Breaking into the cleantech business brings lots of unique challenges—and to equip more entrepreneurs to handle them, the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC) launched a fellowship program last April aimed at retraining CEOs from the information technology, life sciences, and telecom worlds. A dozen former CEOs spent the summer of 2008 learning the energy-industry landscape through intensive classroom sessions, visits to local companies and national energy research labs, and “capstone” entrepreneurial projects. Already, according to Peter Rothstein, a coordinator of the fellowships and an executive in residence at Cambridge, MA-based Flagship Ventures, 11 of the first 12 fellows (whom Greg listed here) are working in the cleantech sector, and four have launched their own new ventures.

The program was such a success, in fact, that NECEC has decided to repeat and expand it this summer. Applications are now open for the summer 2009 season (they’re due March 2; you can find all the details here). And according to an announcement today, the council will increase the number of fellows it selects this year to 25. It will also increase the scope of the fellowships to include non-CEOs, and will even select a few entrepreneurs based outside New England.

“The Council’s 2008 Fellowship program was extremely successful in helping to transition senior entrepreneurial talent into the clean energy sector,” NECEC president Nick d’Arbeloff said in a statement. “Based on that success, we will be more than doubling the size of the Fellowship class in 2009, and broadening the program to include individuals with a wider range of executive experience.”

Fellows will meet 10 hours a day, two days a week through May, June, and July. To support a larger program, NECEC is raising money from new sources such as the Kauffman Foundation, according to Rothstein. But the group is also in funding discussions with the program’s original sponsor, the John Adams Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.

At the CEO level, the council is looking for fellowship applicants who have raised $3 million to $10 million dollars in capital for previous ventures, have 5 to 10 years of executive leadership experience, and have been through at least one successful IPO or sale. If applicants haven’t worked as CEOs in their industries, they need to have a solid background in science, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, or development, as well as experience with strategic and financial planning issues, including mergers and acquisitions.

There were at least a couple of reasons for the council to open up the fellowships to a broader group of applicants, Rothstein says. “One is that there are a lot of very interested and qualified people out there, in terms of what they could bring to cleantech companies, who simply may not have been CEOs, but might bring lots of marketing, operations, or business development experience,” he says. “And as we thought about the capstone business projects, we thought some of them could make greater progress if they included not just individuals but teams.” The fellows will be encouraged, though not assigned, to join groups around business projects during the final month of the fellowship, Rothstein says.

While Rothstein says he expects that the majority of 2009 fellows will be from Massachusetts, as they were last year, though the NECEC has made some changes to open up the program to entrepreneurs from other areas. For one thing, it’s holding its sessions on consecutive days of the week (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) rather than repeating last summer’s Tuesday-Thursday schedule; that’s intended to make it easier for fellows living far outside Boston to commute.

The Kauffman Foundation has also agreed to underwrite travel expenses for fellows based in distant parts of the Northeast, Rothstein says. “This program is in some ways expanding into a regional effort, and will likely include some people form New York,” he says. “We think that’s still well aligned with NECEC’s mission to build a cluster across the broader Northeast.”

Comments | Reprints | Share:        

Back in April, we reported on the New England Clean Energy Council’s new fellowship program, which is designed to train experienced businesspeople in the art of cleantech entrepreneurship. Now the NECEC has announced its charter class of fellows who will take part in the pilot this summer.

It’s a three-month, half-time classroom program that will run through mid-September and will also include visits to local cleantech companies, universities, and the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado, as well as projects in conjunction with local VC firms. The program is being coordinated by Peter Rothstein at Flagship Ventures and Nick d’Arbeloff, executive director of NECEC (and an Xconomist). Pending passage of the Green Jobs Act—a bill sponsored by Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, part of which has been earmarked to support the fellowships—the training sessions will be run twice a year for the next five years.

We thought you’d like to know a little more about this distinguished group of entrepreneurs who could help shape the cleantech industry in the years to come. So without further ado, here is the inaugural class of Clean Energy Fellows (you might call them “the clean dozen”):

—Aaron Bent, North American GM, Polatis Photonics

—Rick Daniels, founder of MultiLayer Coating Technologies; VP of Strategy and Development, Polaroid

—Chuck Digate, founder of Beyond and Convoq; CEO, MathSoft

—Paul Fenton, founder and CEO, Axya Medical

—Joseph Krivickas, President and COO, FAST; CEO, Segue Software

—Steve Kropper, founder of Domania

—David Olsson, founding board member, Massachusetts Telecommunications Council and Telecom Expense Management Industry Association; executive at AnchorPoint and Verizon

—Perry Solomon, CEO, Boston Coach; CEO, HR Logic

—John Strauss, board member, MOCA Systems; president of business units, Erie Management Group

—Per Suneby, business development executive, LiquidPiston and SiCortex; cofounder and CEO, Indus River Networks

—David Tolwinski, VP and General Manager, 3Com Switching Division; CEO, Tenor Networks

—John Van Siclen, executive, Wyse Technology, NetFRAME Systems, Informix, and Interwoven

Congratulations, Fellows. Welcome to Boston (though most of you are from the area), and may the cleantech force be with you.

Comments | Reprints | Share:        

It’s hard to kick-start a new regional industry if there’s a shortage of entrepreneurs who understand the business. That’s the problem the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC) is taking on with a new fellowship program designed to retrain entrepreneurs experienced in the software business and other industries so that they can venture into cleantech.

The Clean Energy Fellowship Program, announced today, is one element of a five-year, $50 million proposal floated by Massachusetts House Speak Sal DiMasi last month in an effort to boost the state’s clean energy sector. But that proposal is just at the beginning of its journey through the legislature—in a year when support for renewable energy technology could well take a backseat to other budget priorities. So the NECEC is plowing ahead with a pilot version of the fellowship program, which, in its first session, will bring 10 to 15 experienced executives to the Boston area for three and a half months of classroom sessions, energy lab visits, and entrepreneurial projects.

But interested entrepreneurs need to act fast: Applications for the fellowships are due May 1, and the program gets underway May 29. According to NECEC’s call for applicants, candidates need to have experience as CEO or key early business leader of at least one venture, as well as experience raising at least $3 million in capital for previous ventures, and a “proven ability to embrace/manage new technology.”

Nick d’Arbeloff, NECEC’s executive director and an Xconomist, explained some of the rationale behind the fellowship program to me when I talked with him last month about the DiMasi proposal. “One of the key weaknesses of many clean-energy ventures is an inexperienced team,” he said. “So for this sector to grow rapidly in Massachusetts, we must provide one critical ingredient, and that is experienced entrepreneurs who understand how to build companies, how to raise capital, and how to make the venture succeed.”

But while leading an energy venture demands a lot of special skills—as Xconomist Bill Aulet has pointed out—part of the goal of the fellowships, d’Arbeloff says, is to show professionals from other fields that it may not be quite as hard as they think. “I think that one of the issues faced by the sector is that many entrepreneurs from what I’ll call ‘classic’ technology industries are intimidated by the different shape of clean energy technology,” he says. “In truth, the similarities outweigh the differences. So while a software entrepreneur is not going to reach a comfort level overnight, the skills that he or she has in building companies are desperately needed. These fellowships will address that need head-on.”

D’Arbeloff and Peter Rothstein, an executive in residence at Flagship Ventures, will coordinate the fellowship. “A successful fellowship program could accelerate the transition of CEO-caliber entrepreneurs into leadership roles with dozens of new clean energy companies in our region,” Rothstein said in NECEC’s press release about the program today. “This will result in keeping local capital in our region, creating thousands of new high-paying jobs and establishing another important market sector to keep Massachusetts’s economy vibrant.”

NECEC will hold an information session about the fellowship program at Boston University’s Stone Science Building, Room 453, at 5:30 p.m. next Tuesday, April 22.

Comments (2) | Reprints | Share:        

Budding student-entrepreneurs awaken: Highland Capital Partners says it’s accepting applications for its second annual paid summer entrepreneurship program for undergraduates and graduate students, and for more than 20 summer internship positions at Highland-backed companies in Massachusetts.

Highland launched its “Summer@Highland” program last year. Under the program, which is similar in some ways to Paul Graham’s Y Combinator effort, Highland selects teams of up to four students apiece to spend 10 weeks at its Lexington, MA, or Menlo Park, CA offices, where they develop their business ideas with advice from Highland’s investment professionals. Highland provides a stipend of $7,500 for single-person teams or $15,000 for multi-person teams. In return, the firm asks teams for the option to co-invest in up to 50 percent of any venture financing round the team raises within six months after the program.

The summer program is “a further continuation of Highland’s long commitment in partnering with fast-growth companies at all stages of their development,” said Highland general partner Peter Bell in the company’s call for applications yesterday. Teams can apply online until April 22.

Meanwhile, Highland senior vice president Michael Gaiss tells Xconomy that the company has just opened more than 20 summer internship positions at local companies backed by Highland, including Going, Gotuit, Streambase, and Turbine (the company behind The Lord of the Rings Online). The internships “help connect our companies earlier with exceptional college students interested in gaining experience at venture-backed companies and start-ups,” Gaiss says. The open positions are listed at Highland’s Career Network portal at http://www.hcp.com/career-network/index.php (select “internship” in the status field).

Comments | Reprints | Share: