Namaste Solar taps Vorlage to replace Jones as CEO
BOULDER – Local solar installer Namaste Solar on Monday announced that Dave Vorlage has been hired to replace co-founder Blake Jones as chief executive and president so that Jones can pursue other initiatives within the company.
Vorlage officially took over at Boulder-based Namaste at the end of April. The Boulder native most recently served as director of the real estate management division for Fort Collins-based Brinkman Partners, before that serving in finance director roles for W.W. Reynolds Cos. in Boulder and Fetter Logic in Denver.
Jones is sticking with Namaste, with his title now simply co-founder. Namaste director of marketing and communications Hannah Hamontree said Monday that there were a variety of reasons for Jones’ move, but said she believed a lot of it had to do with him getting the company to “a good place” and now wanting to take on new roles.
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Among those new initiatives is the development of a clean-energy credit union that would specialize in providing financing to individuals and businesses to install solar equipment. Another is development of a nationwide cooperative that would serve as a trade association for companies providing operations and maintenance services for solar installations, facilitating collaboration on things like best practices.
The latter would be similar to Amicus Solar Cooperative, co-founded by Jones to provide 38 member solar installers better purchasing power with suppliers and other advantages to help reduce costs for customers.
Jones co-founded Namaste with Wes Kennedy and Ray Tuomey in 2005, growing the company quickly and gaining recognition from Inc. magazine as the 56th-fastest-growing private company in the nation in 2009 after turning in 2008 revenue of $14.2 million.
The company no longer discloses revenue. But Hamontree said Namaste has about 140 employees, most of whom are based in the company’s Boulder and Denver offices. Namaste last year expanded its services – which include designing, installing and maintaining solar systems for commercial, government and residential customers – into the New York and California markets with offices in each of those states.
