By Cheryl Hentz
Entrepreneurship is often born out of challenging economic times, a tight labor market or other kinds of challenges. Appleton Solar, LLC came about through a husband and wife thinking ahead and planning for their family’s future.
Patrick and Ingrid Nahm met while attending Marquette University — Patrick was a mechanical engineering major, and Ingrid was pursuing a health sciences degree.
Several years and three children later, Patrick was working as a mechanical engineer for a Fortune 500 company and life was good — until the 2008 recession hit. Though Patrick didn’t lose his job, the couple wanted to be prepared for anything.
The Nahms strategized to not only find a new way of earning money, but also a way to reduce their utility costs. When they hit on solar energy, it was a win-win.
“Solar isn’t something that everybody is interested in, even though there was somewhat of a ‘green’ movement going on at that time,” Ingrid says. “I started doing some research on solar energy and our house was a perfect candidate for it.”
They had a straight, south-facing roof with no obstructions from trees or buildings. “Our roof faced the right direction, and it got plenty of sun and no shade. Having a lot of sun with little to no shade is a pretty big requirement,” Ingrid says. “Solar will still work in shade, but not very well. Having sun is the biggest prerequisite; it’s what makes this financially feasible for someone.”
Not wanting to pay someone to install solar at their home, they learned how to do it themselves. They started by doing a bit at a time — beginning in 2008 and becoming 100 percent solar by 2020. The learning led them to the realization that this could be a business.
“We figured not a whole lot of people wanted to go into this business, so if we went through the training to do it for ourselves, we thought we could offer that service to others as well,” Ingrid says.
They learned how to do solar installation at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association in Custer. When it came to learning how to start and run a business, they used resources available at Fox Valley Technical College.
Going to “school” for solar installation and learning how to run a business required they both quit their jobs. “It was a pretty gutsy move and there was fear, for sure,” Patrick says. “We were giving up the security of having regular paychecks, after all. This was really about trying something new that we believed in and was the right thing to do.”
They started the business the same year the recession hit. In the 13 years since, the interest in solar has grown steadily; in the last two years, it has grown astronomically.
“I can’t pinpoint a certain reason why, but there are lots of people — more than I ever imagined — who are calling and asking about solar,” Ingrid says, adding that each October their home is on the National Solar Tour, organized by the American Solar Energy Society. People interested in solar can sign up to take the tour and see what’s possible.
Do-it-yourselfers can see how many solar panels they’d need, find what kind and size of system would be best for their homes and learn how quickly the panels would pay for themselves after tax deductions and rebates. Such information is available at solar-estimate.org. Appleton Solar also offers free estimates.
“The residential systems we’re installing are expected to last 25-plus years. If someone’s going to be in their home that long, it will more than have paid for itself because the payback on residential systems is about 10 to 11 years,” Ingrid says. She and Patrick hope that, through tours of their home, people can see how solar offers a viable way to offset daily electrical demand while reducing fossil fuel energy use and educating the next generation about renewable energy.
appleton-solar.com
