From Semiconductors to Green Power: Borrego CEO Mike Hall (Part 6)

SM: Will you limit yourselves strictly to project financing? Do you envision a technical leadership role? MH: Our industry is new enough that we absolutely need to stay involved in engineering and evaluating new technologies. We have a technology group that does evaluations and downstream technology development such as balancing systems and racking.

From Semiconductors to Green Power: Borrego CEO Mike Hall (Part 5)

SM: Is your business entirely residential? MH: No. Now we are entirely the other way. I took over as CEO in January. After the investment came in we restructured the board and the company. We had separated into two divisions in 2007, which provided a nice, clean way of splitting. Accordingly, we sold the residential

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From Semiconductors to Green Power: Borrego CEO Mike Hall (Part 4)

SM: What was the process of finding your mentors? MH: There is a group in San Diego called the Chairman’s Roundtable. Semi-retired business leaders volunteer their time. They only work with companies with over $10 million in revenue and want to grow.

From Semiconductors to Green Power: Borrego CEO Mike Hall (Part 3)

SM: How long were you able to take advantage of the beneficial AdWords pricing? MH: Within four or five months people started realizing that Borrego Solar was advertising there so they figured they should, too.

From Semiconductors to Green Power: Borrego CEO Mike Hall (Part 2)

SM: So you had a perspective for your search for a green economy job. MH: Exactly. It’s funny because in 2001, my brother and the original founder of Borrego Solar had re-incorporated the company and moved it to San Diego where they tried to grow the business.

From Semiconductors to Green Power: Borrego CEO Mike Hall (Part 1)

Mike Hall serves as CEO and board member for Borrego Solar Systems, Inc. Mike has been with Borrego Solar since 2002. Prior to joining the company, he worked as a product development engineer for Applied Materials in Santa Clara. He holds a MS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Chemical Engineering

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The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 7)

SM: What is the future of venture capital? GT: It will go back to its roots. It will be a smaller industry with fewer firms practicing it as a craft. There will be smaller fund sizes. I do not believe there is evidence that venture capital is an industry that scales.

The Future Of Venture Capital: Trinity Ventures Partner Gus Tai (Part 6)

SM: A third major area in which I would like to see leadership is in education. What do you think needs to happen for that momentum to build up? GT: We are seeing innovation on education in two fronts. One innovation trend in education is the notion of crowdsourcing education in modules.