Engine For Green Jobs: Premier Power CEO Dean Marks (Part 2)

SM: How did you fund your business? Did you get financing or did you bootstrap? DM: It was all bootstrapping. The way we sold it, we would get progressive payments for a residential system. Whether it was retrofit or new construction we would get payments as modules were delivered.

Engine For Green Jobs: Premier Power CEO Dean Marks (Part 1)

SM: Let’s start where your story begins. Where did you grow up, and what is your background? DM: I was born in Nebraska and moved around quite a bit. I lived in North Dakota, Illinois and New York, and I ended up going to college in Alabama. I joined the Boy Scouts along the way. My

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Green Grants To Xunlight: CEO Xunming Deng (Part 7)

SM: I am assuming that you are doing your manufacturing in Toledo because of your ties with the university? XD: It is where our company has grown up. We have had the governor and lieutenant governor over at our facilities. We have also had our senators and congresswoman come visit.

Green Grants To Xunlight: CEO Xunming Deng (Part 5)

SM: What happened when you came out to Silicon Valley to raise money? XD: We were successful because we showed the venture capitalists that the company, for free, built a production line for the university using grant money. In essence, we had already proven our ability to succeed once, and I had the same team

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Green Grants To Xunlight: CEO Xunming Deng (Part 4)

SM: A $2.9 million grant sounds like real money. What was the project? XD: It was to build a hydrogen generation system using solar. At that time fuel cells were very hot. Of course, a fuel cell needs fuel, which happens to be hydrogen.

Green Grants To Xunlight: CEO Xunming Deng (Part 3)

SM: Awareness of alternative and renewable energy before 2003 was much lower than it is today. It started picking up on a global scale in 2003-2004. Getting grants instead of venture funding seems like a good route to have gone in that particular timeframe. XD: It was good, although it was pretty tough to get

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Green Grants To Xunlight: CEO Xunming Deng (Part 2)

SM: When you went to the university, you essentially went to carry on type of work you had been doing at ECD? XD: I learned business and operations savvy at ECD. As soon as I arrived at the university I quickly built my team and developed the ability to make high efficiency solar cells.

Green Grants To Xunlight: CEO Xunming Deng (Part 1)

SM: Tell me where your journey begins. Where are you from and how did you end up at the University of Toledo? XD: I was born in Nanchang, China in 1963. I grew up there and went to college at the University of Science and Technology of China. In China we have a nationwide college

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