From Sustainability to Thriveability with Ahmad Kian, CEO of Apadana Solar Technologies

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:03) Hello, my friends. Today we're talking to Ahmad, co-founder of Apadana and CEO of Apadana Solar Technologies, and we discuss how having a strong local financial partner has been integral to the growth of his business, the present and future of solar technology in the United States, and how we can reverse the harm humans have done to the environment to keep a planet where we can thrive. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO podcast.

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:37) Here we go. This is the Modern CTO podcast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:49) So tell me a little bit about your journey. How did you start your career?

(Ahmad at 00:00:54) Well, my journey starts back in 1983 when I entered the United States as an immigrant. I was going for pre-med, but because of the chances of getting into pre-med was difficult for a foreigner, I wanted to have a contingency plan. So I studied engineering in case pre-med or medical school didn't work out. Along the way, I got an internship, kind of like yourself, doing engineering work, and I loved the engineering.

(Ahmad at 00:01:26) And I never looked back. I never took even the MCAT to see if I could get in or not. And my internship really started my engineering career. I worked for some really large companies, basically three of them, and rose through the ranks of engineering and operations and then later on supply chain. And I loved it.

(Ahmad at 00:01:49) It was challenging. I was trying to make sure that what we do is a little bit different than traditional. And I'm very value-oriented, and I wanted to make sure that what we do is eliminate non-value-add activities in whatever I did—life, engineering, work. And that led me to learning more and more about lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, and elimination of variations as well as elimination of waste.

(Ahmad at 00:02:19) After a twenty-four, twenty-five year career in corporate America, I was talking to my father, and he told me, "You know, son, I've been very happy with your performance, but one thing is lacking in your background." I said, "What is that?" He said, "From childhood, you were an entrepreneur. I'm surprised you haven't followed that dream." I said, "I know, but I've been blessed with beautiful jobs, great people, great companies to work with, traveling the world, meeting all kinds of people, which is another passion of mine."

(Ahmad at 00:02:54) I love people. And that opportunity hasn't come on. And he said, "You need to make that opportunity." So in 2013, I was actually working in Chicago for one of the railroad companies. I started talking to my college roommate, one of my best friends, who happens to be also my neighbor currently.

(Ahmad at 00:03:18) And we talked about the entrepreneurship dream, and we were thinking, "What is it we know and we are really good at that doesn't need a very heavy sales side?" And we realized that in all of our engineering life, we've worked with diodes. And lighting LEDs—light-emitting diodes—are basically diodes. And we thought, "We know a thing or two about it. Why not explore that option?"

(Ahmad at 00:03:49) This was in 2013. LED lighting was coming up strong. Prices were coming down. Quality was getting better. And we decided, "Oh, this is really good. Whatever we do will result in 70 to 80% elimination of energy waste." Really, that was what gave birth to Apadana. And since 2013, my partner, Ehsan, and I have been at this thing full time. It's more than full time. You know, when you own a small business, the work doesn't stop.

(Ahmad at 00:04:29) Basically, every waking hour we are working on this journey, on this mission. And we have been really rewarded nicely—great customers, great staff—and it has energized us to go forward. So we started with the LED lighting as a service company. Later on, we figured out what was the shortcomings of some of the products in the marketplace. We improved those products and brought some of them to markets.

(Ahmad at 00:05:03) And as time went on, we realized we have acquired great customers that many of them are environmentally and financially savvy. And many of them were coming with their newest and greatest needs, which was, "Okay, you helped us save energy, eliminate the waste. Now help us figure out a way to source these lights, these operations using renewable energy." I said, "Sure. Why not?" And that gave birth to Apadana Solar Technology. Apadana Solar Technology is an EPC—engineering, procurement, construction company. So one of the projects was actually building a 1.3-megawatt solar canopy system in the middle of a metropolitan area. I live in Minneapolis.

(Ahmad at 00:05:56) If some of you are from Minneapolis or you've been to Minneapolis, visited the Twins Stadium or the Timberwolves Basketball Arena, you probably parked in a place called Ramp A, which is a seven-story building, parking ramp. So we had the good fortune of building an eight-story canopy. It's a superstructure and peppered with solar systems, solar panels. So it provides shade. It provides a little bit of protection from the weather elements, especially in Minneapolis, that is appreciated.

(Ahmad at 00:06:36) We go through extreme cold and extreme hot in a matter of days sometimes. And so that became a unique project, and that fueled the growth of our solar projects, solar business. So while the business was going strong, I came across an opportunity via a friend of mine that was in the space of renewable energy by converting waste to energy as well as wastewater treatment. But their technology was different.

(Ahmad at 00:07:08) As an example, the wastewater treatment—rather than a gigantic space, it can all fit into a two-car garage. And it's modular design, like LEGOs. You can put them together, and they're able to separate waste from the water. The analogy he used was, "There is no wastewater. There's only water that has waste in it. Just like an elevator."

(Ahmad at 00:07:34) Water is an elevator, and the waste is people that get in and get out. The same way as people get out, we should be able to separate the waste. I thought it was intriguing. And I talked to my family about it as well as my business partner, of course. And both of us were up to here.

(Ahmad at 00:07:53) And we were wondering if we have the capacity to take on yet another challenge. And my two daughters—both are very progressive young ladies—they said that, "If not you, who? This isn't a question. This is a must. You have to do this."

(Ahmad at 00:08:12) You're passionate and you're in the right place in your career. Why not? And so we took on that opportunity and unfortunately, COVID hit. But we are coming out of COVID strong, and this business hopefully will deliver a lot of value. And so talking about value, what is value?

(Ahmad at 00:08:34) Right? For me, it's the environmental impact while creating jobs. And enjoying what you do and feeling good about when you wake up, do what you do. And at the end of the night, when you put your head down, you say, "I had an impact." So that really sums up what we have tried to do for all of my adult life, but definitely the last ten years that we have been following this entrepreneurship dream.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:09) So I don't typically think of Minneapolis and Minnesota as a very sunny place. Is solar energy a viable energy source anywhere in the United States? I previously had thought it was only a southern thing.

(Ahmad at 00:09:29) Yeah. No, you are not the only one. A lot of people have that perception. And the way we do it, we provide a financial model that shows what is the value by putting solar. Where are your—how are your dollars being spent? And the return on investment is extremely attractive.

(Ahmad at 00:09:42) On most commercial solar installations, actually, you don't really need any out-of-pocket money, and the system will pay for itself. So yeah, it produces enough energy to be very valuable. Remember, at the bottom of all of this, at the heart of all of this is electronics. While Minnesota is a little bit cold, electronic devices do better in cold. Look at your phone. The moment it overheats, all kinds of problems. Right?

(Ahmad at 00:10:20) So Arizona is sunny, but it gets hot, and efficiency of the system comes down. I'm not saying that in Minnesota you will produce more energy than Arizona, but Minnesota will hold its own. Also, we are not only focused in Minnesota. We are focused across the nation.

(Ahmad at 00:10:37) As a matter of fact, we have been approached by many of our colleagues that are interested in taking Apadana global. And we are exploring all of those options. We have limited capacity, but we also have a habit of not saying no. We are curious, and we will explore every option and see if it has any merits and if there is truly something or somewhere we can add value. So the other thing to answer your question—Germany is one of the most progressive countries when it comes to renewable energy, and they have less sun than Minnesota.

(Ahmad at 00:11:18) So if they could make it work in Germany, we could make it work in Minnesota.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:23) That makes sense. So is the wastewater and energy from waste starting back up as we're coming out of the pandemic?

(Intro Narrator at 00:11:33) Yes, it is starting back up.

(Ahmad at 00:11:36) And we have seen some early successes. I think 2022 will be a pivotal year for us. The waste-to-energy plants—they are plants. They are a little bit more complex. They are highly engineered systems and would require a number of engineering firms and construction firms to collaborate with.

(Ahmad at 00:11:58) But I'll give you an example. An airport could be a fantastic opportunity for a waste-to-energy plant. Why? People come into the airport. They bring their food and their waste.

(Ahmad at 00:12:13) They dump it right before the security. All these planes enter. They have all the used material from the plane ride. The tires, the maintenance of these airplanes, the food courts that are in there—they generate a lot of waste. A typical airport, let's say LAX, generates a lot of waste. And right now, that waste is being carried using trucks to somewhere.

(Ahmad at 00:12:45) Ten, fifteen, thirty, a hundred miles, sometimes longer. So not only there is waste, we are creating a lot of pollution moving it. So some progressive airports are exploring the idea of having the size of a football field at the end of the runway or somewhere very close by that all the waste that is generated at the airports can go through this waste-to-energy plant. The technology says that 100% of the waste that goes in there, 95% of it will be converted into some kind of a product that has uses—like animal beddings, or energy. And only 5% will have to be hauled to a waste recycling or landfill.

(Ahmad at 00:13:36) So quite a bit of impact, but they are, as I said, a lot more complex, highly engineered solutions. But we're working with a few of the airports, and we are hoping that in no time this technology will be deployed.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:50) So what are you actually doing to convert waste to energy? Are you burning it and using the heat, or breaking it down? I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

(Ahmad at 00:14:02) Great question. There's the engineering in us coming out. And so there are multiple ways to convert waste to energy. One of them is incineration. Incineration technology is improving, but at the end of the day, they are releasing a lot of harmful chemicals even though filtration has improved.

(Ahmad at 00:14:26) But when you incinerate something, the byproduct is going to spread like a cloud across. Without getting too technical, but one of the problems that we are facing in this country and around the globe is the forever chemicals. They call them PFASs—P-F-A-S. They are in the wastewater streams.

(Ahmad at 00:14:50) They are in the landfills. And unfortunately, it's a problem that has been brewing for many, many years. There are controls put in place to reduce that. But nevertheless, every one of us probably did something, consumed a product that had PFAS. If you had your shirts laundered, they added PFAS material most likely to it.

(Ahmad at 00:15:17) Anyway, these PFASs are very difficult to destruct. And when you incinerate them, they are airborne. So as a matter of fact, in our belief, when you incinerate waste, you are spreading these forever chemicals all over the land rather than in a concentrated landfill. So the process we are looking for is called anaerobic digestion—AD. And it's the latest digestion technology that you actually use bacteria in order to generate heat.

(Ahmad at 00:15:53) So it is a lot more controlled. Nothing is airborne. And then the energy that is converted ultimately can become natural gas, or it can become energy and feed back to the airport and use it to turn on the lights, to turn on the air conditioning, and so forth. So it's an all-encompassing vision. And as I mentioned, I'm an immigrant—I think I mentioned—came into this country in 1983.

(Ahmad at 00:16:20) We have limited means. But within our limited means, we intend to do everything in our power to make this environment a little bit more friendly. I took this phrase from another good friend. And when we were talking about sustainability, he said, "Sustainability. Isn't that a cop-out?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "That's selling ourselves short, and we should be thinking about thriveability." I looked it up. That word doesn't exist.

(Ahmad at 00:16:59) Every time you type "thriveability"—and I can't pronounce my "th" as good as you can—but it doesn't come up. It should. Somebody should add it to the dictionary. And the true meaning of it is we have, the humans, have done a lot of harm to this planet Earth. And we need to stop the harm.

(Ahmad at 00:17:22) And then we also need to reverse these trends. And the thriveability is that we will go after reversing these harmful threats. There are some great corporations across the country that are going after net zero, or they're going after net zero before they started. I believe Microsoft is one of them. I think that is a vision that can be considered thriveability.

(Ahmad at 00:17:50) We have a problem. The French president said there is no planet B, and he is totally right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:58) Yep.

(Ahmad at 00:17:58) There is no planet B. Sure, we can explore outer space life someday. But I am not sure that someday is soon enough. And I'm a very optimistic person, and I believe in engineering and science. And I believe if the American engineering and scientists put their minds in collaboration with their global partners, it is not too late to not only stop harming the environment, but also to reverse these trends and go back to maybe 1900s level of pollution.

(Ahmad at 00:18:39) It's not a hairy, audacious—it is a hairy, audacious goal, but it's doable. American engineering is why we came to this country. We marveled at what the American engineers have done, not only from the science perspective, but also the applications of it. So I think as we put our energy and our might together, we'll find solutions that will reverse this. And it's not that we will—we have to.

(Ahmad at 00:19:11) It is at a critical stage that more attention—federal, state, local, business, small and large—every citizen has to pay attention to it. And if we put our collaboration hats together, we will solve this problem.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:31) I love that. There's a reason for hope. So one thing I wanted to talk about was, you and I were originally introduced because we had the CIO of a company called Sunrise Banks on the show a while ago. Brett Cooksey, he was fantastic. But Sunrise, I remember being really focused on social responsibility and sustainability, and I guess, functionally, thriveability, after hearing you define that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:03) But since they—so they introduced us, they said, "Hey, check out Apadana, they're doing a lot of really cool stuff in sustainability as well." So I was just curious, what's your relationship like with Sunrise? Did you get to know them just because sun is in the name?

(Ahmad at 00:20:24) Good. You know, when we started the business, we had banking relationships with large conglomerates. And a nice friend of mine told me that small businesses need to do business with smaller to midsize banks where there is a personal relationship. It was very good advice, and I thank that person for giving me that advice. I had worked for, as I said, Fortune 500 companies.

(Ahmad at 00:20:51) I didn't think about this aspect. But the hint he gave me was very worthwhile, and he introduced me to Sunrise Bank. And from day one, I realized how effective a strong banking relationship can be. Sunrise Bank is a small local company, a small to midsize bank with a very great vision that is promoting entrepreneurs like us. They are a key asset to Apadana Group of companies.

(Ahmad at 00:21:27) I'll give you a case in point. Like many other startup businesses, we were working out of our basement of our homes. And eventually, it was not sustainable to be in that basement. We had trucks delivering products to our residential neighborhood. Many times, they were confused.

(Ahmad at 00:21:48) What is this truck doing here? Am I in the right place? Eventually, we had to buy a building. And when we wanted to buy the building, we were looking for financing, and that's how I came across Sunrise Bank. They made it easy.

(Ahmad at 00:22:01) They made it responsible. They understood the mission that we are trying to deliver, and they helped us get there. And ever since then, most of our strategic banking—actually, all of our strategic banking—has been with Sunrise Bank. We were fortunate enough to grow and grow into a larger building. Sunrise Bank provided the loan for that building.

(Ahmad at 00:22:31) And as we grew, we moved into a much larger building. And once again, Sunrise Bank came to the rescue and assisted us in buying the property. Any business needs line of credit. They work with us. They're very responsible and reasonable.

(Ahmad at 00:22:47) As a matter of fact, I had a call with some of their executives this morning. We are refinancing our real estate portfolio. And they really went out of their way to make this refinancing work. Rates have been increasing the last three months, and they honored the rate that they had offered us three months ago, which means a lot to a small company like ours. So I find them to be a like-minded entity promoting small business growth, providing opportunities for people in the sustainability space to do what they do really good.

(Ahmad at 00:23:29) And they're very good at figuring out how the finances work. So it's been a mutually beneficial relationship with both parties, and I can't thank them enough for the support they have given us.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:42) That's so awesome. That's so heartwarming to hear that—companies that are all focused on the same positive goals working well together. One thing I was curious to ask you, just because you seem like someone that spends a lot of time thinking about not just how you can impact the world, but how people around the world can come together to be more sustainable. How are sustainability-focused financial institutions and the financial system in general a part of moving us to a more sustainable future?

(Ahmad at 00:24:27) Interesting question. Obviously, nothing happens in this world without money, and financial institutions are the holders of that fund. And it is the responsibility of people like us to make technological solutions financially attractive and putting the American engineering to work in order to come up with systems and processes that pay for themselves. I am very confident in most of America, if not all of it, you could build solar systems without a dime from your pocket. Meaning, the system will pay for its financing cost, and then you will end up after the financing period—five, ten, fifteen years—with a relatively large asset that is like a cash cow, continuously harvesting the energy from the sun, powering up your plant, your office, your home, in a responsible, environmentally and financially sound manner. So that's the role that the financial institutions play. But there is a bigger role, and that is the government role. I am not necessarily for big government, but I am all for responsible government.

(Ahmad at 00:25:49) Government policies can be designed to make this financially and environmentally responsible journey easier. And all we want is easier. There is an opportunity right now for investment tax credit. Investment tax credit has been in the works, I don't know, maybe ten, fifteen years. I don't know exactly since I've only been using it for the last ten years.

(Ahmad at 00:26:19) But at the moment, it's 26% of your solar investment will be given back to you as tax credit. I believe that is a very responsible policy. While government funds are utilized to do this, I think the good that comes out of it will more than offset the benefit that the government is introducing as an incentive. More opportunities like that need to be explored by the federal, state, and local governments. I live near a town called St. Louis Park. St. Louis Park just announced another set of incentives for residents of St. Louis Park, homes and businesses that are willing to participate in this journey. They provide a little bit of incentive, but even a little bit of incentive now is incentivizing more people to walk this journey with us.

(Ahmad at 00:27:21) And I thank them. I thank the mayor of St. Louis Park, the sustainability group that thought about this. The value that will be delivered will be more than offsetting the incentive that they have created. It's a phrase that is overused: it takes a village.

(Ahmad at 00:27:43) It takes the world for us to reverse this trend. We all have to play a role. Not everybody will be fortunate enough to put a solar system on their roof. Not every roof is suitable. So it starts with all of us being responsible with the keyword: waste.

(Ahmad at 00:28:06) Do not create waste if you can help it. Think about every activity, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. Even when you're sleeping, you're generating waste. Think about it. What are the solutions that are available to eliminate that waste?

(Ahmad at 00:28:27) So the waste has to be eliminated. And the remaining waste that is not eliminatable, if that's the word, needs to be managed. And that's where the government, financial institutions, small and large corporations, every resident of this planet Earth can play a role. But it starts with making sure we eliminate waste.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:54) I wanted to ask you about—because recently we've had a couple episodes with experts in nuclear energy. And we asked one of them, what are some of the challenges for adoption? Why isn't it—if nuclear energy is clean and efficient, why isn't it everywhere? It's something like 5%, I think, of the energy in the United States is nuclear. And they mentioned that part of it is that it's really difficult for nuclear to compete economically with how cheap, for instance, natural gas is, and also how cheap renewables are with the government subsidies for it, which, I mean, I'm absolutely on the same page as you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:47) The investments that the government makes in renewables are going to pay off in the long run for sure. But it's also making it more difficult for other clean energy sources to enter the market. And I was just curious how you think about the landscape of not just renewable energy, but clean energy as a whole, and the role that nuclear can play?

(Ahmad at 00:30:18) Another great question. I'm not a nuclear scientist, but it just happens that I have been in that space a little bit here and there, even in my previous job. So my perspective on this is not scientific. I don't have firsthand experience. But my personal belief is that nuclear should play a strong role in the energy portfolio of the planet Earth.

(Ahmad at 00:30:45) And why I believe it has merits—again, I'm not a scientist in that area. From what I know, if we put our engineering might and figure out a way to make nuclear power plants even safer, I believe past failures should lead us to future successes. And the fact that we failed should not stop us. As a matter of fact, because we now know how we have failed, that is a fantastic opportunity to go and see where did we fail. How do we make the systems more robust? I talked about American engineering. Let's talk about global engineering. There isn't a problem that we cannot solve. If we can plant a person on the moon, we can plant a lot of different things.

(Ahmad at 00:31:36) So it comes back to government policies. There is a lot of worry about who wants to own this nuclear power arsenal. That has to be sorted out. Once that gets sorted out, leave it to the capable engineering hands. They will build safe nuclear power plants.

(Ahmad at 00:31:58) So I do believe nuclear power plants need to be part of the solution. Having said that, the cost of renewable energy had recently come down outside of what we are experiencing as of late due to, again, government policies and broken supply chain. But these will be short-term hiccups. They will be fixed. Government policies need to come back and make sure they are in line with renewable, sustainable, thrival energy policies, number one.

(Ahmad at 00:32:33) Number two, nuclear should play a role. Number three, we talked a little bit about government. There is a bill that is about to pass, hopefully—has been on the docket for the last six, seven months—that makes this tax credit not a little bit, a lot more streamlined. Right now, 26% goes back to small, large, anybody that is for-profit. Government entities do not benefit from it.

(Ahmad at 00:33:06) Churches, municipalities, all of these people that want to do good, organizations that want to do good—they don't have this capable tool in their toolbox. And what happens, there are solar systems being built on these institutions. But we have created a very convoluted financial market that somebody else comes and owns the system on top of a school and ultimately sells the energy back to the school or the community. Not bad. It's better than nothing.

(Ahmad at 00:33:46) But if you streamline this process so that the investment tax credit could be applicable to all—the intention is renewable energy—make it simpler. And wouldn't it be nice if actually the federal dollars are used on federal properties? I would welcome legislation like that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:07) Do you have anything that we didn't get to touch on today that you want to make sure we get out to the world?

(Ahmad at 00:34:13) You know, you asked me yesterday about the culture. And I think culture of companies is a critical part of their infrastructure. We are very lucky because my business partner, Ehsan, and I are extremely similarly minded. He's been the best partner I could have possibly hoped for. We work shoulder to shoulder together.

(Ahmad at 00:34:40) He solves certain set of problems. I solve certain set of other problems. But what we have in common is our culture. And we have tried to institute that culture across Apadana. There is nobody that is the CEO of the company.

(Ahmad at 00:34:59) I cook. I clean. I solve problems—financial engineering, marketing, sales, whatever. And so does he and so does the rest of the employees. We have tried over the last ten years to create a culture that we are here because of what I told you was important to us, our thriveability mission.

(Ahmad at 00:35:25) Creating good-paying jobs, creating value, leaving a legacy, leaving this planet a little bit better than where we found it. Unfortunately, we're not there. I'm 58 years old. So going back to carbon footprint of 58 years old is a tall order. We will get there.

(Ahmad at 00:35:49) But we all need to work. But I think the culture of the company has assisted, has allowed us to make more progress than if we had not paid attention to it. Case in point, when it was just the two of us, we ate the leftover from last night in our basement. Actually, in my partner's basement. As we grew, now we are close to 50 people.

(Ahmad at 00:36:19) We have continued on with the culture of breaking bread together every day. We eat lunch as a staff, whoever is in the office. If we have customers in the office, they're welcome. If we have suppliers in the office, they're welcome. Anybody that is here around noon is welcome to break bread with us.

(Ahmad at 00:36:37) Whatever we were able to muster up. Sometimes it is hot dogs with mustard, but usually it is a hot meal that we manage to cook every day and eat together. A lot of people say, why are you doing that? To me, it's not really a chore. It's a joy because I get a chance to create something that I get to share with the best of my friends every day.

(Ahmad at 00:37:04) But I also feel like that little tiny act has a lot of power to be a different company and attract a different level of talent than your normal. I would not be able to compete with the Googles of the world from the amenities that they provide. But, hopefully, they find something else here that would want them to come on board as excited, as enthusiastic as I am or as my partner, Ehsan, is.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:32) If I'm in Minneapolis, I'll make a point to stop by the Apadana headquarters around lunchtime.

(Ahmad at 00:37:40) You should. We would welcome you and anybody else.

(Intro Narrator at 00:37:47) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email, [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.