A
“boomerang” entrepreneur is one who grew
up in Maine, went to work elsewhere, and then brought his business ideas back
to where he wanted to live, according to a recent feature in Maine magazine.
An example
is Ben Polito, CEO of Pika Energy, a company funded by the Maine Angels, the
eCoast Angels of NH, and the Maine Small Enterprise Growth Fund (SEGF). Polito grew
up at the remote end of Georgetown Island, beyond the reach of Central Maine
Power’s utility poles for the first seven years of his life. After earning a
mechanical engineering degree from MIT, where he developed 3D printers, built
autonomous submarines, and worked on Eink, the display technology of the Amazon
Kindle, he returned to Maine where he co-founded Pika.
Encouraging Polito and others is Don Gooding, vice chair of Maine Angels and executive
director of the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development.
“Sorry, not a boomeranger,” says Gooding.
“I grew up in Mass., married someone who
was a third generation summer person, but that's not the same. But I'm a
"boomeranger catcher." In addition to Ben Polito, I've worked with
Shannon Kinney of Dream Local, Stephen Andrews of Abogen, and Kristen
Gwinn-Becker of HistoryIT, all of whom are high potential boomerangers.”
Dream Local has received funding from three
individual Maine Angels and the Maine Venture Fund;
Abogen is negotiating with the Maine Angels and presented recently at the New
England Angel Capital Association syndication summit in Boston.
“Watching Gooding connect people and
ideas is like watching a bee pollinate an orchard—so many flowers, so much
fruit to grow!” says Maine.
Phillip Conkling reports in Maine
on recent visits to the Maine Angels and to Pika Energy. “When it comes time to report on
current members’ investments, Paul Farrow holds up Pika Energy’s first wind
turbine blade, a sleek biomorphic form made from a new injection molding
process. For homeowners, a turbine blade is the key to energy production.
Blades typically cost several hundred to a thousand dollars apiece. But Pika’s
new process has reduced the cost to $30 per blade, which is a key part of their
strategy to reduce the costs of the machines by half of the going price.
Another key to their technology is a patent-pending microgrid that allows
customers the option of plugging in solar panels and tracking system
performance.
“I had visited Pika’s new facilities
at a Westbrook industrial park several weeks earlier and met its president, Ben
Polito, and his partner, Joshua Kaufman, director of research. The pair met
while they were students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The six
employees at Pika were still unpacking after moving out of Polito’s and
Kaufman’s basement, where they have been working for the past three years.
Kaufman, who greeted me while intently fiddling with a little box filled with
microcircuitry, said that because 96 percent of wind customers want the ability
to add solar, Pika’s sophisticated electronic micro-grid technology is at the
heart of their marketing strategy.
“Polito tells me that they have
recently closed their latest round of angel financing, which allowed them to
invest in manufacturing tools and to double their workforce, including hiring
an experienced plant manager, formerly of Tom’s of Maine. But this is also a
personal quest for Polito, who grew up at the remote end of Georgetown Island,
beyond the reach of Central Maine Power’s utility poles for the first seven
years of his life. He remembers “electricity was this cool thing that I saw in
kindergarten and the neighbors had,” and he got interested in how electricity
makes things work. At Morse High School in Bath, Polito built small turbines
for science projects. He says, ‘You don’t really know how to design stuff
until you know how to build stuff.’
“Polito, who has benefited from
MCED’s ‘Top Gun’ program, is a big
believer in locating business in Maine, where everything is much more
affordable and there is an ample supply of talent due to the quality of life. ‘Maine
was a backwater when my parents came here,’ recalls Polito, ‘but the Internet
has democratized where you can do innovation.’
Up in Aroostook County, North of the Haynesville
Woods (“A Tombstone Every Mile”) close by Frenchville and the Republic of
Madewaska, they say that Maine’s biggest exports are pine, pulp, potatoes, and
people, eh! Maybe someday a few more entrepreneurs
will boomerang back.
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| Don Gooding at Work |
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| République du Madawaska |
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