Letting The Sun Shine In | For Mark Durrenberger of New England Breeze, success grows organically from a community
Solar energy is a booming, high-tech industry in Massachusetts. But the way Mark Durrenberger talks about the business, it sounds homegrown, even a little old-fashioned.
Durrenberger, president of New England Breeze LLC in Hudson, visits many of the houses where his company will install solar panels. He climbs on roofs, checks how much shade they get, and spends lots of time talking with homeowners. At one home, he said, the family gave him an eggplant from their garden. At another, he found out that the homeowners wanted to adopt a cat and got them in touch with his wife, who works with an animal rescue group.
“That’s a great part of the job,” Durrenberger said. “That’s the most fun.”
For Durrenberger, being an active part of the community where he does business is both the right thing to do and a key to building a successful company.
He said that since the company started five years ago, the number of solar installers in the state has grown from about 20 to around 300. Many of the newcomers are based in other states and have targeted Massachusetts because of its generous support of solar power.
If those companies are the Home Depots of the solar installation market, Durrenberger said, he aspires to be more like the local power tool store down the street — accountable for the product he provides and available to deal with repairs way down the road. Like a local store owner, he runs into his customers around town all the time, and he’s happy to chat with them.
“I don’t have to hide my face or duck into a shelf,” he said.
New England Breeze’s biggest recent success came in Harvard, where the company is taking part in a pilot program with the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center designed to encourage the adoption of solar power. The program, Solarize Massachusetts, had four locations with four different solar installers, but the Harvard site has been by far the most successful.
Durrenberger said the success was due partly to factors outside the company, including a strong committee of community members that encouraged their neighbors to sign up. But part of it was the fact that New England Breeze pushed itself to respond to customers’ individual needs, whether that meant showing up to assess a site on a Saturday or going through alternatives to find something that would work for the homeowner.
“We went late, we went early,” Durrenberger said. “We did multiple designs for people.”
Jim Elkind, a local volunteer who helped organize the Solarize Mass program in Harvard, said Durrenberger demonstrated his commitment when he worked to put a solar array on Elkind’s house.
“Originally he looked at my roof and said, ‘That’s not going to work,’” Elkind said.
He said he couldn’t use a standard array of panels because his roof has a number of sections at different pitches. But he said New England Breeze’s commitment and technical ability allowed the firm to develop a solution with several panels operating independently.
“There are numerous stories of him doing similar work with other customers as part of the Solarize program,” Elkind said.
Durrenberger said concern for the environment is the key to everything the company does, and he has no desire to sacrifice that for a quick buck.
“We’re not here to make a killing,” he said. “We’re here to make a living.”
Even New England Breeze’s office is designed to be efficient. Although the company has grown from two to 13 employees, it hasn’t leased office space. Instead, it’s only moved from Durrenberger’s house to a garage owned by his business partner.
“It’s a way of keeping our costs down and our carbon footprint down,” he said.
Durrenberger said he’s been interested in solar energy since he was in high school, when Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House.
“I just thought it was cool,” he said. “Capturing energy out of the sun — that’s so cool.”
Durrenberger spent years away from the solar energy world, working at a nuclear power plant, then at Polaroid Corp. and then running his own business consulting group, Oak Associates Inc.
Around the time he decided to start New England Breeze, he got interested in former Vice President Al Gore’s work on climate change. He ended up participating in a training program Gore ran to help participants give talks on the subject.
Denise Frizzell, a founding member of a local environmental organization, the Hudson Climate Action Network, said Durrenberger volunteered with her group and with others, giving free talks and free advice to anyone who was interested.
“He’s just a really generous and kind person,” Frizzell said. “I think he’s very passionate about making a difference.”
Durrenberger said New England Breeze is still growing. In fact, he said he was about to make an offer to a 14th employee. With that employee or the next one, he said, the firm “may hit critical mass” and have to move to a real office.
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