Our History

January 1997 - The concept

SKY Energy began one winter during a college break in 1997 while I was searching the internet for aircraft, electric motors, and other interesting things at my parent's home in Greer, South Carolina. I came across giant modern European wind turbines that I had not seen before. I was studying design and architecture and had varied interests at the time. Wind energy was not available in our area although there was news about green power. I had hoped to tie it into sustainable development. I looked into how to incorporate a business, trade mark the name, research the idea and equipment, write a business plan, and determining how I would enter the market. Internet euphoria had begun to sweep the nation and wind turbines also made the news. I decided that I wanted to start a clean energy focusing on wind and solar and then possibly other fuels such as hydrogen. I contacted the South Carolina Secretary of the State to find out more information about incorporating and tried to find out more information about trademark design and registration as well as the numerous other things necessary to start and operate a business. After researching them further and seeing the environmental as well as business potential, I shared the idea for a potential clean energy company and what would become the company's name with my girlfriend at the time, Susan Bachmann, who later became my wife, and one of my best friends, Michael Tavernetti, who later became my business partner, and then some of my family members including my Dad. Michael, who was originally from California, had an immediate interest in the idea and he was familiar with the wind turbines in that state. However, it would become a long journey finding out the steps to take to create the business and then impliment it with limited resources and time. I decided to keep the idea and name a secret and hoped that they would too until I or we could make it work.

August 1998 - Wyoming Trip

The following year the three of us journeyed to Wyoming to visit the Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks for the first time. While there we took in all of the amazing sights of waterfalls, towering peaks, geysers, and geological features and saw numerous wild animals that we had not seen before roaming the lands. We also had a chance to go rafting on the Snake River and searched a plateau for fossils. It was a highly recommended adventure. We eventually made our way to the Medicine Bow area where I had previously located on a wind map and been in communication with William Young for about a year, who worked at the US Department of Energy’s wind turbine pilot program from years ago. When we arrived we found that the blades of the sole experimental wind turbine had shattered during a wind storm; however, two new Vestas 660 turbines were operational, generating energy, and were quite a sight. He handed me a document, which was the Power Purchase Agreement or PPA for the pair of wind turbines. We also had a chance to speak with the wind farm developer, Sea West from California, which constructed a number of wind turbines on the Foote of the mountain, and the landowner of the large site. We flew over it in our turboprop on our way to Cody, Wyoming, and you can actually see them from space on Google Earth!

1999 - 2002 - From Georgia to Colorado

Unfortunately, it would take still quite some time to for us to enter the market. Several years in fact. I decided to move to Atlanta that same year to pursue my architectural career and lived with a friend. It was a busy time during Atlanta’s building boom. I enjoyed my work for the most part, the numerous projects, and the people that I worked with, but I had a strong lingering desire to start the business. During that time I worked on the several laboratories in Georgia and new office buildings. I began to read about the physics involved in wind power, transmission lines, regulation, financing, manufacturers, and a whole host of other things. In 1999, Susan and I got married and lived in Atlanta where I worked as an intern architect and she as a nurse. Around the same time, Michael moved to Philadelphia to get an advanced degree from the University of Villanova. In the year 2000, after surviving the turn of the millennium with no disruption, Susan and I moved to Colorado, a spectacular state to follow my dream of building a company after attending the University of Colorado at Boulder to get my MBA in real estate and entrepreneurship, which I thought would be useful in my persuits. It was a really great place to live I might add with the parks and shopping nearby, except it was expensive as you might imagine and a little dry. While I was there I worked on a feasibility plan for wind energy development with a friend and fellow student, Craig Coughenour, who joined us for a brief period and then once again as our Chief Financial Officer or CFO during the startup phase. We visited the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the National Center for Climate and Atmospheric Research (NCAR) perched on an incredible site I might add. We considered starting the company at that time and thought that it would be a great location to do so; however, with demanding schedules, lack of available funds as well as office space, no customers, not to mention the need to increase our network and knowledge of the industry we decided to wait. While I was attending graduate school, the business school also started buying wind power for their builiding not from us since we did not have a company at the time. It was a difficult decision at first but we decided to move back to South Carolina where some of my friends and family lived even though I also considered other states and thought that real estate development may be a better alternative for my career at that time.

August 2002 to December 2003 - Back to South Carolina The startup phase ... finally!

Unfortunately, I did not have a job offer from the numerous real estate companies that I contacted in the area with the exception of the Cliffs. After moving across the country again and returning to South Carolina in 2002, I had a discussion with a plant manager at BMW Manufacturing about a new power plant that was going to use landfill gas that we believed confirmed business’ interest and willingness to look farther than today and use alternative resources. I believed that it was the right time to officially start the business with the team in August of 2002 from my home office. It was either now or next to never from my perspective even though that meant that I had to work nights and weekends on the business, since I had a full-time day job, as well as give up luxury items like a high defination television for a while, a long while. As you may recall about the time, terrorist attacks had occurred on the World Trade Center just a year before, there was war in the Middle East, the job market was for new graduates was one of the worst in recent history, there was also concern about high levels of green house gases from utility companies and automobiles, there was a need for more energy from renewable resources, newly formed ecommerce companies had fallen out of favor with investors, and a new automotive research park planned in the Greenville area had an impact on our economy and our business as did personal needs such as food and bills to pay. I had a strong desire to build a team and to later have both on and off road racing teams, sailing and other sport teams, driven by a strong sales and marketing group, ranch and adventuring wind park tours for customers, toys and merchandise and so on and so forth. So I invested personal funds to officially start the business and then sought additional capital from friends and family to get things going.

Hot, getting hotter!

There was a lot that I did on my own and of course a lot that I did with Michael during what I would call the corpration formation stage. Together we incorporated the business, divided ownership of the corporation, wrote a business plan, and worked with Nexsen Pruett, a local law firm for the trade marking and incorporation. With a labor of love, a lot of luck, perseverance and prayer, SKY Energy Incorporated was founded in December of 2002 from my home office, nearly five years from the time that I conceptualized it. I came up with the SKY ENERGY name and designed the logo as well as came up with our two slogans ENERGY FROM ABOVE and FIGHTING POLLUTION ONE REVOLUTION AT A TIME that became our company mantra and were filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office in 2003. I guess that I could have owned the entire business by myself and may be should have, but I decided to give a significant portion of the ownership with Michael, and probably rightly so at this point since we had discussed the company strategy for several years already not to mention that we were very good friends still. We were excited and found untaken intellectual propertly, probably as an explorer finding new lands. I searched and found the website domain with a dash in it available as well as found a memorable toll-free phone number (866) SKY-Energy for customers to hopefully easily contact and remember us. Soon afterwards we hired and began colloborating with a new marketing company, Peculiar Productions, started by Tim Pecoraro and his creative team to create the company brochure, website, and multi-media DVD. We did not have a big budget because we did not receive any venture capital at this point. Regardless, I must compliment Jon McConnell on his efforts with the first brochure, Mark Hoyt who did our website design, flash annimation, and later ecommerce solutions, and Tim's multi-media DVD featuring the beautiful Dana Russell as our spokeswoman. Our first official business trip was to Chicago, the Windy City, where Mike and I attended a Green Power Conference where we met with and listened to presentations by other industry participants. We also found our first couple of suppliers or generators as we also call them there. Shelly Kender, a friend of mine from years ago when her last name was Jones, was our first accountant and helped with the bookkeeping, tax preparation, and customer invoicing.

January 2004 - The release

Our first year in business was difficult but bearable as we contacted organizations around the country to make them aware of our new business and to build interest in renewable energy. We considered relocating the business to Colorado in mid-2004, but decided that based on our current situation, we would stay put. Even though we experienced rough and difficult times the company was silently and almost secretly launched in early 2004. To be honest with you I wanted fireworks with large explosions (and plenty of smoke to offset with wind) followed by 18-wheeler trucks carrying the enormous blades through towns across the US and may still do so at some point in the future, but the circumstances were different. I had lost my job in December of 2003. We had limited capital to use, limited amounts of time, limited space to work in, and limited numbers of people assisting on the business, not to mention limited network or contacts and businesses that we were marketing for. None-the-less it was our first business and we gave it our best shot under the circumstances. It was our hope that SKY Energy would become a clean energy company that would benefit the US especially after what happened and the world for generations to come.

Please have a look around our site and see for yourself... we hope that you enjoy it and decide to join us in the clean energy revolution! Thanks for your time and interest and I hope to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,

Brian S. Weninger
Founder