A Huntington Beach-based solar energy provider established less than three years ago by prominent executives with Orange County ties has hit profitability and is projecting $250 million in 2012 contracts.
PsomasFMG LLC has benefited from its executive team’s deep connections throughout California in finance, government relations and sales and marketing to find a niche in the region’s growing clean technology industry when competitors have struggled.
The startup has secured about $150 million in solar projects by targeting school districts, counties, cities, water districts and other public entities.
It designs, builds and installs solar panels that generate energy that can be used to power schools and government buildings.
“We were in a recession, so we thought the government market was a better place to provide a service,” Chairman and Chief Executive Louis Kwiker said.
Kwiker is also president of First Management Group LLC in San Juan Capistrano, which provides financing for renewable energy projects. He and longtime colleagues Al Nagy and Paul Mikos founded PsomasFMG in 2009 as a joint venture between First Management and the renewable-energy division of L.A.-based engineering firm Psomas.
Kwiker previously served as chief executive of Carson-based Bristol Farms and ePolicy Solutions Inc., a Torrance-based business software maker acquired by ChoicePoint of Alpharetta, Ga., in 2006.
Finance Background
Nagy is the finance guy and has raised more than $240 million in public funding through First Management and his own consultancies. He previously was founding managing partner of Birtcher Investments, part of Irvine-based Birtcher Development & Investment Co.
Mikos spent most of his career with Remedy Temp Inc., rising through the ranks to chief executive and chairman of the Aliso Viejo-based employment services company. Under his watch, Remedy went public in 1996; it was sold a decade later to Select Personnel Services of Santa Barbara.
PsomasFMG brought on James Hankla to strengthen government relations. Hankla counts more than 40 years in the public sector and serves as board president of Harbor Commissioners for the city of Long Beach, helping to manage one of the nation’s busiest ports.
He counts prior stints as chief administrative officer for Los Angeles County, Long Beach city manager and chief executive of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority.
“You have three guys that have run major businesses,” Kwiker said. “You have another guy who has run Long Beach, built the Alameda Corridor, ran the port of Long Beach and ran L.A. County. This is a serious group of people.”
$20M Agreement
PsomasFMG signed a $20 million power-purchase agreement with Orange County last month to design, engineer, build, operate and maintain a solar power system at seven sites. The project is expected to create hundreds of jobs and save the county as much as $5.3 million.
PsomasFMG, which said it reached profitability for the first time during 2011, supplies all the capital costs on its projects and charges nothing up front, presenting the public sector an attractive incentive to lower utility costs in an environmentally friendly way. The company gets financing from Union Bank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank and Bank of America, among others.
Kwiker handles materials procurement and is visiting Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China this week to source panels and other products. The company uses contractors for installations.
In October, PsomasFMG completed a $52 million, 9.6-megawatt solar project for 10 schools in the Antelope Valley Union High School District—the largest such project in the U.S., according to the company. A megawatt can supply about 1,000 homes with electricity.
The installation of 40,000 photovoltaic panels above parking ports is expected to produce enough energy to offset 80% of the district’s power needs and save it $400,000 in utility bills in the first year, according to Mikos, executive vice president of PsomasFMG.
Convenient Commutes
Convenience drove the founders to choose Huntington Beach for the company’s headquarters, as their homes are spread between Long Beach, Manhattan Beach and San Juan Capistrano.
“We decided we needed some place right in the middle, and we found a place right in the middle,” Kwiker said.
