwarranted drum beat” towards a second war in Iraq. The recent birth of his son had also made him realize that he could no longer stand by and be complacent; he wanted to actively make the world a better place, and set himself on a path to do so.

Hoy es el fundador, presidente y director ejecutivo de Sullivan Solar Power, una de las empresas privadas de más rápido crecimiento de Inc. Magazine en Estados Unidos, y ha instalado más de 5000 sistemas de energía solar en los condados de San Diego, Orange y Riverside.

Sullivan graduated from Rancho Bernardo High School in 1995 and then embarked on a five-year electrical apprenticeship program, learning the trade, working with various contractors and gaining diverse experience in projects throughout San Diego County. Not long after the completion of his apprenticeship training, he got his first introduction to solar — photovoltaic (photons/voltage) systems — which convert sunlight into electricity. He was fascinated by the technology and with sun as an unlimited resource, he couldn’t understand why it wasn’t more widely used.

“Una vez que comencé a estudiar la energía solar, se encendió una luz”, dijo Sullivan. “Es obvio que tenemos una respuesta, pero en realidad nadie estaba haciendo nada al respecto. Había políticas en el estado de California que fomentaban la conservación y la energía renovable, pero en ese momento solo había un puñado de empresas que realmente producían energía solar y las personas que lo hacían no eran realmente electricistas de oficio. Eran personas que creían en la tecnología pero no sabían cómo entregarla”.

Sullivan hizo varios intentos de convencer a su jefe de que se expandiera al negocio de la energía solar, pero fue en vano; así que decidió hacerlo él mismo.

Se certificó, renunció a su trabajo, tomó algunos trabajos de electricidad por cuenta propia, se mudó al garaje de su cliente y con solo $2,500 en el bolsillo, saltó por el precipicio.

“Fue una vida miserable salir por la puerta”, dijo. “Fue un desafío psicológico y emocional”.

In 2005, Sullivan had only one employee — his best friend from high school, who is still with him — and just two customers his first year, netting $60,000. To pay his bills, Sullivan landed a service contract with the city of Santee. He then set out to educate the victims of the San Diego Cedar Fire on the advantages of renewable energy and the rebates that the government was offering them as a result of the fires.

“Fue un momento difícil”, dijo. “Estas personas lo habían perdido todo. Ellos estaban tratando de reconstruir sus vidas mientras yo estaba tratando de construir un negocio”.

Su enfoque funcionó y pronto el negocio fue rápido y estable, con clientes en todas las áreas de incendios de Harbison Canyon y Alpine. Pronto tuvo una base estable para diversificarse en modernizaciones. En cinco años, el negocio creció a pasos agigantados y Sullivan optó por centrarse no solo en trabajos residenciales, sino también comerciales, aunque pequeños o medianos debido a limitaciones financieras.

Lo que a Sullivan le faltaba en perspicacia para los negocios lo compensó con ética de trabajo, determinación y su impulso personal para demostrar su valía. Le apasiona la energía renovable y su objetivo es convertir a todos los que conoce en defensores de la energía solar.

“Es muy gratificante tomar a alguien que no cree y mostrarle el futuro y luego formar parte de él”, dijo.

By 2010, Sullivan Solar Power had grown to nearly 30 employees and were at their second physical business address. In 2011, they opened an office in Irvine; in 2012, an office in Riverside. Today, Sullivan has 160 employees across the three campuses with plans to expand further north, into Santa Clarita, in the near future. And though he’s won a plethora of awards and personal recognitions in his relatively short career as the owner of a burgeoning renewable energy business, it hasn’t always been easy.

“I went from being the guy that wore every hat to handing off responsibilities to new employees who I had trained,” he said. “When you do everything, you can’t build a business; and when you transition to guiding and coaching people, that is a whole new skill set that I had to learn on the job. There was no shortage of mistakes in my learning how to approach people in a different way, where I am building a person up compared to building an electrical system up. That was foreign to me and it was very challenging but ultimately we’ve prevailed so far.”

Throughout it all, Sullivan has remained humble, his personal philosophies on changing the world have never faltered, and he has no plans to take the company public — for the same reasons he fights the state’s investor-run public utilities — he wants to retain control.

También trabaja arduamente para asegurarse de que los 160 empleados estén al día con su visión de ayudar a eliminar la dependencia mundial de los combustibles fósiles.

“Si la pasión y el impulso están ahí, el resto se puede abordar a través de la capacitación”, dijo. “Puedo enseñarle a alguien cómo funcionan los sistemas solares fotovoltaicos y cuál es la propuesta de valor, no puedo hacer que alguien crea que este es el camino del futuro por mí mismo, tienen que venir por ese camino. Hay muchos que todavía no creen, pero los combustibles fósiles son recursos limitados.

“If we run out of sunshine, we’ve got a lot bigger things to be worrying about.”

Sullivan said his employees leave the office at the end of each day knowing they’ve contributed to the greater good.

“They’ve put more renewable energy on the grid, they’ve reduced people’s operating expenses for their home or their business, and they’ve kept more money in our local economy,” he said. “That’s a win.”

To keep up with the growth and ensuring his vision remains intact, Sullivan now has lunch with every new hire, to help them understand what drove him to launch the business in the first place.

“Cuando conectas los puntos de que ayuda al medio ambiente y también nos ayuda a nosotros como sociedad, te emocionas mucho”, dijo.

He wants to make sure every employee knows that Sullivan Solar Power is not “merely putting squares on roofs to make money,” but here to affect change, every day. Another way he instills his philosophy is through the company’s core values.

“Last year we implemented a more rigorous hiring process to ensure we are hiring people that are like-minded with the same vision and match our core values, said Tara Kelly, director of community development for Sullivan. “I think that has helped us maintain the culture, passion and dedication as well as our reputation.”

The tenets of Sullivan’s core values are: Embrace challenges with drive and passion; live honestly and be humble; set standards and then exceed them; be in a perpetual state of improvement; be part of the solution; be one with your Sullivan family; and get on the boat!

“Each new hire gets a Core Values Book, and the [tenets] are painted on the wall of the offices in an Irish font,” Kelly continued. “We keep the core values alive by sharing our core value stories and striving to achieve them.”

The Sullivan family Irish crest is not only the company’s logo, but it is also engrained in the core values booklet. “The shield represents whom we are as a company and family in this journey we share together in leading the solar energy revolution,” a phrase in the book says.

Además de invertir en energía alternativa y salvar el mundo, que es un objetivo bastante elevado en sí mismo, Sullivan también invierte en sus empleados.

“No estaríamos donde estamos si no fuera por las personas que hacen funcionar esta máquina”, dijo. “Así que he creído desde el principio que cuando la empresa tiene éxito, las personas dentro de la empresa también deben tener éxito y ser recompensadas”.

Kelly, quien se unió a la compañía hace cinco años recién salido del estado de San Diego después de dirigir la marcha del campus hacia la energía renovable como su "Comisionado Verde", dijo que Sullivan mantiene viva la cultura motivadora.

“We all work very hard but Daniel rewards all of us very well and it keeps a good atmosphere,” she said. “We are a very close-knit community and we do a lot of outside activities to bond us together and celebrate our successes.”

With the net metering cap fast approaching, Sullivan and his team have been performing detailed analysis on the productivity of their existing solar systems. As a result, they are confident they’ll be able to optimize systems for many of SDG&E customers who will be transitioned to the new “time of rate” structure, which will make the value proposition nearly as good as it was before the cap.

In 2015, the 10-year-old company saw $50 million in revenues and despite the upcoming net metering cap, are targeting $70 million in 2016. That’s a long way from life in that garage.

“I think a lot of my motivation came from the people who said that it couldn’t be done and that I couldn’t succeed,” he said. “So I set out to prove them all wrong and I’m not done yet. There’s are a lot of people who are still naysayers about solar and renewable energy, about whether or not we could really change this region, this state, this country and ultimately, globally, and our dependence on the fossil fuel industry.

“Me iré a la tumba tratando de demostrar que sí”. 

—Póngase en contacto con Morgan M. Hurley en [email protected].