— recognizing the power of green, bring green manufacturing to US, efficiency in built environment

Speaker: Kevin Surace, Chairman & CEO, Serious Materials
Meeting Date: Thursday, September 2, 2010
Time: 6:00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking; 7:00 pm dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Location: Ramada, Sunnyvale

Summary:
Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge; Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format — typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.

Presentation: “Thinking Outside the Glass Box”
Mr. Surace, a noted speaker and writer on climate change and the built environment, is on a mission to drive energy efficiency in the built environment, and bring green jobs and manufacturing back to the US. He will be speaking to us about how an engineer built what Inc Magazine calls a “great company” by doing things differently, and recognizing the power of green. His talk will focus on this Mission, and how he built up a business to achieve these goals.

His company, which makes building materials and windows, is one of a new breed of “clean tech” firms appearing in California’s Silicon Valley. They recently won a contract to replace all the windows in the Empire State Building in New York. You can learn much more about his company by going to www.seriousmaterials.com .

In a BBC article (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10322508), he gives this Key advice:

[“After you’ve launched your business, while you are still privately-owned, “what you have to do is grow very fast, so that some day when you have to really drop a lot of dollars to the bottom line, you’ve laid in a base that can still grow at maybe 10% or 20% a year. “Five years into being a public company, you can never do that again.”]

Come and hear how a local entrepreneur turned his dream into a reality.

Bio:
As CEO of Serious Materials, Kevin leads the company in its mission to reduce energy usage and CO2 generation of the world’s largest contributor, our buildings. Before joining Serious Materials in 2002, Mr. Surace held executive and technical positions with Perfect Commerce, General Magic, Air Communications, National Semiconductor, and Seiko-Epson. He received his degree in electrical engineering technology from Rochester Institute of Technology where he currently serves on the Board of Trustees, and has been awarded 9 patents. Mr. Surace also serves on the boards of Array Converter, Arch Rock, and Zeta Communities; and was recognized as 2009 Entrepreneur of the Year by Inc. Magazine (http://www.seriousmaterials.com/IncEOTY123009.pdf).