Building a Legacy: How Heliene is Leading Solar Innovation with Martin Pochtaruk

In this episode of Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, host Wes Ashworth interviews Martin Pochtaruk, President and Founder of Heliene, a leading North American solar module manufacturer. With over 35 years of experience managing manufacturing and innovation businesses across Europe and the Americas, Martin shares his journey from the steel industry to leading the renewable energy movement through Heliene.

Martin discusses how Heliene is transforming solar manufacturing by focusing on high-quality, competitively priced solar PV modules made in North America. He also explains the company's commitment to "Tikkun Olam"—making the world a better place—and how this principle guides Heliene's operations and impacts economically challenged communities in the U.S. and Canada.

This episode explores Heliene’s innovative projects, including nano-coatings for agrivoltaics and pioneering AC solar modules. Martin shares insights into the challenges of financing in renewable energy and how Heliene overcame these obstacles to achieve impressive growth.

Tune in to learn more about the future of solar energy, creating sustainable jobs, and the innovative culture driving Heliene’s success in renewable energy.

Show Notes:

Key Discussion Points:

• Martin Pochtaruk’s Journey: From physicist to solar industry leader, Martin shares his transition from steel to renewable energy and the founding of Heliene in 2010.
• Manufacturing Expertise: Martin discusses how his experience in steel manufacturing shaped his approach to solar module production.
• Heliene’s Mission: Learn how “Tikkun Olam” drives Heliene’s operations and its mission to make the world a better place through solar energy.
• Economic Impact: Explore Heliene’s role in creating jobs and promoting economic development in Northern Minnesota and Ontario.
• Innovation in Solar: Martin highlights two major projects: nano-coatings for agrivoltaics and AC solar modules that optimize energy conversion.
• Financing Challenges: Discover how Heliene navigated financing complexities in the renewable energy industry and the importance of government and community support.
• Talent Recruitment & Retention: Heliene’s strategies for attracting and retaining skilled workers in remote areas, including competitive wages, benefits, and innovative training programs.
• Future Outlook: Martin shares his vision for the future of solar energy and Heliene’s role in driving innovation and sustainability.

Key Quotes:

• “What are you doing to make the world a better place? What are you leaving in this world for everyone around you to have a better life?” – Martin Pochtaruk
• “Our mission isn’t just about making solar panels; it’s about creating a lasting legacy in communities that need it most.” – Martin Pochtaruk
• "The hard work is hard. But doing something that makes the world a better place gives you a sense of accomplishment like nothing else." – Martin Pochtaruk

Martin on LinkedIn 
Heliene's Website

Wes Ashworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weslgs/

• Email: wes@leegroupsearch.com
• https://leegroupsearch.com/green-giants-podcast/
• https://leegroupsearch.com/

Transcript

Welcome to Green Giants: Titans of Renewable Energy, the podcast where insights and innovation meet. Every episode, we dive into conversations with industry leaders, experts and change makers, bringing you the stories and ideas in the renewable energy sector that shape our world. And now let’s jump into today’s episode with your host, Wes Ashworth.   

Wes Ashworth (00:01.021)

Welcome back to another episode of Green Giants, Titans of Renewable Energy. Today we have a special guest who has been at the forefront of solar innovation for over a decade. Martin Pochtaruk, the President and Founder of Heliene brings with him 35 years of experience in managing, manufacturing, and innovation businesses across Europe and the Americas. Since founding Heliene in 2010, Martin has been challenging the solar industry status quo by prioritizing customer needs and delivering high quality, competitively priced solar PV modules, all manufactured right here in North America. I’m excited to dive into his journey and explore how Heliene is shaping the future of solar energy.

Martin, welcome to the show. It’s a pleasure to have you. Absolutely. So we’ll start out at an easy place. Can you share a little bit about your background and just brief journey that led you to join the renewable energy sector and become president at Heliene?

Martin Pochtaruk (00:58.604)

Thank you. You know, I sometimes feel that I’m 150 years old because I lived a few lives before getting into renewables. I left university being a physicist. When I got into university, no different than every 17-year-old, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I was good at math and I wanted to be a nuclear physicist or something of that type. I ended up working in material sciences and I went into steelmaking, steelmaking for oil and gas applications, and I worked for two multinationals over 20 years, both sides of the Atlantic, and for a period also in the southeast of Asia, working in special applications for steel being used for oil and gas extraction and transportation. And, you know, what I always say is, after polluting or helping to pollute for 20 years, it was the time to make up for that.

And, well, that’s a nice story. Really, I mean, I went to renewables because it was going to be a good business. And that is, you know, we all do, particularly when we have families to provide for. Back then, we’re talking about early 2010, Ontario, where I’m based, had a feeding service program, and that program required domestic content on the hardware, on the equipment to generate electricity. So the intent and the idea and the plan for Heliene came up. I partnered, we are like-minded individuals with the same goals. We started manufacturing solar modules in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. So this is the very east end of Lake Superior. For anybody looking at the map of North America, we’re in a good five hours drive north from Detroit or six and a half hours drive north from Chicago. Seven hours drive northwest from Toronto. So really the middle of nowhere.

A small community, industrial based small communit,y and we’ve been manufacturing up here since. So almost 14 years, will be 14 years next month, September 2024. We started manufacturing in Minnesota, May 1st, 2017. We took over an existing factory, made an initial investment there in 2018 for a new manufacturing line. A second line was built, built a building and the second line was built in 2022. And then in 2023, we replaced the line that we installed in 2018. Basically, we took that out and installed a new state-of-art manufacturing line. So today we have two manufacturing lines in the US.

The factory is in a small town that’s called Mountain Iron, Minnesota, which as the name indicates, the very place where most of the iron ore for the manufacturing of new steel, both in Canada and in the US, comes from. So, again, small town, industrial-based. That’s where we are.

And now we’re working, so the next phase of the expansion brings us to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area. We’re a manufacturing line just northwest of the city and within 30 minutes of downtown. And that’s where we’re going to have the next two module manufacturing lines, as well as the cell manufacturing line.

Wes Ashworth (05:22.373)

Okay. Excellent. And I am a little curious too, in hearing the transition from steel industry to renewables. I guess, how did your experience in the steel industry influence your transition to renewable energy? And do you feel like it’s helped you? Like, what are some of the benefits? And I know there are others out there that are sort of contemplating these switches.

Martin Pochtaruk (05:46.476)

Well, the manufacturing per se is a discipline, right? Manufacturing implies working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Manufacturing processes are complex, but at the same time, they happen over and over and over. Therefore, there’s the potential for automation and the need for automation, the need for automation towards quality assurance, towards making a product well. All I’ve done my whole life is manufacturing. So when I look for something else to do, when again, put together the business plan and went for financing to start up the company back in 2010, I never thought of, I don’t know, going into financial services or software development. But I concentrated on what I know, which is creating value from manufacturing products.

Wes Ashworth (06:58.193)

Yeah, no, I love it. Manufacturing at heart and then through and through, but now you’re obviously supporting a great mission too.

Martin Pochtaruk (07:03.564)

No, I don’t know. In the beginning, I found it very simple, right? Because when you manufacture steel, you have issues like liquid steel at 1200 degrees centigrade being poured. You don’t have that with modern manufacturing. Now with cell manufacturing, there’s a bit more complexity. It’s management of chemicals in gas form, in liquid form, water treatment plants, which is a bit more of the type complexity that I’ve been used to.

Wes Ashworth (07:41.905)

Yeah. And I want to transition a little bit. You kind of jokingly said, “Hey, it was a good business model. I jumped into it.” But I know from talking to you before, there’s a lot of passion. There’s a lot of heart behind what you do. And we talked about your company’s purpose really revolving around this concept of Tikkun Olam, making the world a better place. Can you elaborate on how this principle guides your company’s mission and operations and just tell us a little bit more about that?

Martin Pochtaruk (08:11.532)

You know, I proposed this at the very beginning as an approach to doing things well and doing things in life that produce a legacy, right? As I was saying, I’m over 150 years old. So at my age, you need to think what you’re leaving, what have you done, and what are you doing that actually will make the world a better place. That creates a legacy for which things are improving. Things are improving from working in a plant that is dying to allowing families to get well-paid salaries and well-paid benefits, which is a requirement in the US. You guys don’t have Medicare or a social services like we do have in Canada, right? So both countries present different needs, and allowing all of these things to evolve towards being better, towards, again, we are so far, Mountain Iron, Minnesota, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario are economically challenged places where jobs are needed, economic diversification of communities, whether it’s mining in Northern Minnesota or steelmaking in the North of Ontario, brings yet alternatives of type of work, from sophisticated R&D to labor for operators that work in the manufacturing lines.

Creating a legacy and creating a legacy that is sustainable in the long term is important to me and has always been. But if you want to now have a bit of a liver to have had no starting a business as an entrepreneur, you can think through what you’re doing and actually making it happen.

When you work for a multinational that has a hundred thousand, two-hundred thousand employees, I mean, your contribution is always important, but you can have less of an effect because at the end, you do what the corporation wants. When you’re an entrepreneur, you can design what the company does to ensure that values are kept. The legacy is created and the purpose is achieved. I think I mentioned to you, we made a few months ago a series of short videos that are used by our human resources department to hire operators and we have a very young man – our crews are, you know, generally between 20 and 25 years of age – and this young man who has been an operator for two, two and a half years, basically he said, that what motivates him to wake up in the morning and go to work is that he knows that his work is making the world a better place. And when I hear that, besides getting emotional, what I thought is, this is working. Basically, we’re doing exactly what we’re set to do.

Wes Ashworth (12:15.901)

Yeah, gosh, it’s so good and powerful. And I think, one, I’ll say you look really good for 150. So when you’re a part of making the world a better place, apparently it adds years to your life and keeps the youth going. But yeah, just the passion behind that. And you can tell that it truly is genuine and something you believe in. And you’ve created this culture in your organization.

And I love to just, you have all this experience, all these skills in manufacturing, but then applying that to this principle of making the world a better place, repairing the world, doing that. And I think that translates. And so when employees come in at any level and they find that purpose, they find that meaning, and it’s not just a poster on the wall, but it’s something you live and embody, that’s the true, true difference.

I hope anybody listening to that can hear, and I know they will hear that heart and passion. And it’s more than just, yes, we’re doing this as a business. Yes, there’s an important part of that. But the heart and the passion behind it is really what’s driving, I think, your huge success and creating a company that, honestly, people want to come work for and stay with for the long haul. So yeah, thank you for sharing that.

So something along with this, you mentioned the importance of creating and sustaining jobs, especially in some of these economically challenged communities. Can you share more about Heliene’s impact on, specifically on these communities and your strategies for economic development?

Martin Pochtaruk (13:56.94)

Certainly. One of the key points that the state government does, the province government does as well, is look for, on the recruiting side, bringing companies to remote communities to create jobs and bringing companies that actually do something different is key to that.

The energy transition itself is not that new anymore, but still new. When you look for financing banks, they’re going to tell you, “No, your industry is too new, I’m not going to lend you money.” But we’ve been around for long enough. It’s an industry that has 25, 30 years of age. We’ve been around for 14 years, exactly, now. Economic diversification makes our communities stable and sustainable in the long term, particularly when mining or steelmaking or other Victorian era industries through automation, through evolution of the work, employ less and less.

The logging, wood, and paper industries in a big part have dwindled down. So that is something that’s in the North, both in Canada and the northern states, has been a stable employer for the last 150 years. And those jobs are slowly disappearing or being concentrated in some places, but not generalized everywhere. So for that reason, for every dollar that we pay on payroll, there is roughly 2.5 to 2.7 dollars that go to the community in economic development. That is an accepted multiplier. And that explains why the government of Minnesota, through the application, the use of it was called the Taconite tax. The companies in northern Minnesota pay the state for every ton of iron ore extracted. It is reinvested in economic development in the area. That’s why in Ontario there is also subsidies or incentives that the government uses to lend to companies that want to create jobs, and that money is, of course, paid back or is forgiven over time, provided that you maintain the level of jobs that you have agreed to create and maintain.

Back in 2010, $2.5 million from the government. But we’ve been paying over $2 million, $2.5 million of payroll every year in the same community for 14 years, right? So you see that the money goes back to the community, tenfold.

And the same in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, right? And the same will be for the jobs that we’ll be creating in the Minneapolis metro area.

Wes Ashworth (17:49.947)

Yeah, and anybody that’s grown up in a really small town, myself included, I did, you know the impact of this, that there’s usually a major employer that really supports the livelihood of that town and you see it happen. And this happened to me, I moved away and some years later went back, that major employer had left the area and this town was decimated. You just didn’t even, you couldn’t even recognize it. So, how important it is for companies like yours to come into these communities, create jobs. That’s noble in itself, but then also you’re making the world a better place and the planet a better place and helping us with energy transition. So that’s really a win-win for everyone. I love hearing that story. Another piece you mentioned – go ahead, sorry.

Martin Pochtaruk (18:34.826)

You know, we’ve been around before the Inflational Reduction Act. The Inflational Reduction Act has provided a boost to the manufacturing for renewables in the entire country. See factories going into different places in Georgia, in South Carolina. Texas has been a large recipient of

the investments towards the manufacturing as well. We’re a bit of an oddball being in the upper Midwest, but again, there’s nothing like in northern Minnesota winter weather.

Wes Ashworth (19:19.547)

Yeah, right, exactly. Warm sunny days all the time. It’s beautiful right now behind you. Anybody watching the video, it’s a gorgeous scene. So not too bad, not too bad. I was gonna say, you mentioned something else about just banking and financing and some of the challenges there. And I know it is a significant challenge for many renewable energy companies. How has Heliene navigated this challenge as it relates to financing? And what strategies have you employed to secure some of that funding and support and make it possible?

Martin Pochtaruk (19:52.46)

I would say that in Minnesota in particular, we’ve been very lucky to find a very open community, that means the entire state, not just the towns where we are, but the state of Minnesota has a very well-working congress over the years. We’ve been there since 2017, because whether the House or the Senate is controlled by one party or the other, what we have seen is that they can really work together to make things happen, right? So we did get approval for $12 million from the state in late 2021 through the pandemic without, you know, the Senate was Republican controlled, the House was Democrat controlled, but they worked together in favor of what was right, in favor of providing, you know, the communities and this money didn’t come to hell. And the money came to the city of Mountain Iron to build a building for us to basically make an investment in equipment and build a new manufacturing line and employ another 250 people. So what we saw is that the state had, what the state under the leadership of Governor Walz basically did what was right for the community. And it didn’t matter if you were a Republican or a Democrat working at the House or at the Senate of the state. What was important is that we were going to make an investment matching what the state was going to put down.

And again, the money didn’t come to us, it went to the city. And the building is owned by the city, not by us, right? So it was not a hand down to a corporation. It was economic development for a town. And that has been a strong part of, a private small company, of securing the financing to allow growth.

For the first 13 years, all of the equity contributed was family-related funds from the two families that have had control of this company until last year. We’re one of them and there’s another,, friends that could participate in this. And in 2023, we made the first ever equity raise in which two clients came in, and also a fund that’s called Orion Infrastructure Capita. OIC.com is their website. They’re based in New York as well as in Houston. We refinanced debt with them. So they came both at equity level and at debt refinancing level. And we’re very lucky to have their support. They’re great people to work with. And by 2026, we’ll have them paid down and they will continue to be a shareholder. And again, what we found is that banks so far have been very reticent to provide large working capital lines.

You know, I was told once by, not too long ago, by an officer of the Royal Bank of Canada – again, this is the fifth largest bank in the planet, right? It’s not a small bank – that solar is too new. Of course, we are not the oil and gas. We haven’t been around for 150 years. Even if I have, I mean, the company has not. So you see that still, and I think this was prior to the Inflation Reduction Act.

I think that there’s a better understanding of the potential as the impact of manufacturing, as the impact of power generation for renewables continues growing and is better known that banks will participate more on this directly, versus private equity money or other sources that are not merchant banks, which makes financing more expensive, right? When you borrow from a private equity fund or a fund that has been created for a specific purpose, the interest rates that you’re paying will be higher than what a bank can lend that. But again, when you’re growing at the pace that we have been growing, then you need a partner, more flexible than the bank. Banks are not known to be very flexible.

So when you look at what we have done in 2022, our revenue was 300% of 21. 23 was 200% of 22. 24 is going to be another 70 plus percent growth. And at this pace, because our contracts already signed, 2025 is going to be roughly another 100% growth over 2024. So when you’re growing at this pace, basically, flexibility is key. Availability of cash for working capital is more than key. It’s extremely important. And generally, so far, you can only do this type of thing with the likes of OIC.

Wes Ashworth (26:11.837)

Right, no, absolutely. It’s incredible, difficult enough, sort of coming up with a good business, a good product, going into these small towns, getting financing, funding, all those challenges that are there, and then having tremendous growth, which you just mentioned, is incredible.

Part of that, the additional challenge, as you mentioned, is attracting talent to manufacturing. Something near and dear to my heart, grew up in recruiting and manufacturing. So I know how difficult it is, especially in these small towns. But I’m curious to learn how you’ve navigated that challenge. So what innovative approaches has Heliene taken to recruit and retain skilled workers, especially in some of these remote areas or economically challenged areas?

Martin Pochtaruk (27:03.276)

I don’t think there is a known solution. You have to innovate daily. And still, if you do, you still need to recruit all the time and train all of the time. To answer your question with a very simple sentence is, you want to retain people, pay more, pay better. That is, provide benefits.

So that is key. If you don’t do that, then nobody comes today in the communities where we are, who are paying roughly because there’s a matrix of pay depending on your position. But in general, we pay for operators $5 per hour more than the average job in the area.

Wes Ashworth (27:59.453)

Okay, no kidding.

Martin Pochtaruk (28:00.876)

So when the average job in Northern Minnesota is $17.50, then our average is $23.50. You need to start there, and then you provide health benefits, 401k match and all the things that will make you be outstanding versus the competition. By competition, I mean all of those employing in your area, not those making your product somewhere else. And that is specific to operators. And even if you do that, what we have and what we see in terms of turnover, turnover is the amount of people that leave at the end of the month, that change jobs or just leave because they consider that they worked enough, which is a millennial issue that we didn’t know for the old folks like me. I mean, it wasn’t something that we never thought of.

You know, I work enough, I’m not going to stay home for a year. That was not part of what we did, but now it is. We have 4% turnover. 4% turnover, right, in a factory with 100 people, it means that you’re losing four every day. So when we have 300, 400 people within a building, it means that basically you will have in between 15 and 20 employees that are new every single month. Every single month. That means that you are hiring every single month. That means that you are training every single month. So hiring and training becomes part of your manufacturing process. You need to churn 15 to 20 new employees every single month. So you need to interview 100 people every month to get 20 to come and work every month. So that is a lot of work and that is an effect of the times we are living. I don’t think this is specific to us. This is happening to everybody that employs, particularly for manufacturing.

Manufacturing was what made our countries what they are. You know, second World War, manufacturing is not fashionable anymore. I don’t see my kids, right, which are adults, willing to go to the office more than twice a week. So for whatever, with the things they work on, and they complain because they had to go to the office twice a week and work from home, or in the case of my son in different country, says, “I’m to work from” – he’s based in Korea –  and “I’m going to work from Canada this month” and here he is. Or he says, “I’m going to work from Argentina and see my cousins next month.” There he goes. Manufacturing, you have to be at the factory on time, not late, not two hours, not one day. No, you have to be for your shift early enough every day, every day that you have.

I think you have to be there and we work four days on, four days off. So basically you go to work for 12 hours for four days and then you have four days off. We work four days, four days off, four on, four off, which is what our employees have voted. It is what they prefer because they basically have four days off every time.

That is for operators. And then when you look at the engineers, we need a good quantity of engineers as well. It’s very difficult to find, particularly from your industry, people with experience. Our manufacturing process, the highly automated process of coming from the automotive industry, then you are very well prepared. If you’re coming from any industry that has automated manufacturing processes, you are prepared. But generally what we are doing, and I’ve been doing this in previous roles, previous lives, is you engage with universities that have electronics, mechatronics, which is the new way to call the mixture between mechanical and electronics, and you hire people if you can. You have co-op students while they’re students. You have internships and you develop relationships so that you hire people very green the moment they graduate at 22 years of age or so, and then you bring them and you train them in-house. It’s very difficult to find people with experience in what we do.

So you hire and you train and you hire and you train and people will change jobs. I mean, now it’s very common for young people after two or three years, basically to look for something else to do. Therefore you start again and you have a pool of young people that you hire. On the north side, northern side of the border, right on the Canadian side, we are lucky that we can hire internationally, right? So Canada has a negative demographic growth, which means that there’s more dying than being born. Canada has a minimum of 300,000 immigrants that are needed just to keep the population where it is, not to grow, but basically to keep it where it is, to maintain.

What we do is, basically, we have the ability to look for talent in every country in the world. Hired, I mean, they’re interested in moving to Canada and to North America in general. Within, I would say an average of four months, but it could be as long as six. We obtained what is called a permanent residence status, which will be similar to a green card in the U.S. and we have them working here, then once they’re in Canada, then we can have that know-how being shared with the rest of the employees.

Wes Ashworth (34:53.787)

Yeah, absolutely. And what you just outlined there is so complex and important. And I hope everybody grasps that, is there’s no shortcut in this whole talent. And the shortage is real. It’s there, it’s every day. And the pandemic really accelerated that. And you heard people going to flip burgers and making more per hour than they were in a manufacturing plant. And you kind of can’t win with that.

Martin Pochtaruk (35:04.426)

No.

Wes Ashworth (35:22.013)

If you’ve heard the beginning here, it’s building this culture that’s a great place to work and purpose driven and people that are bought in. But then there are no shortcuts. You still have to pay competitively and you said, above probably average, and you’re doing a lot of these other innovative things and strategies. So it’s no mystery to me why you’re being successful in this. It’s one of the most challenging things out there.

But there really is no shortcut. You’ve got to really do it all and have the whole picture there. So yeah, I love hearing that story, and music to my ears in what I’m doing. So I do want to transition a little bit as we’re getting further out of time. But talking about some of the R&D efforts and innovative projects that you’re doing in the company, can you discuss some of those, what Heliene is working on, such as development of nano-coatings or agrivoltaics or, I don’t know which way you want to go with it, but I’d love to hear some of the innovative things happening.

Martin Pochtaruk (36:23.936)

Yeah, of course. I can talk about two specific products that we’re investing time and resources on. One is a partnership that we have with a company from New Mexico that’s called UVGrow What they do is setting nano-coatings, nano-coatings that shift the absorption of light.

When you look at them, they started making this product for greenhouses. For a plant, a plant captures the light for photosynthesis in a particular range of frequencies, while a solo cell basically will get a set of frequencies. So what we’re doing is basically incorporating this light-shifting nano-coating into one of the layers that goes inside of the module, so that for all the light that goes through but is not captured by the solar cell, then we tune that light to the frequencies in which the plants absorb. So this will be from the yellow to the red when you look at the direction of light. So the light that goes through is only going through on those frequencies. Therefore, the plants that would be under the solar modules then will maximize the photosynthesis for them.

So this is a product that is being thought through for this new stream of solar installations that are called agrivoltaics, which basically, keep the farm at the solar farm. So in many cases, solar installations are criticized because they’re taking over agricultural land. But they don’t have to. Whether you elevate the height of the structure or you keep whatever crop was being cultivated on that land, you can. And actually, you can have this product that we are developing and trying with partnerships with the University of Minnesota, as well as south of the border, as well as Western University north of the border, to maximize photosynthesis when you have also power production with solar on the same square foot of land. So that is one project that we’re working on and investing time with. And another product that we’re working on is the quintessential AC module. So many have tried different things. Today you have microinverters or optimizers, they’re the very well-known products for both of them. We’re working with a spinoff University of British Columbia that has developed a microchip that actually converts DC electricity into AC electricity at solar cell string level.

So what we’re doing with this product, which is at the prototype level right now, is basically having the ability to maximize the power of a string of solar cells inside the solar module, because optimizer, which is a product that everybody uses, is external. So this will be inside the module, and whatever comes out of the cable actually will be already AC.

So this product, again, it doesn’t exist in the market today. It’s entirely new. We’re prototyping it. I would say it’s a couple of years from being available for consumption. We are at validation, but at the time, we’re in a third-party validation phase right now. These developments take years, right? So these are five-year loan projects.

Wes Ashworth (41:07.823)

Yeah, incredible stuff though. Pretty mind -blowing, kind of see it all come to life there. How do you create that innovative, creative culture? I mean, I’m sure it’s not you coming up with all these ideas and making it all work, right? Like, you’ve got a lot of people around you, but how do you create that culture?

Martin Pochtaruk (41:23.99)

No, certainly not. We have a team. We have a team. Yeah, that’s right. First of all, from the entrepreneurial point of view, you never say no to an idea. You always look into it, right? So what I say is when somebody says, “I mean, what about that?” I always say, “Tell me more. I’m interested.” Right? So that you look at everything which ends up costing everybody lots of hours of work because when you look at everything, it means that you’re going to work a lot, right? And some ideas are good, and some are just good ideas, but not applicable or not applicable in the short term. So you put them aside to look at them after. You know, for example, we looked at peroxide back in 2022. We made sample modules with heterojunction plus peroxide cells and the stability and long-term reliability of those modules after testing was not what the market requires. For that reason, we invested time, invested resources on making those prototypes and making those tests so that the product was not ready. And right now we’re going to start again later this month on making new prototypes to see if after these two years, the product has gained the long-term reliability that we didn’t see two years ago. And for that, we have our own technicians, our own testing personnel, and slowly but surely we continue to build our own laboratory.

Wes Ashworth (43:23.879)

Yeah, love it. I think it’s just, it’s not easy. I think it’s easier said than done, and kind of like, “I’m interested, tell me more.” I love that little bit of just any ideas that come to the table. You just got to allow that freedom, and that’s the first thing that shuts creativity down, is if you push back on that or there’s hesitation, it tends to shutter that creativity.

Martin Pochtaruk (43:49.716)

No, otherwise, for that, it helps that we are, I don’t think we’re a small company anymore, but we are on the smaller side. So you have the ability to be nimble and at the same time make decisions very quickly. You don’t need to go to some corporate committee that is sitting on the other side of the Pacific that meets once every quarter, and you just missed this quarter’s meeting. You’ll need to wait for a lot of three months for it. No, doesn’t happen, right? I mean, everybody is available all the time for everything. Again, that makes everybody work full hours because you have to be available, which means that you are there and you’re listening. But at the same time, this is what the entrepreneurial spirit of companies has allowed us to grow at the pace that we have seen.

Wes Ashworth (44:55.387)

Yeah, without a doubt, without a doubt. And we’re getting closer to time. I wanna squeeze in a couple more questions. One is just really open it up and if listeners that are tuned in, if they could take away one or two key messages from this conversation, what would you want those to be?

Martin Pochtaruk (45:15.852)

The first one, which goes back to the purpose of Heliene is, what are you doing to make the world a better place? So what is your contribution? What are you planning? If you’re not doing anything today that will make it better, what are you going to do tomorrow? And by tomorrow, I mean, at some point in your life, right? It doesn’t need to be the next 24 hours. But it’s, what are you doing? What are you leaving in this world for everybody around you to have a better life? And it doesn’t mean economically better. It might mean that the air they breathe is better, right? There’s no more coal electricity production in the UK later on this year, after 150 years. So that is something that is going to be better.

So, and you might not be involved personally, but you know, you might help do that with something else in the area where we live. I would say that is what I would say. Because what we do is just a job, right? And the job will help you pay the bills. And you’ll make a living, but you know, making a living with something that actually makes the world a better place actually gives you a sense of accomplishment that you will not get out of anything else. I don’t know if I’m responding to your question.

Wes Ashworth (46:48.465)

Yeah, you did perfectly. It’s something I just believe thoroughly in. And I think the beauty of this industry, which I’ve said before, I think on previous episodes, is we need every type of skill set. We need every type of background and all the innovative minds. And you can help it any way. How important it is, that operator on the floor that’s running the machine and making it happen. That’s a piece of it, a huge piece of the success, whatever that means to each individual. You take your skills and what you’re good at and you apply it to this industry, and that’s the beauty of it. So, I love that. Any other kind of parting wisdom, advice you’d like to share with our listeners or messages in terms of what you’re doing or anything else you’d like to put out there?

Martin Pochtaruk (47:38.102)

You know, the hard job is hard. The hard work is hard, right? So don’t expect things are going to be easy, right? You know, we all have a function in this corporation, from sales to the delivery, right? And again hard work is going to be hard because otherwise it will be done by itself in an era of automation and artificial intelligence. Sorry, it’s as simple as that, but as complicated, it’s as simple as that.

Wes Ashworth (48:22.427)

Yeah, I agree. And I have something on my desk. It says, if you can see that, it says, “Embrace the suck.” It’s remembering your why, your purpose, all those things, right? But at the end of the day, you’re going to do hard things. It’s going to be challenging. It’s going to be tough. You know, they’re there. You’re going to have bad days. Nobody enjoys a hundred percent of what they do at any given time, but you have to remember that purpose, cause, and passion to why you’re doing it.

Embrace the suck and help move things forward. So no, absolutely. Well, that’ll wrap up our conversation. It really has been fun. It’s been enlightening to hear about your journey and the innovative strides that Heliene is making in the solar industry, your commitment to high quality manufacturing and your customer first approach. And I mean that truly that, again, not a poster on the wall, but something you live and breathe in that customer first approach are really setting new standards in the renewable energy sector. To our audience out there as always, thank you for tuning into Green Giants. Thank you, Martin, so much for coming on, sharing your insights and vision for the future of solar energy with us. If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, share it with your network and stay tuned for more compelling discussions with leaders in the renewable energy world.