REC Solar Lucky in Love on The Bachelorette

REC Solar Director of Business Development receives first impression rose on The Bachelorette. Solar stocks recover.

Eric Wesoff, Clare Ondrey May 30, 2011

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

REC Solar specializes in grid-tied solar electric design, installation, and financing for commercial and residential customers. The 600-employee firm installed more than 17 megawatts of residential solar in California in 2010 -- enough to rank it as one of California's leading residential solar installers.

The firm's Director of Business Development, Ryan Park, joined REC Solar as the fourth employee.

More important than all of this, however, is that the 31-year-old Mr. Park got the "First Impression Rose" on The Bachelorette last week. I am informed by my co-author that that's really good -- it means the bachelorette liked him more than the others. (The other solar installers?) Park has no tattoos, according to his bio on the Bachelorette website.

Shares of solar module manufacturers were up zero percent on the news. Rose and chocolate futures as well as pre-nuptial legal fees were up on the report.

Park is still in the running to win the love of a Ms. Ashley Hebert.

Love can overcome all challenges.

Hopefully that includes policy issues, extending the 1603 tax grant program, inflated inventories, and collapsing margins in the solar industry.

Note: this REC Solar is not the same as REC, the large, vertically integrated solar firm headquartered in Norway. Although REC Group does have a stake in REC Solar. That firm is going through its own struggles at the moment -- laying off hundreds of employees and suspending operations in one of its plants. They could use some love as well.