Lynn Jurich – Co-Founder & President of Sun Run, Inc.

By Muriel Vega

Lynn Jurich, co-founder and president of Sun Run, Inc. grew her business 70 percent last year, making it the leading residential solar financing company in the United States. Available to more than 50 million Americans, Sun Run has one mission: to offer solar energy that’s affordable, reliable and clean.

“You let us buy the solar equipment and take care of it,” says Jurich. “We sell you the solar electricity for a rate that’s significantly lower than your utility bill. Then you enjoy clean solar power without any of the hassles.”

Named by Fortune Magazine as one of 2009’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, Jurich, along with her partner, CEO Ed Fenster, raised more than $12 million to finance their business. Last December, they secured $90 million in tax-equity financing from U.S. Bancorp, following a previous commitment of $105 million to purchase solar systems for new customers.

Here, she tells PINK how she motivates her team with a unique goal – and what we can do about eco-anxiety.

PINK: Tell me about participating in President Obama’s White House Jobs Summit on green jobs last December.
Lynn Jurich: We were invited since we are one of the leading residential solar companies and we have managed to create quite a number of jobs. By 2012, there will be more than 20,000 jobs in the home solar industry. It was encouraging to see the administration care. They gathered [135 of the nation’s top leaders in business] to collect new perspectives.  You could tell that it wasn’t just about the media. They were open to new ideas. They’ve also followed up with the ideas, including the importance of local renewable energy production in creating new green jobs. The solar industry creates local jobs since installing the equipment is labor intensive. For every job that gets sold, that’s a job that gets created, from a sales person to an installer.  You are paying less in utilities and helping your local community so it’s a win-win situation on many levels.

PINK: What’s our biggest environmental challenge today?
L.J.: We are going to have a billion people over the next few years and all of those people will aspire to have the same high energy lifestyle that we have right now. We are going to run out of fossil fuel and have a war over it, that’s a fact. From a country standpoint, we need a long term plan. Where we are going and how we are going to get there? For example, we need x percent of solar energy and x percent of nuclear. We need to track our goals to be efficient. At the moment, we don’t have a unified picture of how to achieve a sustainable, unsubsidized renewable world.

Every little thing makes a difference. People get a lot of eco-anxiety when trying to decide what to do. When they take one step toward a greener life, they are afraid they are going to be judged for not doing enough. We are putting too much pressure on ourselves. You can make small changes everyday and feel good about them.

PINK: How’s Sun Run changing the face of solar power?
L.J.: We offer solar, basically for free, to people in five states: New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts and California. Eighty percent of the solar market is in those five states. We are helping lead the change to solar in other states, but there’s a lot of regulatory ground work we need to do, from working with the local utilities to taxation. I like to point to the earlier days of General Electric before there were electric lines – it was a mess. In New York City, lights would turn off all the time and systems would fail, but look at what that industry turned into. We are at the same point in our stage of renewable [energy]. We want to build something like General Electric, a new kind of energy.

PINK: You were in Business School when you started Sun Run – what sparked your interest in sustainability?
L.J.: During the summer between my two years at Stanford Business School, I went to China to help advice a bank. When I was there, the pollution really hit me – this is the air we are going to have soon. When you go from Shanghai to Beijing, everyone says “oh look, it’s a beautiful, clear day,” and you can barely see anything outside. That motivated me when I got back. My business partner was also in business school. We are good at raising money and structuring financial deals. We thought we could put those skills to a good [cause] and try to apply it to [environmental] issues. We started while we were in business school and did the research and figured out how to make it work. We were working full-time, going to business school and putting this together.

I turned down job offers. This was before the crash, in 2006 – 2007. All of these venture capital firms, investment banks and hedge funds were after us, recruiting us and that’s where all of our classmates went. We decided that was not the industry we wanted to be in. We wanted to use our skills for something more socially responsible. We didn’t pay ourselves for almost a year so we were working for free, just to get it going.

PINK: What’s your professional success secret?
L.J.: You need to allow yourself to make mistakes. Don’t be afraid to fail or admit failure and learn from it. If you don’t fail at a few things, you are not pushing yourself enough. I also like to surround myself with people who rally around a cause and do what it takes to help that cause.

PINK: Describe your leadership style.
L.J.: I have a consult and decide leadership style with my 45 employees. I like to hear input from people who are on the ground and know details, but then I’m not afraid to make the decisions myself. Young managers often tend to go [to extremes], by being either too strict or too reliant on consensus. I like to have a blend of both. You have to respect people and have a positive place to work. There are days when there’s an enormous amount of stress and uncertainty and I say let’s order in, do some work and have a good meal.

PINK: How do you motivate your team?
L.J.: We have a company-wide goal where we want to install enough solar panels to shut down one coal plant. That mission really rallies people and motivates them.

PINK: How do you deal with Life/Work balance?
L.J.: I’m very lucky since I have a very supportive husband. In our spare time we spend time talking about each other’s businesses and giving people advice. Even in our off time we can be productive. [laughs] Exercise is important. You have to stay fit. When I find myself working too hard, I tell myself “you have to do something for yourself.” Being healthy is more important than putting in 20 hours of work. You have to invest in yourself – it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I owe it to my company, to my employees to keep my mind clear.