Jim Gordon May Have an Answer to our Energy Problems

Gordon grew up in a rental duplex in a working class neighborhood of Boston. His father owned small corner grocery stores and Gordon spent afternoons and weekends stocking shelves or working behind the counter, where he learned the art of face-to-face business. Yet he had grander visions for himself. He studied film at the University of Miami and Boston University. "My aspiration was to be a film director," he says. "I thought I was going to be the next Stephen Spielberg."

During his senior year, he tried to break into the business by applying for internships at the local TV stations but couldn't find a job. He tried to get his foot in the door at the new Warner cable station. "When I got down there," he recalls, "they said, 'We don't have any more positions in the television studio, but we do have sales positions. Can you sell?'"

Yes, he could. Gordon went door to door and, he says, broke company sales records. A few months later, the second Arab oil embargo hit and Gordon saw another opportunity. He was waiting in a gas line down the street from his father's store when he had a revelation: energy. He spent his entire $3,000 savings to start a new business, Energy Management, with virtually no experience. He began banging on doors and making cold calls to businesses and factories, selling off-the-shelf products to improve heat transfer and combustion efficiency. Over the next decade, EMI grew to 45 employees and designed and installed customized systems for factories around New England.

In 1984, the price of energy plummeted and clients began to shelve conservation programs. Gordon shifted into the power-generation business. At the time, the electrical industry was going through deregulation under the Public Utility Regulation Policy Act. Regulators encouraged entrepreneurs to develop smaller power plants -- a high-risk business with potential for boom or bust. Gordon leveraged himself to the point where he had two lines of credit on his condo. EMI developed two plants for industrial clients (one a wood-fired plant and the other a natural gas-fired cogeneration plant that produced electricity and steam) then built five more natural gas-fired plants on its own around New England. The last three projects were "merchant" plants, or ones that had no long-term power purchase agreements with utilities; they sold electricity on the spot market. "These guys were going into debt beyond their net worth," says Henry Lee, director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "Most of us wouldn't sleep at night if we were even close to that exposed."

During these years Gordon proved to be a tenacious businessman. "There would be moments when you'd be absolutely sure this project is over -- multiple times," says Dennis Duffy, an EMI vice president. "But you've got to be able to ride through those times and just keep pushing. Otherwise you should look for another line of business." For Gordon, it was the right business. "Jim, short of being thrown in jail for something, was going to stick with it, come hell or high water," says Ron Cochran, an engineer who worked with Gordon. "He might be a little offended by this, but he for sure is a hustler personified."

His hustling paid off. In 1999, EMI sold two plants to El Paso Energy and the following year it sold the remaining three to Calpine for a combined total reported to be around $250 million.

After that, EMI shrank from a company of 110 employees to a core management team of a dozen people. A few cashed in their chips and retired. Gordon and his remaining colleagues began looking for the next opportunity. "We looked at the portfolio -- we've got gas, we've got oil, and we've got coal," Gordon says, drumming his desk for emphasis. "But we don't have renewable energy."

Kayaking with Kennedy

"If it goes well, it will make it possible for others to follow, says Ted Roosevelt, great grandson of the conservationist president, who owns a house on Martha's Vineyard. If it gets killed, that's going to send a signal that offshore wind is very difficult and it will retard the development of these kinds of projects for a decade, if not a generation."

Gordon and his team looked at several forms of renewables before deciding that wind offered the best option. He traveled to Europe to study the wind industry that had begun in the North Sea. New England shared many of the same constraints that had led the Europeans to look offshore: high-energy costs, population density, and a lack of land sites with sufficient wind. A few miles offshore, however, wind resources improved dramatically, often in shallow waters close to the urban centers.