Elevate Your Business: Gray Alton

Good afternoon, welcome back. Kent Game with Nine Business Group at Elevate Your Business chat. We have Gray joining us today with Terrapin Geothermics. Gray, welcome to the program and start by introducing yourself, your company name, but most importantly what makes you unique and different? What sets you apart from your competition? Gray, welcome.

Yeah, thanks for having me. We’re Terrapin Geothermics or Terrapin for short. Terrapin has two verticals to our business. Everything’s focused around emission-free energy. We generate power and direct heat to offset natural gas use for industrial operators by utilizing industrial waste heat and we extract the heat from their process. We use it to generate power. We use it to redistribute heat back within their process. Alternatively, with the same technology, we also work with conventional geothermal projects. So same principle, we extract heat from the earth, we generate power and district energy networks or direct heat use opportunities with it and then we re-inject it and it’s a renewable process that just continues on.

You know, what makes us unique is, you know, power generation isn’t new, but what we do is actually we have a self-financed business model. So we’re actually going to our clients and customers, not with our handout, but actually offering them energy efficiency or emission reduction solution that they don’t have to deploy any money off their balance sheet. We’ll come in, we’ll finance it, we’ll act as the owner operator and sell them the energy or if they don’t require that energy in their process, we can sell it into the local grids. So yeah, there’s a number of competitors. There’s not as many doing what we do in kind of the geothermal and waste heat space with that self-financed business model.

I got so many questions on that. I want to go to the next one, though. How long have you been at it? In this, what has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome? And what does that look like today?

So we’ve been at this since 2016. And I mean, there was probably two, the one massive one being COVID as a startup. You know, we were just starting to get our feet under us negotiating our first projects when COVID hit. And a lot of our clients had to shift to kind of emergency operations, and they didn’t necessarily have time to develop new projects. You know, we cut costs where we could, we have a small team. And so we relied on some consulting work to get us through the government grant programs kind of got us through COVID. And just made sure to stay in contact with our clients, you know, throughout the couple year process that they needed. And now we’re back in discussions, getting contracts finalized with them. So you know, just coming back to a bit of business as usual. So it was mostly time that kind of fixed that one, obviously.

The other one was in our inception. And we actually were founded as a hardware company, we were going to develop a our own technology to basically generate power from abandoned oil and gas wells. And we hit a couple of large hurdles. One being the Valley of Death to get from a concept to commercialized technology, very expensive, very long. And when we started that in 2016, you know, the conversation around the abandoned wells around geothermal around clean energy just wasn’t as as popular as it is today.

And so we shifted our business to actually work with a more commercialized technology, somebody that’s been established since 2009. So we simply distribute their technology now. And it’s really giving us given us a large boost in credibility in the marketplace with our clients, because, you know, we can show a track record of operation, versus going to them and saying, hey, can we demonstrate with you and hope that it’s successful and scale from there.

Good credit, well done. When you look for the next 12 to 24 months, we’re kind of, it’s weird to sit here and think about in September, closing out the year, but more importantly, now planning 2024. As you set your goals towards 2024. What is the what are you looking to accomplish in the short to near term here?

Yeah, we’ve got some irons in the fire in the in the US right now, the Inflation Reduction Act that was announced gives us tax credits for waste heat to power and geothermal projects. So that market’s been a fairly good boon for us that we’re expecting some decisions on some some projects that we’ve submitted on. And actually, in in less than a month, I’ll be headed over to Europe for a month to go do some business development over there. And so we’re looking to expand our operations overseas. You know, there’s incredible opportunity over in the European market right now, just considering, you know, the bit of an energy crisis that they’re going through with with the war.

And so you know, there’s large opportunity we’re going through a program to get in over there. And so, you know, we’re hoping to kind of have some of our our first waste to power projects kind of finishing commercial due diligence. And then on the geothermal side, we have an active project here in Alberta. We recently received our drilling permit. So we’re doing some final fundraising for that project right now. And so I think our short term goal for the end of the year is to have a capital partner at the table ready to go. So when the moratorium on renewable energy projects in Alberta is lifted, we’ll be ready to move, you know, with our application to to begin drilling.

Fascinating. If there was a pirate in your business, a thief, what would they be stealing from you? What would they be stealing?

I mean, if you wanted our chief geologist brain, she’s, she’s a genius. She’s been at it for 40 years. And I tell you the amount of knowledge that woman has is amazing. Dr. Hickson. I’d say our business, you know, you need to be you need to be lean and you need to be able to act quickly. And I think one of the things we do really well is figuring out whether there’s a viable project or not, not wasting time. And we have some pretty robust economic models that we work with and technical models that we work with to qualify our geothermal and waste heat projects.

And so I think, you know, outside of our, our super awesome culture, which which we love, you know, we love working here that they might want to steal. We’ve got some serious brainpower behind our project development team that I’m sure a few people would want to lift lift the hood on their car and see what’s underneath there.

I love it. A combination of culture experience and then a little bit of intellectual property built in there. In the seven, eight years you’ve been in business. What is your definition of a successful business and has it changed over the years?

You know, the first thing is make money, right? You know, you don’t you’re not in business to not make money. So you got to make money. But I come from the startup world as well, where, you know, you’ve kind of got to get got to get your feet under you and get some traction to start being revenue positive. And so, you know, for me to be successful is loving what I do. I mean, and I love what I do now. Part two is, is, you know, we’re at breakeven, and we want to start generating serious income for our business.

But success for us is is megawatts of power and BT use of heat that we’re of emission free energy that we’re putting out and, and, you know, growing our footprint, you know, we’re we’re born here in Edmonton, Alberta. But there’s a lot of opportunity for us globally. And so we want to be a global organization that, you know, either can help teach people about the inherent value of energy transition and clean energy, or being the tip of the spear that actually gets projects funded and built and and operating and see them operate for, you know, the next 20 to 100 years in some cases. So I think long term longevity is is ultimately kind of my overall thesis of a successful business would be, you know, get your feet under you find your market traction, and then go for it for the long run and make it successful.

Good for you. No, that’s great. Not too many people answer that question. With the concept of longevity, it generally is, you know, revenue, profitability, sustainability sort of thing. I think if I’ve done 100 interviews, maybe five have kind of talked about that long term longevity of the future. So good on you for having a bigger picture, a bigger vision.

Last question, what do you want to know for when it’s all said and done five years from now? 40 years from now? What do you want to know for? Me or Terrapin? You choose. What do I want to know for?

I mean, I want to be a job creator. I like I like being a job creator, I want to create an organization that that creates jobs, and I want to create good jobs. I want to, I want to see I want to leave something better than I found it. That’s one of the reasons why I worked in oil and gas for a lot of time before transitioning into clean energy. And, and I did that because I helped build a lot of the infrastructure that was was existing. And now I want to start building some of the infrastructure that will help clean it up.

And so I ultimately want to be known as somebody who left their industry better than when they found it. And if I can walk away with with the younger generation coming in feeling like they’re in a good place, then I’ll retire happy.

Sounds great. The last most important question, who’s your ideal client? And where can they find you?

Ideal client, I mean, 60% of the energy that we produce as a global society is lost as waste heat. And some of that comes out of the tailpipe of your car. That’s not useful waste heat, but industrial operations from oil and gas, steel, cement, pulp and paper, glass, beverages, breweries, data centers, you name it, you know, you’d be surprised the amount of different companies where I found waste heat and geothermal is everywhere beneath our feet. So we’re pretty industry agnostic.

So I mean, if you’ve got an industrial process, look up Terrapin, G-O-T-E-R-R-A-P-I-N-G-E-O.com. You can find our contact form there or find me on LinkedIn, Gray Alton. And there’s not too many grays out there. So I imagine I’ll be pretty easy to find. So reach out and we’re happy to always do have a conversation and we can pretty quickly get to whether there’s a viable opportunity with a prospective client or not.

Sounds great. Good luck with your trip to Europe. There are lots of opportunities all around the world. And as they say, we’re looking forward to hearing the rest of your story. Keep up the good work.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate this and this opportunity to spotlight Terrapin and myself and kudos to you for providing these opportunities. Really appreciate it.

You’re welcome. And thank you. Have a great week.

Thanks.

Cheers.