Vermont Business Magazine: SunCommon Lowers the Cost of Solar

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August 2013 1Copyright Vermont Business Magazine

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Duane Peterson and SunCommonlower the cost of solarby Joyce Marcel

Maybe it’s because solar energy ishis business, emails from DuanePeterson often close with “Have

a sunny day” or “Hoping the sun is shin-ing on you.” These little homilies show that Peterson is not only a preternatu-

rally cheerful person, but that the formerenvironmental activist’s first foray intobusiness — the uncommon SunCommon— appears to be booming.

When it comes to residential solar,everybody knows the problem: solar ener-gy is sexy right now, yes, but it is alsoexpensive, confusing and time-consuming.What rebates are available? Are there taxcredits? What permits are needed? Canyour roof support solar panels? Or shouldthey be on the ground? What kinds of solar panels? Where should they comefrom? Who will install them? Who willservice them? And the big one: residentialsolar can cost upward of $20,000 a home,

so how will you ever pay for all of this?Peterson and his business partner

James Moore understand these problems.“We’re a Vermont-based benefit com-

pany who believe folks have a right to ahealthy planet,” Peterson said. “We canmake solar available for no up-front costand a monthly payment that is actually

less than what you pay your utilities. So with us you actually save money by doingthe right thing.”

The old, expensive business model wasn’t working, Peterson said.

“Let me get this straight,” he describedit with a touch of sarcasm. “The solarindustry expects the consumer to aggre-gate capital — which is a fancy term forcoming up with a large wad of cash —and plunk it down on some kind of pay-forward notion that essentially says, ‘Heresolar company. Here’s eight years worth of my electricity payments, and I’m going tofigure out the payback time?’ I just thoughtit was nutty. What other consumer prod-

uct uses that economic model? When yougo to buy a new car, they don’t rub your

nose in the fact that it costs $25,000. No,it’s low monthly payments of $157.50.

You want to turn the extraordinary cost of a cell tower network into a low monthly payment? So let ’s do it with cell phones. If they’d said they needed seven years of cell

phone payments up front, not one of us would have a cell phone. I didn’t come outof the solar industry, so I’m not steeping inthe conventions.”

Instead, working inside the VermontPublic Interest Research Group (VPIRG),Peterson and Moore figured out anunconventional solution. They marketSunCommon using techniques honed by nonprofit community organizers. They’vedone the research. They have arrangedthe financing. They buy the systems froma California company called SunPower.

They arrange for the panels’ installation. And for no money upfront, the home-

owner is making his or her own electric-

ity and paying one monthly bill — toSunCommon — that is often lower than

their former power bill. Whether thehomeowner contracts for a 20-year leaseor a 20-year buy-in, the bill never fluctu-ates — and utility companies can’t makethat guarantee.

The model Peterson and Moore cre-

ated was successful at VPIRG, so a littlemore than a year ago the two idealistsentered the business world for the firsttime. They split off VPIRG Energy andformed SunCommon, a for-profit, socially responsible company that takes the stingout of residential solar heating.

“Government alone will not solve ourproblems,” Moore said. “Or will non-profits. Or will business alone. But I dothink that businesses have the ability tocreate positive social change really fast.

And that’s why my business partner andI started SunCommon. It was based on afundamental belief that everyone deservesa healthy environment and a safe world.

Our aim was to knock down the barri-ers that were keeping most people from

James Moore (left) and Duane Peterson, Co-Presidents of SunCommon.



2 vermontbiz.com Copyright Vermont Business Magazine

meeting their own electricity needs withclean energy.”

Although Peterson won’t reveal how he raised the money to start SunCommon,the company was well-capitalized fromthe start.

“The money came from individuals who knew James and me and respected our work over the years,” Peterson said. “Thatallowed us to achieve minimum effectivescale, a factor in our earning 50 percentstatewide market share our first year.”

Governor Peter Shumlin is a big sup-porter of the company.

“SunCommon is a great company finally making solar power available at aprice that any Vermonter can afford,” hesaid.

Peterson is often called a visionary. When he explains SunCommon, the ideasounds new, unique, creative — and oddly simple, like why hasn’t anyone thought of this before? But they haven’t. And he andMoore did.

On a sunny day a few months ago,Peterson was explaining his businessmodel in the company’s headquarters in

The Energy Mill in Waterbury, a new,elegant, spacious building constructed outof locally milled wood. The offices arefilled with light, and the building takeslight seriously. On the grounds are hugemounted solar installations that look likesomething that flew in from a high-techEaster Island. The solar displays provideall the energy for the building, whichdoesn’t even have a furnace. It is the largestnet-zero building in Vermont.

It will come as no surprise that Petersonand Moore drive electric cars, or that thebulk of the company’s fleet is composedof Toyota Priuses, or “Prii,” as Petersonlikes to call them. (There’s also a SubaruImpreza for the mud and, for some reason,possibly aesthetics, a Mini Cooper.)

Peterson and I were in the conferenceroom, facing each other over a long tablemade up of two solar panels joined togeth-er. It was hard not to comment on it.

“The purpose of this enterprise ispositive change, so every business decisionis an opportunity to reflect our values,”Peterson said. “We want the office to bemore than presentable but not elegant.

We don’t want to spend all our money on swanky digs, Silicon Valley style. Webought these panels on eBay. They’re very cheap. We would never sell these to a cus-tomer. The whole table cost $400.”

Peterson, 57, a tall, whimsical and witty man, took a roundabout route to

business. Where else can you find a lifestory that includes the Los AngelesPolice Department, Jane Fonda and TomHayden, and Ice Cream Icon Ben Cohenof Ben & Jerry’s?

“Duane’s an upbeat guy who's a funguy to hang out with,” Cohen said. “He’sIncredibly smart and incredibly commit-ted to progressive social values. He cameinto this business from an environmentalperspective, a common sense perspective,from the idea that there’s all this freepower coming from the sun and insteadof using it we’re just letting it go to waste.Instead, we’re polluting the environment

with all this other fossil fuel crap. It’s

absurd. It’s unlogical. It’s unreasonable.It’s a waste of money. And on top of that,

it’s having to use oil that gets us into allthese wars. I think Duane was feeling likethere’s a lot of people who are intriguedby solar, who see the sense to it, but they understand there’s a high up-front cost. Soit’s hard to figure out how to work the taxcredits and get the right system and findthe right reliable installer.”

At VPIRG, Peterson and Moore madesolar a one-stop-shop, easy decision, saidCohen, who acknowledges that he is acompany investor.

“Then they realized it made moresense to spin it off and do it for profit,”Cohen said. “And that’s what Duane’sdoing. He has made solar affordable inVermont. The amazing financing deal thathe was able to figure out allows someoneto get their electricity from solar for noupfront costs and not have any additionalcosts. Now he’s just trying to keep up withall the business.”

Peterson and Moore shareSunCommon’s presidency.

“Duane and I work really well togeth-er,” Moore said. “I love the details of theenergy world, the numbers, the nitty-grit-ty, the technology, the design and the salesaspect. I love putting together an offer thatreally works for Vermonters. And Duanerevels in education and public relations —getting out into communities to educatedpeople on clean energy solutions — as wellas having a really solid grasp on the innerfunctionings of the business. We split the

work evenly and we both think we havethe better half, which is perfect.”

Peterson and Moore must be on theright track, because SunCommon is grow-ing rapidly. It just hired employee numbers28 and 29, and has nearly three dozencontract installers. It has already installed350 residential solar systems, closing inon 500 sold, and had a profitable secondquarter this year.

“When we started, at beginning of last year, I think there were 1,500 homes withsolar panels in the whole state,” Petersonsaid. “So last year there were 500 sold inthe state and we sold about 250 of them.So our little business sold half of all thenew solar in the state and kind of movedthe needle of what happened in the state.So I think we’re on to something.”

If you figure a residential solar systemcosts about $25,000, on average, then thecompany’s gross in its short existence sofar would be $8,750,000. Peterson saidthat was correct, with reservations.

“While we don't disclose our detailedfinancials, you did some math to estimate

revenues at 500 x $25,000,” Peterson said.“The resulting number more appropriately describes sales. SunCommon doesn't book the entire revenue from all sales. Forthe systems leased, the bulk of the saleproceeds go directly to SunPower — theowner of the system — and SunCommonis paid a portion. For systems we sell forcash, SunCommon books all the revenue,from which we purchase the equipment.So the entirety of the revenue from yourestimate would not have flowed thru ourbusiness. Yet the estimate as sales is notunreasonable.”

The business model is “ingenious,” saidCairn Cross, co-founder and managing

director of the Vermont venture capitalfund Fresh Tracks Capital, who sits on

SunCommon’s board of advisors.“First, they’re applying something

that’s very different from normal sales andmarketing activity,” Cross said. “It’s uniqueand differentiated and harder to replicatebecause those guys came out of nonprofitadvocacy. That’s not a normal backgroundfor sale and marketing folks.”

Second, the solar business can be anever-ending and ever-changing seriesof financial challenges, Cross said. ButSunCommon has got the payment systemdown.

“Monthly car payments cost the sameas these monthly solar installation pay-ments,” he said. “For almost everybody,there are tried and true finance programsto put almost everybody in a car. But thesolar industry has had trouble figuring out

what the message is. Essentially, it boilsdown to most customers not wantingto want to pay more than what they’repaying today. So if they’re paying $100 amonth for the electric bill and now they’repaying that amount for the solar, they’reOK. They’ve fixed their bill for the next20 years. And unlike a car, if you don’tmake your payments it’s not easy for thecompany to take it away.”

A repo’d solar system is, of course, notreally an option according to Peterson.

“With tens of thousands of residentialsolar systems now in use across the coun-try, the default rate is minuscule,” he said.“Folks need electricity. It's not a discre-tionary purchase. So if they were to quitpaying on their panels, we'd turn them off and then they'd have to pay more for thesame electricity from their utility — it’s anirrational act that isn't done.”

Many of SunCommon’s clients are in itto save the planet, not to save a few dollarson energy, said Peter Plagge, the pastor of the Congregational Church in Waterbury.He’s an early SunCommon client.

“They came here when they were firstgetting started,” he said. “I was fascinatedby it, in part because we need to be doinga lot of this and because we’re not goingto do it until someone figures out an eco-nomic model that’s affordable. So I said,‘Put us on your list.’ We were the firstones in the village and the second in thepipeline. We were put on line last July and

we’ve been running for about a year now.” The installers first used Google Earth

to check Plagge’s exposure to sunlight. Then they came out to his house to seeif the roof could handle the weight of asystem. Plagge then signed a 20-year lease— the document was so new, original and

complicated that he hired a lawyer to goover it with him.

“The lawyer said it looked good,”Plagge said.

So the system was installed.“To be honest, for a while I was fasci-

nated that I was generating my own elec-tricity,” Plagge said. “But it doesn’t changeanything for us. Our electric bill wasaround $70 a month, and SunCommonsaid they could do this for $70 a monthfor the life of the lease. All I know is thatfor the first winter, we were not generatingenough electricity, so we had a bill fromGreen Mountain Power and one fromSunCommon. And now we are generating

much more electricity than we can use,so next winter we’ll use that credit to get

through the winter. The exciting thing isanybody can do it, if you have a house withthe right exposure.”

At the end of the 20-year lease,SunCommon will come and remove thepanels.

“The panels lose their generating abil-ity slowly,” Plagge said. “And I’m hopingthat 20 years from now, there will be someother system.”

A Political Career

Peterson may be the only person you’llever meet who is actually from Las Vegas.He loves the Southwest and wears a tur-quoise bracelet to remind himself of it. Hestill visits the desert every year.

He was the youngest in a family withfour children, but as he describes it, it wasnot an ideal childhood.

“My father died when he was very young, so I wasn’t especially parented,” hesaid. “My mom was hardly around. Butbecause my father died when I was young,I was eligible for Social Security survivorbenefits. So I had the money to go to goodschools.”

The benefits covered tuition for four years at Dartmouth College, where hemajored in government and minored ineconomics. After that, Peterson went

west and became a policeman in theLos Angeles Police Department. He alsostarted working in politics.

“In 1982, I worked on the successfulcampaign that elected then Los AngelesDistrict Attorney John Van de Kamp asCalifornia Attorney General,” Petersonsaid. “He appointed me to a leadershipposition in his California Department of

Justice, which had 3,600 employees spreadacross 20 offices at the time. I served thereeight years, until Mr Van de Kamp ran forgovernor and I helped run that campaign.Poorly. We lost the primary to DianeFeinstein — who later lost the generalelection.”

That’s where Peterson first startedpaying attention to alternative energy.

“One of our primary campaign gam-bits was to put our platform on the ballotin the form of initiatives,” he said. “Oneof them, Prop 128, was nick-named ‘BigGreen,’ as it encompassed all the environ-mental legislation that had been thwartedby an anti-environment governor. After

we lost the primary for governor, I workedfor the initiative campaign. It was sup-ported by many in Hollywood, organizedby Jane Fonda and her then-husband TomHayden, who then was a state assem-

blyman. So I worked with him closely during that campaign, and afterwards heappointed me his chief of staff in the statecapitol of Sacramento. I managed his cam-paign for state senate, which he won by 380 votes, and he named me chief of staff in his senate office and for the committeeon natural resources. It all makes per-fect sense: LAPD cop. AG Office. JaneFonda and Tom Hayden. Ben & Jerry's.SunCommon. Can't you see it?”

Coming To Vermont

Peterson came to Vermont in 1996 tobe Ben Cohen’s assistant at Ben & Jerry’s.

“I was looking for a very top level per-

son to assist me,” said Cohen. “I happenedto be at a dinner for The Nation magazine



August 2013 3Copyright Vermont Business Magazine

in California, and I happened to sit next toTom Hayden. I mentioned that I neededa guy, and he said he had a really goodguy who was looking to relocate to New England. It was a match made in heaven.”

At the time Peterson’s wife, LauraPeterson, was in television news.

“My career made her downwardly mobile in her career,” Peterson said. “Wewent from LA, the number two market inthe country, to Sacramento, the number19, to Burlington, the number 96. Here

she was bureau chief for WPTZ-TV news.”Laura Peterson is now the corpo-

rate communications manager at GreenMountain Coffee Roasters.

Since Peterson had been Hayden’schief of staff, the ice cream company gave him the title “Chief of Stuff.” Andafter Ben & Jerry’s was sold to Unilever,Peterson continued working for Cohenand Jerry Greenfield.

Working for Cohen had introducedPeterson to the Vermont Business forSocial Responsibility network and theSocial Venture Network, and he hadoined the board of VPIRG, where heserved as president for many years.

“VPIRG is a three-legged stool:advocacy, research and citizen activism,”Peterson said. “With 30,000 supportersout of 220,000 households in the state,it’s really an organization of tremendousdepth.”

VPIRG members appreciated thework the organization did around renew-able energy policy, Peterson said, but they said, “We want clean energy for ourselves,but we can’t figure out how it’s done.”

So Peterson teamed up with Moore,who for seven years had been the directorof the Clean Energy Program at VPIRGand was one of the state’s leading expertson renewable energy. Moore first cameto Peterson’s attention when he wrote apeer-reviewed study on how Vermontcould replace Vermont Yankee’s nuclearenergy after it closes with renewable, in-state energy.

“I was intrigued by that and startedtalking to him about what was beyondthe theory,” Peterson said. “We’d actually have to do a lot of stuff to bring about anadvanced energy economy, and he and Istarted kicked around ideas on how to getit done. We launched a pilot project insideVPIRG called VPIRG Energy.”

Their incubator project was almost toosuccessful.

“It started wagging the VPIRG dog,”

Peterson said. “It’s awkward to have afor-profit inside a nonprofit. And in orderto scale up to meet the growing demandwe would need to raise start-up capital,and it’s awkward for a nonprofit to raisestart-up capital. We saw opportunities toimprove sales, design, the permitting, theinstallation, even the financing pieces. Wethought if we could apply more innova-tion to those, we could drive the pricedown even further. So we created anentirely separate entity as a benefit cor-poration and we’ve been in business eversince.”

Starting SunCommon

A benefit corporation combines mak-ing a profit with a mission to be socially

responsible.“The central ethos of the American

corp, enshrined in statute, is the fiduciary responsibility of the board of directors tomaximize shareholder profit — period,”Peterson said. “So that causes great pres-sure on companies to chase short-termcorporate profit at the expense of, I don’tknow, everything else. In the statute weorganized under, it puts our stakeholders,including our shareholders, on notice that

we’re a for-profit business, so we can hire

more people and open more offices anddo more of this good stuff, but that’s notour be-all and end-all. If we attend to thetriple bottom line — people, planet andprofit — if we pay our people good wages

with full benefits, if we do right by thecommunities we have our business in, if

we do right by the habitat that sustainsour very lives, then you can’t sue us. It’sthat simple.”

Vermont was the second state to passa statute enabling businesses to orga-nize under this public benefit model,Peterson said. Now many states, includingCalifornia and New York, offer it.

“There’s also Certified B Corps,”Peterson said. “Not every state has thislaw. But Certified B Corp is growing intoa certified standard — a certification of responsible businesses. And there are now 700 of us across the country, and I wasstruck by how rigorous it’s 42 page assess-ment was. There are probably10 or 20 of us in Vermont. We’re that as well. We’recertified under this national certificationprogram, and we are legally structured inour corporate filing as a benefit corpora-tion.”

The Process

SunCommon began operating inChittenden and Washington counties andhas since expanded into Addison, Franklinand Grand Isle.

“One of the many ways we keep thecost down is we operate community by community and get efficiencies and econ-omies of scale,” Peterson said. “We startby hiring community organizers. They start a couple of months before we expandto each territory. They say, ‘Well, who do

we know there? Well, we know some of the state reps. Some of the select boardmembers. There’s a town energy commit-tee. One of the churches has a social mis-sion committee. I know Bob over at theRotary.’ So our organizers start meeting

with people. Brown bag lunches. A talk to the Rotary. They start identifying com-

munity leaders and putting on community presentations. A lot of people have someinterest but can’t get their heads aroundhow to do it.”

The company isn’t competing withother solar installers, Peterson said, becausehis customers aren’t their customers.

“One of my favorite customers is acouple in Milton, a rural Vermont com-munity,” Peterson said. “The husband ison disability. The wife is a schoolteacher.

They went solar for no upfront cost andtheir monthly cost is $10 less a monththan they were paying for utilities. They’reover the moon that we were able to helpthem save money and do something good.

I don’t think they were ever a solar cus-tomer before we made this available. This

makes me really happy — that somethingthat was just out of reach is now thenorm.”

Financing can be done two ways: leaseor loan. Either way, it’s a 20-year term andfixed, while power costs fluctuate, usually up. After 20 years, if it’s loan, then youown the system.

“About 60 percent of residential solaracross the US is now third-party owner-ship,” Peterson said. “This lease modelis fueling the explosion in residential

solar. Some other entity is buying theequipment and paying for the installation. They own the system, which means they guarantee output, so all the maintenanceis on them. The home owner doesn’t putup anything up front. It doesn’t tie uphome equity. The government pays for30 percent through an income tax credit.

The leasing entity takes care of that. Soleasing entities bundle all these financialattributes, harness them and pass themalong to the consumer.”

SunCommon’s main equipment andlease supplier is SunPower, a SiliconValley-based solar manufacturer.

“It’s analogous to GMAC financing,”Peterson said. “General Motors didn’tintend to make money off the financing,but it wanted to lubricate the sales. Inthe same way, SunPower created a leaseprogram.”

SunPower’s panels don’t come fromChina, which supplies panels for most of the world.

“SunPower’s systems are assembledin Mexico,” Peterson said. “Another sup-plier makes them in Germany. We wantthe highest quality stuff bolted onto theroofs of our friends and neighbors. AndSunPower’s warranty is as good as gold.

We did the due diligence and went out tofind the partners we wanted to bring tothis venture.”

The lease is transferrable if the houseis sold.

“Studies show that solar panels arean amenity which holds value — unlikea granite counter top,” Peterson said.“There’s financial value too, because thepower prices are locked in.”

SunCommon arranges the financing with New England Federal Credit Union.It gets all the necessary permits.

For installation, Peterson borrowed thebusiness model of electrical contractors.

“It occurred to me that electrical con-tractors hire trained workers, put them inthe branded shirt, put them in the brand-ed truck with consistent equipment, and

find work for them,” Peterson said. “Sothey can scale up. So I searched aroundfor the biggest and most respected electri-cal contractor, and I heard that could wellbe Peck Electric. So I call this the Peck Electric Model. I lobbed a call into themand talked to Jeff Peck, and he had already started a solar division. We had an inter-esting first meeting, but he wasn’t sure we

were for real. After we both did due dili-gence, we formed a partnership. So Peck electric has done all our roof mountedinstallations and I think they’ve got sevencrews going this week.”

From Peck’s perspective, the deal has worked out really well. His company

installed 240 solar systems in 2012, andby June of this year they had about 180

in the works. Before he hooked up withPeterson, he said, his company had maybe12 or 15 employees doing this work. Henow has 45 on the solar side.

“We were doing a lot of roof installs when Duane popped into the office andsaid, ‘Got this idea to put solar on roofson every home where it works in Vermont.I need a contractor who can handle a fast

work load and work quickly and scale when we needed to.’” Peck said. “When you sell somebody something, especially

something of that value, they want ittoday. Scalability and consistency wasreally important, and it brought Duane toour office.”

At first Peck wasn’t sure Petersoncould pull it off.

“Yes, the word ‘crazy’ might haveentered my mind,” Peck said. “But the lon-ger we spoke and the more details he cameup with, the farther along in the process

we got, it was pretty clear that Duane and James Moore and their team really hadthe horsepower to get this off the ground.

We were thrilled to be part of it.” The whole deal has been very fast-

paced.“The people at SunCommon have

developed a process so these projectsgo smoothly,” Peck said. “When you’redoing several hundred of these installs,it’s important to remember that each of these homeowners is only going to do itonce. We and SunCommon want to makesure each project is done well and witha consistency of work. Duane is a greatguy. He’s a visionary. He understands

what people want. I think the averagehomeowner in Vermont would love tohave their home’s electricity come fromrenewable energy. Duane put together agreat program to ensure that. He’s madeit affordable to anyone with the right roof exposure.”

SunCommon recently hooked up witha second contract installer, HeadwatersConstruction in Cabot, to do groundinstallation.

“So it’s been something like 55 jobsafter a year,” Peterson said. “I’m really proud of it.”

The Future

Eventually, Peterson wants to expandto cover all of residential Vermont. Healso sees a big future in nonresidentialnonprofit solar — schools, hospitals, townhalls, churches.

“They don’t pay taxes,” Peterson said.“So they have never gone solar in much

numbers, because they can’t access the 30percent income tax credit. Well, what if

we could figure out a way for investors toaccess the tax credit and lower the priceon these systems to these tax-exemptentities?”

Farms are another area of potentialgrowth.

“They’re not exactly cash flush, but what if we can do it without cash upfrontand save them money?” Peterson said.

SunCommon is also looking at groupnet metering.

“Vermont is one of the few statesin the country that requires utilities toaccommodate group net metering,” he

said. “Since I, with my east-west roof,can’t bolt solar panels onto my roof, could



4 vermontbiz.com Copyright Vermont Business Magazine

SunCommon arrange for a larger sys-tem out in a field? Or on the AubuchonHardware lot? We’re investigating that as

well. There’s a lot to do.”It is possible that there may come a

time when there is a glut of renewableenergy in the state. Along those lines,in July, VTDigger.org ran a story aboutsmaller Vermont utilities rebelling againstpaying the premium price the Legislaturemandated for kilowatts from renewables.

“At issue is a law that compels utili-

ties to credit customers for the solarpower they produce,” Digger wrote. “Somesmall utilities want to change the fundingarrangement because they say it kicks thecost of maintaining the grid to other cus-tomers, while developers argue the policy places an accurate value on solar produc-tion and should remain intact to con-tinue growing jobs and Vermont’s renew-able energy portfolio. Two weeks ago, theVermont Electric Cooperative became thethird utility in the state to hit the cap forfunding its so-called net metering clients.”

Peterson does not think this will repre-sent a problem.

“As the story documents, GreenMountain Power aggressively supports

distributed energy production broadly and Vermont's solar businesses — includ-ing SunCommon — specifically,” he said.“With 70 percent of the state's electricity customers, GMP territory provides amplespace for continued growth in solar. Ourbusiness will be fine, but I regret that we'dhave to turn away Vermonters who seek our help going solar but whose utilities arestanding in the way. And given the officialstate policy to generate 90 percent of ourenergy from renewable sources by 2050, Ibelieve the utilities who seek to choke off renewables will face an angry Legislaturecome January.”

Right now SunCommon’s business is

booming. But solar has always been aboom-or-bust kind of thing. SunCommonis a young company, and Peterson knowshe has to be careful.

“We’ve got to watch that we’re notgrowing too fast and getting our expensesahead of our revenue,” he said. “We’re infive counties now, and people sign up onour Web site to become customers. Wehave hundreds and hundreds of peoplearound the state waiting for us. Soberbusiness planning is in order.

But from a business point of view, how cool is that?”

Joyce Marcel is a journalist who lives in

southern Vermont. She is currently writing a

memoir covering six generations of her fam-

ily caught in the sweep of history across the

20th Century. She is writing another book

about Vermont businesses. More of her

work appears at her Web site, joycemarcel.

com.

Vermont Business Magazine: SunCommon Lowers the Cost of Solar

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