Finding Investors: Capital for Your Green Venture
(January 26: 8 - 9:30 am, GSB 2.122)
Strategies for raising money to get your environmental ideas off the ground. A discussion of the unique challenges that green businesses face while trying to raise financing.
Speaker Bios:
Charley Dean, Principal, Silverton Partners
Terrence Cantorna, Wind Energy Project Developer, Babcock and Brown
In his Executive Education capacity, Mr. Nolen has designed and taught custom executive programs for many corporations including Texas Instruments, Dell Computer, Essilor of America, Fedex-Kinkos, PetSmart, Motorola, Shell Oil, M.D. Anderson, State Farm Insurance, Vought Aircraft, and USAA among others. During his 26-year tenure at UT, he has received many teaching excellence awards. He has made the Faculty Honor Roll every semester since its inception in 1999 and has been selected for the teaching award for Best Ability to Link Theory and Practice for eight consecutive years by the Graduate Students Association. Jim has also been awarded the Mary and Hank Harkin Award for Effective Teaching and is the two time recipient of the Fawn and Vijay Mahajan Award in Executive Education.
Mr. Nolen is also President of CFO Services, Inc., a business consulting firm specializing in business valuation, mergers and acquisition advisory services, raising capital, and financial analysis and planning. He has served as CFO of a lighting manufacturing company and Vice President of a refuse disposal company, where he coordinated the company's sale and merger. He serves on numerous Boards of Directors of privately-held companies as well as an Austin-based financial institution.
Moderator: James Nolen, Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin
Jim Nolen holds the title of Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches graduate classes in Corporate Finance and Entrepreneurship. Jim also teaches finance topics in the McCombs’ D/FW and Mexico City Executive MBA degree programs. Jim has taught classes for IMEDEC University in Vienna and Finland’s TURKU University. He also lectures regularly in Executive Education’ custom and public management development programs, including the popular Finance and Accounting for Non-Financial Managers. Mr. Nolen is also active in the education of minority and women business owners.
Terrence Cantorna, Wind Energy Project Developer, Babcock and Brown
As a wind energy Project Developer, Terrence Cantorna works to integrate utility scale renewable energy into conventional power transmission and delivery systems. Terrence develops projects in the United States for Babcock and Brown, a global infrastructure development and investment firm with over 2,200 MWs of installed wind generation worldwide. Terrence began his career in power markets as an associate with Reliant Resources where he performed wholesale power risk management and commercial & industrial retail strategy in deregulated power markets. In 2004, Terrence changed his focus from conventional power to renewables and began working in General Electric's
Charley Dean, Principal, Silverton Partners
Charley Dean is a Principal with Silverton Partners, an early stage-venture capital firm based in Austin, Texas. Prior to joining Silverton, Charley worked with Thomas Weisel Venture Partners in Menlo Park.
He has also worked in the investment banking group at Thomas Weisel Partners and with Cargill in their distressed commercial loan fund. He received both his BS and MBA from Stanford University.
Renewable Energy Leadership Program, where he focused on wind turbine sales in the boom-and-bust US market. Before starting his career in energy, Terrence served in the United States Peace Corps in El Salvador for three years. Terrence graduated with a BA from University of Michigan and MBA from Tulane University. He now lives with his wife and 1 year old daughter in Houston, Texas.
Joel Serface, Director, Austin Clean Energy Incubator
Joel Serface is the Director of the Austin Clean Energy Incubator, the first entity of its kind focused on renewable energy technologies. With an extensive track record as an environmental engineer pioneering “clean tech” investments and shaping public policy, Serface brings to CEI a wealth of expertise and experience in generating and nurturing clean energy innovations. Prior to joining ATI, Joel served as Partner at Eastman Ventures, leading the company’s clean tech investments. Serface was a Director at Sierra Ventures where he led its first energy technology investments. He has also served as a management consultant with Ernst & Young and as a software industry analyst at AMR Research.
Clayton Christopher, CEO/ Founder, Sweet Leaf Tea Company
Clayton Christopher started Sweet Leaf Tea with a recipe for brewing tea he learned from his grandmother and his entire savings of $10,000. His goal was simple, to create the best tasting bottle tea on the market yet he had no experience in the beverage industry. After attending St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, Clayton embarked on a successful sales career in the medical supplies industry.
Starting businesses runs in Clayton’s family. Clayton Christopher started Sweet Leaf Tea with a recipe for brewing tea he learned from his grandmother and his entire savings of $10,000. His goal was simple, to create the best tasting bottle tea on the market yet he had no experience in the beverage industry.
After attending St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, Clayton embarked on a successful sales career in the medical supplies industry. Starting businesses runs in Clayton’s family. Clayton’s father, Todd Christopher, founded Taylor Medical Supply that grew to become the largest private medical supply company in the U.S. For five years, Clayton honed his business building and sales expertise as a sales executive for Taylor Medical Supply and Physician Sales & Service, Inc. During his tenure at Physician Sales & Service, Inc., Clayton took responsibility for an undeveloped sales territory, growing its sales revenue to $800,000 in just two years.
Despite his business success in the medical supplies industry, Clayton’s entrepreneurial drive was growing. So, he left the lucrative medical supplies sales profession and launched his first entrepreneurial endeavor as a charter boat captain in the Florida Keys. It was during this time on sailing voyages and road trips through Alabama and Mississippi that Clayton’s idea for Sweet Leaf Tea was born. Clayton was inspired by the quality and abundance of homemade sweet tea being served in local restaurants throughout the Southeast. Yet, for all the delicious iced tea being brewed at home and in restaurants, there was no bottled tea on the market that tasted like real iced tea.
In 1998, Clayton returned home to Beaumont, Texas, and founded Sweet Leaf Tea Co. In the beginning the tea was brewed in pillowcases and the bottles filled by hand with garden hoses. Clayton and business partner, David Smith, began by delivering product in an old van to local supermarkets, restaurants and convenience stores. Sweet Leaf Tea now has a line-up of ten tea flavors and three lemonades with distribution in all 50 states. The company continues to grow rapidly and has grown from 4 employees in 2003 to over 20 in 2007. Consumers can buy Sweet Leaf Tea products at grocery and retail outlets across the country, including 7-Eleven, HEB, Kroger, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Central Market.
Clayton is an avid sailor and cyclist. When he was 18 he was one of the top amateur cyclist in the U.S. In 1993 Clayton rode his bike 4,000 miles across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East with his business partner and childhood friend David Smith. Clayton currently sits on the Board of Directors of the School of Entrepreneurship at Lamar University and is a partner in Coren Sales Inc., which distributes a patented medical device. In addition, he is a member of YEO (Young Entrepreneurs Organization), YPO (Young Presidents Organization) and was winner of the 2006 Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for Central Texas.
