KAY MANN OF BRUNSWICK is the creator and owner of Green Energy Maine. Before her current career, she had been a police dispatcher, worked for Salomon and Garnet Hill in customer service, taught foreign languages in New Hampshire public schools, counseled adolescents in a residential home, and, most recently, worked for 13 years as the marketing manager for Woodex Bearing Co. in Georgetown.
The Times Record recently talked with Mann about her very informative website, why she became interested in finding alternative energy sources, how she practices what she preaches, and … by the way, who is Clayton Moody?
Q. First of all, please tell us a little about yourself, such as where you grew up, went to school, and some of your previous work experiences?
A. I grew up in Mystic, Conn., until I was 14, and our family visited Bailey Island in the summers. I am the fifth generation of the Mann family to come to Bailey Island.
For one calendar year I lived on Bailey Island and attended high school in Brunswick and Mt. Ararat, then my family moved to North Carolina.
I studied modern dance at the N.C. School of the Arts, then earned a B.A. in international affairs at the University of Colorado. During college, I studied abroad in Germany for one year.
I have been a police dispatcher, worked for Salomon and Garnet Hill in customer service, taught foreign languages in New Hampshire public schools, counseled adolescents in a residential home, and, most recently, worked for 13 years as the marketing manager for Woodex Bearing Co. in Georgetown.
In February of 2011, I left that job to work full time at building Green Energy Maine.
Q. What prompted you to create Green Energy Maine?
A. I became interested in finding alternative energy sources around the time that our country invaded Iraq because I thought it had to do with securing access to our sources of oil. There were many other indicators that made me think that our dependence on foreign oil was something we had best work on overcoming if we were to maintain our standard of living.
So I began to get involved in nonprofit organizations like the Hydrogen Energy Center and the Environmental and Energy Technology Council of Maine, and learned as much as I could (as a non-engineer) about some of the technologies that can give us alternatives to using gas and oil.
I found myself collecting articles and squirreling them into files by topic area, but never knew what I was going to use them for. It turns out that file was the paper version of the Green Energy Maine website.
In about 2008, I left the board of the Hydrogen Energy Center and began planning the structure of the website with my sister Susan in California. Susan created the functional structure of the site for me on the Drupal content management system as a way to learn it and add it to her own skill set as a user interface designer.
Q. What is the goal of your business and what services do you provide?
A. The goal of my business is to offer a place where people who want to learn about sustainable ways of generating and using energy can learn about them, and where the experts in these sustainable technologies can educate the public about what they offer.
We have informational blogs sorted into 18 different topic categories, as well as news and job postings in the same 18 categories. There is a calendar of events, and it is amazing how much is going on.
We also offer a directory of the providers of products and services related to sustainable energy; it is like the Yellow Pages of clean energy for Maine.
The content of the website will never be complete; we add to it all the time as we discover new items of interest.
Q. Talk about the development of the website? How has it been received by the public?
A. We started out with the content areas of the site (blogs, news, jobs/RFPs and events calendar), going “live” in April of 2011. In September, we added the directory.
The next feature we are working on is a monthly e-newsletter that people can subscribe to.
So far, the response has been very positive. People in the industry have expressed their gratitude for the website, and most people agree that it is a tool that is very much needed to help Maine make the shift over to clean energy.
Q. There is tons of information available dealing with energy issues. What is the criteria for it to get on your website?
A. I ask myself a few questions like, “Is this happening in Maine?”, “Can this technology be applied in Maine?”, “Can this be helpful to people or businesses in Maine who want to reduce their energy costs?”
Q. Two of your more interesting features on the website are a glossary of energy terms and the Green Energy Maine Secret Acronym Decoder. Your comments, please.
A. I get frustrated when I am reading along and come across an acronym and I don’t know what it means. So, in the course of collecting and writing articles for the website, I began to compile a list of the ones I found and what they stood for.
When I told my sister about it, she suggested we make it a tool on the website for everyone to use, and we did.
The glossary was born for a similar reason: many of us are far from being electrical engineers and we need help to understand some of the terms used to measure units of energy, etc.
Both of these tools are far from complete, of course, and we will be adding to them constantly.
Q. Who is Clayton Moody?
A. Clayton Moody is a character that was drawn by a Maine cartoonist named Mike Gorman to be the “host” of the website.
I wanted to have an element of fun on the site, so people who might feel anxious about the whole prospect of changing their energy systems can laugh a little and feel at ease.
I also wanted the site to appeal to kids who might be using it for school projects.
Q. Why is it important to participate in clean energy practices? Do you practice what you preach?
A. Beyond the scientific, environmental reasons related to climate change that some may like to dispute, I think that the most compelling reasons are economic.
Maine has the oldest housing stock in the nation, and we as a state use the highest amount of oil for heating these old houses. In 2011, we spent $47 million just for domestic heating and transportation.
I was horrified to learn that 80 percent of every dollar we spend on oil and gas leaves Maine’s economy. That means that $38 million of that $47 million vanished on us. If we could keep more of our energy dollars here in Maine, we could recirculate them and have a stronger economy.
Imagine what that could do! There might not be any more budget shortfalls in the state government. Our schools might get all the funding they need, and on and on.
If everyone had lower energy costs, they would have more money left to spend with downtown merchants, as well. When you explain this in economic terms, people understand very quickly.
Many of us are already having trouble paying for our heat; what will happen when the price of oil doubles again?
In our own home, we are burning a B20 blend of biodiesel and we have a wood stove. We have an on-demand hot water heater that runs on the biodiesel.
Our home was weatherized in 2008, so we are only consuming one tank of biodiesel per year. Our electricity bills are also very low since we replaced the electric hot water heater, use the clothesline and make all efforts to reduce our power needs.
I’d like to look at changing to a geoexchange system for heating and cooling someday, but we have not yet reached the point where it makes economic sense for us.
My husband and I have recently given up our second vehicle and now share just one. When one of us is using the car, the other one can walk or get around on a bike (or recumbent tricycle in my husband’s case). This is possible for us because I work from a home office, my husband’s workplace is only eight miles away, and we live only a mile from downtown.
Q. Most people seem more than willing to save energy, but one of the big obstacles is the initial expense, whether it’s purchasing an electric car or solar panels for your home. How do you convince people that it’s worth it and cost effective?
A. The only way we can calculate payback time is by using today’s oil prices in the equation. The higher that price goes in the future, the shorter our payback period on our investment becomes.
Meanwhile, there are many incentives available from both the state and federal governments to help both homeowners and businesses to install sustainable energy systems.
Usually, a loan will be involved, and some loan products can even allow people to pay them back “from energy cost savings.”
Every situation is unique, and I encourage everyone to check out all the options as we collect them in our financial blog on Green Energy Maine.
There are two things that can’t be calculated. One is the comfort that comes from having an efficient home once the drafts are stopped up. The other is the peace of mind that comes from knowing one’s energy sources are secure, domestic, and, once the installation costs are paid off, free.
Q. Are Mainers good stewards when it comes to conserving energy?
A. Maine has the reputation for being a leader in clean energy technologies that dates back to the so-called oil crisis in the 1970s. There are some professionals installing solar systems in Maine, for example, who started out in the ’70s.
More than that, we have a long tradition of being these cussed “Yankees” who are very conservative with all their resources. This tradition will stand us in good stead as we face the coming challenges to our old energy paradigm.
Q. Describe what you think or hope the energy situation will be like in 20- to-25 years?
A. I hope that we will first of all reduce our energy needs through improved efficiencies in all aspects of our homes, transportation and workplaces.
Secondly, I hope that we will meet 100 percent of our energy needs through domestically and sustainably-produced forms of energy such as solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and hydropower.
There is “no silver bullet” as many say; we need to apply all of the technologies available to us in the best ways possible in order to meet our demands for energy.
Q. Any future plans for your business?
A. I would like to be able to hire some more people to help in writing and editing the content for the website, as well as an expert in the Drupal CMS.
We are also talking about ways to collaborate with other media in helping to bring this information to more people around Maine.
Q. Where does one start to conserve energy?
A. The best place to start is by looking at our habits, turning off lights when a room is empty, buying efficient appliances when old ones need replacement, etc.
I encourage everyone to get a home energy audit done, which gives you a wonderful “laundry list” of improvements to make, ranked in the order of which ones will give you the most energy savings, to the least.
Q. How and where can people find out more information about Green Energy Maine?
A. The website is at www.greenenergymaine.com. We have information about us on the “contact” page. There is a link at the very bottom for companies who are interested in advertising on the site. We are also in these social media:
— Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GreenEnergyME
— Twitter: www.twitter.com/Clayton- Moody/
— LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/greenenergymaine
Q. Besides the website, do you make presentations to groups to help inform the public about clean energy?
A. I have given a couple of Pecha Kucha presentations so far, and I am happy to talk to other groups. I always say that I am not an expert in any of these technologies, but have become familiar with what is out there and can point people in the right direction to learn more from the real experts.
Q. Is there anything else you would like to add?
A. Green Energy Maine needs the support of both advertisers and ordinary people to continue this work, so we have started a crowdfunding campaign on gofundme.com, where anyone can send support for the site. The link to it is http://www.gofundme.com/houdk.
Many thanks to The Times Record for asking about Green Energy Maine, to help spread the word about this important work.
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