Celebrating 20 Years of Clean Economy Communications with Tigercomm | EP166

Mike Casey: 0:38

I think the other highlight is that there is a finding out you can actually make a living. Being an unapologetic clean economy disruptor polluters, we're here to put you out of business. If you don't like it too bad we're coming. And being able to work for the people who are making that happen is it's just really neat. And there is a sense of camaraderie that that Mark talked about. It's kind of the default setting there are. Humans are messy. You get challenging folks in every walk of life, but you get a lot fewer of them here than in the past two epochs in my career in government and NGO land. clean economy is much more sane. It's more results oriented. It's more, it's calmer.

intro: 1:38

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Tim Montague: 2:06

Today on the Clean Power Hour, we are here at RV plus with three of my favorite people in clean energy and clean tech communications. We're here with Mike Casey, the founder and president of Tigercomm. We're here with Melissa Baldwin, who's now with Tigercomm. We're here with Mark Sokolove, who's with cue sells, but used to be with Tigercomm. And we're going to be geeking out on what has happened in the last 20 years. Because, whoa, and behold, we're celebrating the 20th anniversary of Tigercomm, which is, frankly, a tremendous achievement, Mr. Casey. So congratulations for that. It's great to see you and have you here in my portable recording booth here at already plus with 27 plus 1000. Other clean tech professionals. Welcome to the show.

Mike Casey: 2:54

Thanks, man. Really appreciate having having nice

Melissa Baldwin: 2:56

Great to be here.

Mark Sokolove: 2:57

Yeah, really nice to be here.

Tim Montague: 2:58

The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by Denowatts. If you're a solar PV asset manager or performance engineer, you need better data and better business intelligence. With Denowatts, digital twin benchmarking technology, you get more accurate, efficient, and faster performance measurement results. The fourth generation Deno recently completed a technical review by DNV you can download the report at Denowatts.com, that's D E N O W A T T S.com. Now back to the show. So Mike, tell us the origin story of Tigercomm. Why, when why? How did you get started and why the name

Mike Casey: 3:39

wants to say separate questions. So I'll take them in order. The origins of the firm. When I worked in the environmental community, I noticed there were three gaps. We were trying to say no to things no to coal, no to oil. But we didn't have somebody to say yes to. I also noticed that the the mechanisms to deliver an alternative narrative were pretty rickety. And they were they were threadbare nonprofits, nascent associations, there wasn't a lot of infrastructure there. And the third was there was a best practices and skills gap between those who are trying to advocate for a more sustainable economy and those who were entrenched in a polluting economy. And I thought, how do you solve those three things. So I literally have a list. And a piece of paper in my dresser drawer from the early 2000s, I started listing out the ways that I could solve this problem. And the last choice in the list was starting a firm. And I just worked my way down the list, say no can't do that. Oh, that's a that's a dead run. And I finally got to running a firm and the deterrent was that I loved the work and I loved the issues. And I didn't know that I wanted to be like a business person. But I must say 20 years later, I've really kind of gradually fallen in love with the job in different phases. And then your your your question about the name. So why is it named Tigercomm? And it's there's several reasons first, I didn't want to name it after myself because I wanted to design a place where the climates concerned communicator could maximize his or her impact. So how do you go out and find talented people who are really concerned about the climate crisis? And realize that we cannot solve this problem by regulating polluting industries into being less bad. We have to grow industries that can displace polluting industries. And how do you find those people? And if you do, can you give them a platform where they can really harness their commitment and their passion? And then the other reason we picked the name is because it was kind of how the way we roll I say still the way we roll it's with its with speed and its power and agility because the clean economy is very dynamic. And you really need that approach, I think, to drive change.

Tim Montague: 5:52

Yeah, we have to have a sense of urgency. There's a trillion tons of pollution in the atmosphere, causing global warming. And that pollution is getting worse by 1%. Every year, right ppm of co2 are going up, not down. Sometimes, clean energy professionals forget that we get you know, wooed by the takeoff, the takeoff is happening, right, we're still at the bottom of the S curve. But you know, solar, wind and batteries are the fastest growing sources of energy on the grid now, and we see the light at the end of the tunnel, we're going to clean the grid, it's going to happen, right? Money is just flowing, like a tide into solar wind and batteries, and other forms of energy storage and energy efficiency, and electrification of transportation, and electrification of heavy industry, et cetera, et cetera. It's a wonderful time to be alive. And it's a horrifying time to be alive. Because we see, we see the real results right of climate change, kicking people's butts. And frankly, you know, here in America, where we have a very high standard of living, it's it's it's that softens the blow. It's people in the less developed world who are really taking it on the chin and really going to be migrating on mass. And that's going to be the major disruption is like the disruption of food systems. It's that causes mass migration and when mass migration occurs, humans don't deal well with that they really freak out. So we have to have a sense of urgency. Melissa, give us a little background on yourself. We did an interview, I don't know a year ago or so when you had just joined the team at Tigercomm. But how's that going? And you know, when you think about communications in clean tech, if you have some, you know, retrospective thought introductory comments to make that would be great.

Melissa Baldwin: 7:39

Sure. So yeah, I want to tackle a few of those things. But first, I want to speak to something that you were just talking about. And for me, it's been really remarkable, because ever since I learned about climate change in 1999, I knew that this is what I wanted to dedicate my life and my career to and it's been really exciting and honestly really challenging for for many, many years. And so it does feel like we are at a moment right now we're really starting to turn that corner. But I share your just sense of, you know, there's still so much work to do, right? I just saw that same article, I think you're talking about where we looked at, no, the emissions are still going up. But we have a lot to work with it solar utility scale, solar is the lowest cost, fastest growing form of electricity. It's being uptaken across the globe. And so there's a lot to be excited about there. So as I think back over the last 20 years for me as well, because I've been working in this space for 20 years. I will say there was a moment for me at the show that was really cathartic. I was walking down the hall and I passed my very first customer. I started my firm in 2011. And it was because solar source, which is a solar contractor reached out to me and asked me to write a press release. And so here they are today, that company is 40 years old. And so it's just incredible how all of these companies are maturing, and they're growing, and we're maturing right alongside of them. So that talks a little bit about the history since I've joined Tigercomm. That's right. It was about two years ago that we spoke, one of my first few months working for Mike, it's been an incredible ride. This is a fun guy to work with. It's been really exciting to get on board with Mike to really start working outside of nonprofits to work for corporate companies that are doing business in clean energy that are incredibly successful. And it's been really exciting to grow a team of people who want to do this work. Mike said something earlier, he said we want to attract people who want to work in the clean economy. And it started with us attracting them. But what's in us seeking them actually. But what has been really cool in the last few years is that they are finding us and to me that's a key metric of our success is that we have people who don't work in the clean economy who are coming to us and saying, I want to work for you because I want to work on this issue.

Tim Montague: 9:58

I love what you said about you knew you wanted to work on climate change. You know, that's one of the things I love about solar and clean tech is there's so many mission driven entrepreneurs and business people and activists and you know, it's easy to get up and and be energetic about going to work because you know, you're not alone. There are 10s of 1000s of people who are really working very very concertedly to, you know, make the transition. The energy transition is the easy part mark. It's only 40 Giga tons of pollution. But you work for a, you know, a solar panel manufacturer, a battery manufacturer and Solar developer or solar EPC. have, you know, q cells is an amazing example of how capitalism can do good in the world. But give us a little bit of an intro to yourself. You and Mike work together for how long? 14 years now? Yeah. And then, you know, you transitioned what a couple of years ago now. Right. But yeah, tell tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

Mark Sokolove: 11:03

Sure. Sure. Yeah. So I guess first, just to echo what Melissa was saying, Yeah, I joined the clean tech industry. Yeah. Cuz I wanted to make sure I was able to be part of like, making that impact. I met Mike first. In the environmental community, I remember that. The first I think first time I met you were walking down the street in DC. And, you know, he was very animated. And I was like, wow, like, you know, this is this is a guy, I think I want to kind of try to learn from hitched my wagon to the time, you know, it wasn't exactly right. But then a year later, you know, we joined forces. And, you know, as Mike was saying, like, you know, we both come to the environmental community, environmental groups are very well, meaning they have the role, but like, you're not going to be something with nothing. And so yeah, you see, companies like q cells, and it's just amazing, like, just the show itself, like how it's grown 20 years ago, fit in one ballroom, and now you've like, 30,000 professionals here, you know, as you said, Tim, a lot of a mission driven. But yeah, my my, like, kind of growth trajectory, you know, I, Mike, and I, you know, we we started this firm, to really, you know, advance a ball in sustainability. And it's kind of interesting, like, one of our first solar clients actually had manufacturing here in Las Vegas, I guess it's kind of come full circle. And it's just amazing to kind of see that trajectory, you know, you know, since then, with the industry, and, you know, I've just been very blessed to be able to have that opportunity on the agency side, and then be able to advise companies, you know, have company now in house, that's, you know, really trying to put capital investment behind you're solving now, the greatest challenge of our times,

Tim Montague: 12:51

I wonder if we could answer the question. Why do companies need PR and marketing firms, you obviously are part of a big, robust corporate communications team at Q sells. And we all work with corporate communications teams, but it's a both and world, right? Yes, to be most impactful, and to achieve their mission companies really do need partners like us. But if you could all you know, are some of you chime in on why exactly that is?

Mike Casey: 13:25

You know, I think Mark and Melissa would do a really good job answering that question. I'll just, I'm going to echo something you said Tim, in different words. Melissa said this, well, there's what's really cool about working in this sector, this clean economy sectors is yes, the the meta narrative is gathering momentum dwindling time. And it's a total dice roll whether or not what we're doing here, what we're doing with our daily lives can help meaningfully address this crisis. But there's a bunch of magic moments you get when you work in this space. Melissa had one when she saw her first client, this is one for me, you know, I've got I've got two people here who, no way what our firm have succeeded, like it has without these two people, I mean, we are standing on their shoulders for sure. Mark and I talked when he left the firm, I remember thinking, this is a guy I talk to three times a day for 14 years, like, like what Siamese twins, and just being able to see the growth in these two professionals and be able to sit here and kind of recount it all bookending like the first number two who you know, did so much to like establish it. And the new number two who's like taking it forward. I mean, it's hard to overstate how hard clean economy Mark comm was in the early days when Mark and I were doing it it was you know, it was like living at a CrossFit gym. There was not an ounce of fat on you. It was like rice bowl and a mat and that's all you had because it were disruptors with disrupted budgets. So I just think it's I want for the for the viewers and listeners I think it's important to see like this is a book and and it's like what's it's a magic moment to be able to do this Tim

Tim Montague: 15:17

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Mike Casey: 15:53

so, but to your question is more meaningful one? Why do companies need services like we offer? I'm gonna turn it over to my two awesome friends.

Melissa Baldwin: 16:04

Yeah, so initially, a lot of times when a company will approach us, they're typically looking for traditional public relations, which is my background and bread and butter. So I do enjoy that just generating earned media is what a lot of companies think of when they think of PR, they think of okay, what news announcements? Do I have, you know, what, what news Am I gonna make. But if we step back a little bit and think about, you know, what is the business doing, they're good at doing their core business, whether it's making solar panels, or sell, you know, energy tech, some of their storage technology, or a service provider in the energy sector, they're good at their core business. And it's our job to help them tell their story to the people who they want to speak to. And so one of the things that we really focus on in our business is taking a step back and doing that strategic planning, because we find that a lot of companies have not taken the time to do that. Or maybe they did it a while ago, and things have changed. And so when you're designing a communications campaign, you really want to design it, we like to design them on, you know, focusing on a campaign of six months to 18 months. And so we want to take a step back and look at what is the goal that you want to achieve? What do you want? And who are the people who can give that to you? So what do you want, and who can give that to you. And that's how we design strategic communications campaigns. And that's what companies come to us to seek. And so a lot of times they come thinking, I need that initial public relations, I need that news announcement. And we work with them to take a step back and say, Why are you making this announcement? What are you saying who you sing it to? What do you want to get out of this. And so that's a part of the work that we do. Another big part of the work we do is in thought leadership, because the media landscape has changed so dramatically, we think about 15 years ago, then and now. I mean, even I'm old enough that when I went to college, social media wasn't you know, it was just beginning. And so the channels are numerous. And so that's another area where we work on with our clients is just in telling their story in multiple channels, through thought leadership through saying something interesting, not just about themselves, but about the general marketplace, something that their customers or their target audience will care about. And I'll pass it to mark to add anything you want to add there?

Mark Sokolove: 18:20

Sure, yeah, I would add that, I think for a PR agency and marketing agency in the clean tech space, to help their clients be successful. To add value, I think you almost have to, you know, it'll vary depending on, you know, the budget and the scope. But, you know, really becoming that extension to the team. I mean, just a quick anecdote. One of the very first clients, as I was kind of mentioned before, that Mike and I took on, in the early days, the firm, I remember, you know, the person like I had, like, you know, they called me, I was like, Hey, let me let me get back to you, I didn't take care of something, and then I call, try to call her back as soon as possible. And, and I said, Yeah, you know, apologize for, you know, the, you know, having to jump off the call, you know how to handle something for another client. And their response was, like, oh, I don't even realize you guys had other clients. And to me, that was like, the biggest compliment, as a service provider is like, you know, you're you're basically, you know, there's a seamless, and, and just that, that extension of them. And so I think, now, you know, being in house with a clean economy company, you know, that's kind of what I look for, you know, when I'm, you know, looking for outside support, you know, and there's, you know, there's different agencies who specialize in different parts of Morecombe. But I think really, like, it's mostly said, understand, stepping back, what's the outcome? And I think that's something that also I see internally in corporate violence, as well, as, you know, people are, like, you know, super smart, you know, when it comes to like, developing a product, you know, someone, particularly, you know, in engineering or on the sales team or operations, but sometimes they lose sight. I find sometimes, like, what's the outcome? And that's where I think the market conditions function can be effective, and in particular, sometimes outside agency, you can kind of bring that perspective that maybe you can't necessarily always get in house, though.

Mike Casey: 20:15

Jim, I'll I'll add something. So why does a clean economy economy company hire a communications firm? There's kind of two reasons you do it. Do you need execution help you know what you want to do? You don't have the staff and people to do all of it because it's a special project or it's surging past your current capacity. And I call that an arms and WAGs firm and they exist and some of them are very skilled and you hire them because you can't cover all the work or you need particular things done at a certain proficiency that's on economical to bring it in house. Then there is an expert firm. And that's what we've really deliberately gone out of our way to be. So why would you hire us you hire us because basically, in a disruptive sector, very few companies have the budget, to pay someone to just do the same thing lots of times and build up massive expertise, and then aggregate that expertise. So it's strategically available for the leadership team. But the way the market is structured, we have a reason to camp out on account after account after account to see patterns, to see trends and to see to sand sift on the tactical choices and know what works. So the things that both Melissa and Mark talked about as needs for clients of firms like ours, that's only made possible when people have camped out and done this work over and over and over again with the intention to build up strategic expertise. So you have basically at our firm you have 150 764 Kenworth account is right now years of total combined experience if your your typical clean economy companies no way you can have that level of integrated expertise in your shop it would be unaffordable.

Tim Montague: 22:09

Yep. So when you think back though, when you look back at your success stories, what are what are some things that you're proud of? What is what are some high watermarks for you all? And you know, one of the things that that's present for me is some companies make it easy to fall in love with them Q sells is one of those companies honestly, like they're building this you know, in get to wafer to sell to a panel factory here in America in Georgia, right. And you know, that's just awesome. And it's a Korean company, but I love them as much as I love next tracker you guys hosted a wonderful event earlier this week. Next tracker just ribbon cutting at a factory here making torque tubes in Las Vegas. And that's that's these are both a function of the IRA. So there's that backdrop right we need good government we need good incentives to onshore and restore manufacturing. But what are some high watermarks for you all?

Mike Casey: 23:10

How long do you have

Tim Montague: 23:15

brand new selective Be selective

Mike Casey: 23:17

you go first market you order first

Tim Montague: 23:22

particularly challenging problem that you solve for a customer would be would be another interesting story I

Melissa Baldwin: 23:28

guess 20 years over the last year

Tim Montague: 23:31

take a pic we're here celebrating just 20 years of Tigercomm your experience for Tigercomm is just as relevant as your experience with Tigercomm.

Melissa Baldwin: 23:45

What about you mark? What is what's a high watermark?

Mark Sokolove: 23:49

I would say when we when we did the ribbon cutting with Governor Schwarzenegger yes that was in the that was California desert and Bakersfield. Beautiful Bakersfield. I will never forget that 50 degree temperature swing Yeah, that was that was definitely a high watermark what exactly was that event? So are the tire comes client the time Ostra which was a compact linear for now with the technology, concentrated solar power opened up a facility right off the highway in Bakersfield. And it was a it was a it was a ribbon cutting media event with Governor Schwarzenegger with the customer. Yeah, I'm PGCC

Tim Montague: 24:35

as people Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. What was the name of that plant? Do you know?

Mike Casey: 24:39

Kimbra Lena solar thermal power plant? Berlina Kimberleys thermal power demonstration plant. Okay.

Mark Sokolove: 24:46

It was kind of nestled in a few almond fields. There.

Tim Montague: 24:50

What year was that? Box?

Mike Casey: 24:54

At least? I think it was 10 1011 2010. The old man asking an older man and a somewhat younger man to Matthews memories. Tim I

Tim Montague: 25:10

cells are dead. Yeah. Yes. Good say. Well, that brings up you know, the evolution of technology. You guys have obviously seen a tremendous evolution of clean tech over the years. That's another thing to comment on it but but do you have any other highlights you want to share with us?

Melissa Baldwin: 25:29

I have to I mean, I think certainly for me working for my neck striker has been a great client of ours and they're doing really interesting things which is incredible. bowl. So, typically, ribbon cuttings are a lot of work, right events are a lot of work and in the media aren't always necessarily after the ribbon cutting itself. They're after the story behind it. Who are the workers there? What are the jobs that are created? What is the economic investment, but it's absolutely been a pleasure working with Nick Shakur on the whole campaign, they've opened up over a dozen factories in the last two years, the most recent of which you were at Tim, and that was an exciting day on Monday. So that was a high watermark for me. But another thing that really makes me feel good, is when I see my team, just delivering for clients, I've we've got a team of people who have come to us who've come to work here in the clean economy, they're learning they're growing. And when I see my team, just using their intuition and their skills to deliver, that's what really makes me happy, because I see their growth. And it just makes me feel excited and proud to be working with like such a robust team of people who want to be here who want to do this work, who feel as good about doing the work as I do. And it feels good to do good.

Mark Sokolove: 26:44

Yeah, I mean, just to echo that, I think that, you know, obviously, what the show with a lot of people that are dedicated to the mission, and I think it's, it's the people behind the technology that I think really make it happen. I've seen, I saw that when I was a tire calm. I see that and Q sales, I see that with a lot of people in my network, and, you know, industry colleagues that, you know, at the end of the day, you know, if you have if you have a solid team that are all, you know, rowing in the same direction, and are kind of focused, you know, that can really make the difference in a lot of cases. I

Tim Montague: 27:18

yeah, I love that theme. It's not the it's not the tech, it's the people behind the tech and the tech is cool. Tech is cool. It's important. Torque tubes are important. Yeah. And I, you know, I find racking fascinating, but I'm a geek. But the job creation, and you know, the high wage job creation is so important while we're cleaning the economy. What about you, Mike? What, when you look back, what are you proudest of?

Mike Casey: 27:46

That is? That is a really hard question to answer, because there's just so many of them. And I noticed that as the years go by, I get older, my the sources of the most profound reward have begun to shift from the big to the small. So when I have a client POC that emails me and says, I really am benefiting from what you're showing me. That's huge. When I see a young person on our team who does something, and I look at it, and it doesn't need to be changed. That's growth, and just I think seen humans grow, whether they're giving you a check, or you're giving them a check. It's really cool. It's just really cool. And I think the other highlight is that there is a finding out you can actually make a living. Being an unapologetic, clean economy disrupter, polluters, we're here to put you out of business. If you don't like it too bad, we're coming. And being able to work for the people who are making that happen is it's just really neat. And there is a sense of camaraderie that that Mark talked about. It's kind of the default setting. There are, you know, humans are messy, you get challenging folks in every walk of life, but you get a lot fewer of them here than in the past two epochs in my career in government and NGO land. clean economy is much more sane. It's more results oriented. It's more, it's calmer. And it's hard. Like, man, we're, we're telling the most powerful industry on Earth. Hey, that's my seat, get off the couch. What do we expect them to do? They're not gonna go Oh, sure. Get in. Can I get your coffee? I mean, there's not going to do that. So it does make the work stressful. But doing it with the people that predominate the space doing it for those people. It's cool. It's really neat.

Tim Montague: 30:05

The Clean Power Hour is brought to you by Denowatts. If you're a solar PV asset manager or performance engineer, you need better data and better business intelligence. With Dina Watts digital twin benchmarking technology you get more accurate, efficient and faster performance measurement results. The fourth generation Deno recently completed a technical review by DNV you can download the report at Denowatts.com, that's D E N O W A T T S.com. Now back to the show. Well, they Thank you guys so much. It's really a pleasure to be here. Unfortunately, we're out of time. I want our listeners to know that you can find all of our content at cleanpowerhour.com. Please give us a rating and review on Apple and Spotify. Check out our YouTube channel, subscribe to the channel, reach out to me on LinkedIn, I love hearing from my listeners. I love connecting with people. And if you're interested in coming on the show, chat me up, we can have a pre call and make it happen. Hey, listeners, this is Tim, I want to give a shout out to all of you. I do this for you twice a week. Thank you for being here. Thank you for giving us your time. I really appreciate you and what you're all about. You are part and parcel of the energy transition, whether you're an energy professional today, or an aspiring energy professional. So thank you, I want to let you know that the Clean Power Hour has launched a listener survey. And it would mean so much to me. If you would go to cleanpowerhour.com click on the About Us link right there on the main navigation that takes you to the about page. And you'll see a big graphic listener survey, just click on that graphic, and it takes just a couple of minutes. If you fill out the survey, I will send you a lovely baseball cap with our logo on it. The other thing I want our listeners to know is that this podcast is made possible by corporate sponsors. We have two wonderful sponsors today, chin power systems, the leading three phase string inverter manufacturer in North America and Dena watts, a performance monitoring platform for utility scale solar. So check out CPS America and Denowatts. But we are very actively looking for additional support to make this show work. And you see here our media kit. With all the sponsor benefits and statistics about the show. You know we're dropping two episodes a week. We have now over 320,000 downloads on YouTube. And we're getting about 45,000 downloads per month. So this is a great way to bring your brand to our listeners and our listeners our decision makers in clean energy. This includes project executives, engineers, finance, project management, and many other professionals who are making decisions about and developing, designing, installing and making possible clean energy projects. So check out cleanpowerhour.com both our listener survey on the about us and our media kit and become a sponsor today. Thank you so much. Let's grow solar and storage