New Student Business: Emergent Energy Group INC
Name of business: Emergent Energy Group INC; www.emergentgroup.com
Mission: To advance environmentally benign, distributed energy, and sustainable practices through transparent, community-based planning.
Began: January 2007
Where: Tufts University, Somerville, Massachusetts
Founders: Gregory Hering, Jared Rodriguez; jrodriguez@emergentgroup.com; Office: 617-764-0206; Mobile: 845-548-5524; Jayson Uppal;
How the Idea Began: Emergent began in the basement of Tilton Hall at Tufts University. Three Tufts students, Gregory Hering, Jared Rodriguez, and Jayson Uppal were united by a common interest: dwindling oil resources and the idea that distributed, renewable energy would allow our society to progress into a more environmentally benign state. The three students met one another at a Tufts Energy Security Initiative meeting, an extracurricular club that focuses on global energy issues, and quickly reinforced each other's interest in wind power. The three were set on creating a company that could deliver wind power solutions to the northeast. Since that time, Emergent has morphed into a company that provides alternative energy resource assessments and master plans for individuals, government entities, and businesses. The company is just now moving toward developing wind power and solar power projects throughout the northeast.
Initial Preparation to Germinate Idea: We quickly aligned Emergent with several industry leaders, obtained wind resource analysis software, and created proprietary processes to move alternative energy development, especially wind power development, from concept to construction. We incorporated as a Delaware LLC at first and then created a Delaware Corporation as time went on. We took on Jesse Gossett, an environmental science student from Tufts University to work on developing our consulting services. Finally, we took on Christopher Jacobs, a Babson College Ugrad entrepreneurship and strategic management student, to focus on sales and business development. We then created Emergent Energy Consulting LLC that would hold all consulting contracts, and would aid Emergent Energy Group INC in growing organically, until the company begins to move more toward alternative energy project development.
Favorite Thing about the Business: Our ability to change the way Americans think of energy. We are proud to give people tools to manage their own energy future. The most exciting part of Emergent is reshaping the alternative energy industry and the way projects are developed.
Biggest Challenge: Overcoming stereotypes of people our age. We also believe that raising project capital in this particular financial environment will be difficult.
Lesson Learned: A lot of people in this industry and in other sectors will pitch their services and qualifications as if they are tops in their field. After having some fairly awry encounters, we have grown our ability to identify pitches and people that lack substance and proper experience.