'Transforming green to gold'

Crawford touts Orion's energy-saving technology around the world

By Charlie Mathews, Herald Times Reporter

MANITOWOC — Former Manitowoc mayor, now an Orion Energy Systems executive, Kevin Crawford believes environmentally friendly companies can help save the earth and create jobs at the same time.

"A key element is to help get the Orion picture out there … we are a key solution to one of America's most daunting challenges," said Crawford, named to his vice president of governmental affairs and business development post on Earth Day, April 22.

Six months into his new job after 20 years as mayor, Crawford was speaking via phone Thursday from Los Angeles where he was attending the Governors' Climate Summit 2, hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim
Doyle and other governors.

Attending the L.A. summit with Orion's marketing director, Guy Peterson, Crawford said, "When you say you're from Wisconsin, a vision of cheeseheads dances in people's heads. We have to remind people we are cutting-edge technology as an organization and as a state," said Crawford.

He was given ammunition for Orion's business development efforts with Wednesday's announcement that the Manitowoc-based public company (NASDAQ: OESX) has been nominated in the category of Energy Efficiency Program of the Year in the Platts Global Energy Awards competition, often described as the Academy Awards of the energy industry.

Last year Orion won Sustainable Technology Innovation of the Year honors for its integrated system.

It includes its high-intensity compact modular lighting, InteLite wireless control system and its rooftop-placed
Apollo solar light pipes, which harvest daylight and focuses it to a facility floor, through a sealed tube, using no electricity for up to 10 hours a day.

Collects Asian business cards

Orion energy management systems are in about 5,000 facilities across North America — as well as Roncalli High School gym and at Manitowoc's Festival Foods — including 119 of the Fortune 500 companies.

A company document says customers have saved some $640 million in energy costs and reduced indirect carbon dioxide emissions by 5.5 million tons.

In his governmental affairs capacity, Crawford continues to lobby state politicians and Congress to look favorably on legislation that would grant tax credits to purchasers of Orion products, including the light pipes.

"Orion is a sleeping giant … the downturn in the economy has impacted the companies that would have been buying our products," Crawford said from his office overlooking the manufacturing plant — with its roof dotted by some 400 light pipes — that used to serve as the Mirro cookware-bakeware distribution center.

Crawford said the light pipes were not available when original "Renewable Portfolio Standards" (RPS) and goals were set calling for, in the case of Wisconsin, 25 percent of energy in 2025 to come from renewable sources like the wind.

Or the sun — after all, the sun comes up every day even when the wind isn't blowing. Crawford believes Orion's light pipes are the ultimate direct renewable, no-cost, energy source that helps reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

He made that pitch at scientific and trade missions in Japan and China last month.

"As we approach the 'Green Teens,' the decade from 2010-2020, we can envision an era during which the world's business enterprises compete furiously to develop practical and cost-competitive environmentally sound products, machinery and tools including alternative fuels, direct use renewables, energy-saving technologies and other strategies that will help nations live up to their promises to reduce humanity's carbon footprint," he said to a Japanese audience.

He added, "There is a growing realization that 'green' means not only environmentally friendly, but also profitable and full of opportunity for job creation.

"In other words, transforming green to gold," Crawford told the Japan-Midwest U.S. Conference.

While in Asia, Crawford took the opportunity to exchange business cards with dozens of government and business leaders.

"Radical Ideas – Extreme Energy Savings" is the slogan on an Orion binder where Crawford keeps his hundreds of cards that can lead to contracts or partnerships helping to keep the current 230 employees in Manitowoc working or generate future openings.

'The other 75 percent'

Doyle's goal of "25 by 2025" creates a key question, Crawford said.

"What will the other 75 percent be?" Crawford said, mentioning natural gas, so-called "clean coal" technology, and recalling one Japanese energy executive stating an expansion of nuclear energy must happen for the U.S. to meet RPS.

Crawford told the Japanese conference, "As companies work their way through the present world while planning for what lies ahead, the key challenge is to maximize potential gains in energy efficiency while ensuring adequate new electric generation to maintain reliability and meet future demand."

That's where Orion's guarantee that its technology will increase light levels while reducing energy costs is its principal selling point.

It's a theme Crawford uses both with business and government officials, though not in Washington, D.C. corridors as often as when he first joined Orion in spring.

"There is so much horse trading to get health care dealt with … it really has stalled everything going on with the energy bill," Crawford said of the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate's fixation on medical economics.

So, does he miss being mayor? "I enjoyed every minute and every day … what I liked about local government was making decisions based on what your gut told you was right and then moving on," with no partisan politics, Crawford said.

He's pleased to be at Orion, founded by Neal Verfuerth and his wife, Pat, in 1997, after serving as mayor, United Way director, and Manitowoc Crane test operator and local union official.

"I've spent a lifetime on behalf of working people," Crawford said. "Coming here has evolved (that passion) into another level of helping people through saving the environment and putting people to work."

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