Daniel

I was born to tinker. My mother bought me an RC car for Christmas one year and much to her dismay, I had it in pieces before it had even rolled one foot. Hey- I rebuilt it and had it running before the batteries finished charging. I'm not completely ungrateful.

I'm no Star Wars groupie but Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” While some excel in structured learning programs, I must disagree with Yoda in this point, I try and try, until I CAN do. I bring to this organization a steadfastness to do what I need to learn everything to help you.

The average American is dependent on thousands of other people and 7 barrels of oil each day- armies to make sure you have reliable electricity, heat, water and sewer, clothing, and food from thousand of miles away. And what about fuel and maintenance for your car or the people who maintain and operate your public transportation system? What about the other things that have become necessary as technologies advance; cable, telephone, cell phone, internet? Our global community and systems have swelled until the bloated nature of our daily existence far outstrips what our planet can provide for.

But I digress, why are we working to bring Renewable Energies to you? On a personal level, I want to be independent, free from dependency on oil which seems to bring almost as much turmoil as it does convenience. And not to be underestimated, I want to support my local community. If you're reading this, I can only hope that you have similar aspirations, but there are many other valuable reasons to incorporate renewable energy technologies, whether it's minimizing environmental footprint, reducing electricity usage, gaining reliable backup power, or simply regaining some of that money that we put into tax credits.

I read a quote “with our current view on renewable energy that we would be more likely to genetically engineer dinosaurs, bury them and wait a billion years for them to turn into oil.” (Please let me know if you can credit the author!) I'm happy to say that not everyone holds that belief and we are gaining in number. We are excited about recent movements in the industry to actually advance renewable energy technologies and we're even more excited that we are ready to participate and drive and disseminate what we learn. Whether you're in some remote area, interested in saving a little money on energy bills, want to cash in on tax credits in your area or want to save the environment we can help you.

Elaina

I'm not going to say that it was always my dream to save the environment. I wanted to be a concert pianist for the first 18 years of my life (in particular, I wanted to be a female Victor Borges) but without the stunning wit or the musical genius, I was forced to investigate my other assets.

I spent most of my free-time in the woods with my brother and our faithful dog, Puppi. In this free, creative time, I developed a love of the natural world around me- the trees, the stream, the whippoorwill, and even the tree frogs, who insisted on residing in our pool. I then began to notice the smoke billowing from factories, sewage plant smells and oil tankers as more than just blights on this perfect world, and so I also began to ask, “is there a better way?” The Exxon Valdez spill and the Iraq war (the first one) began to hold my attention and thus was born my new drive to work to improve the environment. I guess one can't say to “save” the environment unless you have the drive and charisma and notoriety of someone like Al Gore, but I can certain pull my weight (and hopefully, help you pull yours!)

My road here has been long and circuitous. I graduated from Cornell University in 1998 with a degree in Environmental Engineering. From there, I went out into the world, flushed, starry-eyed and found that the salaries offered to the swarms of recent graduates was barely enough to keep me fed.

Relying on my experience on Cornell's Helpdesk, I got a job at a pharmaceutical company on their Helpdesk and then transferred to Drug Safety and went to two other companies before deciding that I loved my off-grid weekend house too much, quit, and moved in full-time. We have no power lines, no phone lines, and yet our power is more predictable than the rest of our neighbor's, as is our cell phone (predictably not available, that is.)

Moving off the grid was not an easy transition. We made lots of mistakes and learned a lot from them. It's nothing like walking 5 miles in the snow to school or anything, but we did run our house on the alternator of a 1991 Suburban for a couple of days in the gray, gray fall of 2005 when our generator died and our new one was still on order.

So we decided to take these broad lessons and apply them to Northeast Renewables. Our training in the pharmaceutical industry has instilled in both of us a strong sense of good business practice, good documentation, and good customer service. Our science backgrounds have made us logical and analytical. And our love of our planet has brought us to you.