Alternative Energy, Tufts Entrepreneurial Leadership and Michael Easton

Entrepreneur Michael Easton envisions a future in which every rooftop holds a small windmill that generates inexpensive, abundant power--and he's got a business plan that promises to make his vision a reality within two years time.

"We've all seen the enormous wind turbines used to generate power for industrial or utility purposes," explains Easton, a recent Summa Cum Laude graduate of Tufts University School of Engineering. "My idea is to make those turbines smaller and very affordable, so that anyone could buy one and power a home with it."

Easton hatched the idea for his business, MicroWind, in a course on entrepreneurial finance offered through The Gordon Institute's Entrepreneurial Leadership Program, which is housed in the School of Engineering.

With the guidance of The Gordon Institute's Director of Entrepreneurial Leadership Pamela Goldberg, Easton refined his idea into a bona fide plan. That plan won a red ribbon in Tufts Classic Business Plan competition and garnered Easton a prestigious Coulton Foundation Fellowship, making him the only member of the Tufts community to receive the distinction. This prize for the competition included cash, legal services, mentoring, a website and space in a business incubator.

MicroWind is not the first of Easton's ventures. Three years ago, the amateur pilot designed a portable airplane washing system. He now runs a washing service for small planes at the Hanscom Field Airport in Bedford, Mass., which employs two and recently won a contract with a major jet leasing company. Alongside starting two businesses and earning a degree in mechanical engineering during his years at Tufts, Easton also found time to spearhead the solar energy segment of yet another enterprise called Emergent Energy.

"Michael is ever industrious. He definitely has that fire in his belly to move an innovation forward," says Pamela Goldberg, who has advised Easton on his ventures and instructed him in her course on entrepreneurial leadership.

"People often ask me if the entrepreneurial spirit can be taught," says Goldberg, "and the simple answer is that you cannot teach that fire, but you can teach the necessary tools for starting and running a successful venture--tools like building teams and minimizing risks. That's what the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program at Tufts is all about."

The program offers ongoing courses in business planning, finance, leadership, and marketing to more than 200 Tufts undergraduates and graduate students a semesterthanks, in part, to the generosity of innovator and engineering school overseer Steve Ricci who endowed a lectureship in the program during the Beyond Boundaries campaign. "Courses are foundational to the program, and the lectureship ensures that we can keep offering the courses that allow students like Michael to develop their skills and turn great ideas into enterprises," says Goldberg.

"I could never have brought MicroWind beyond the idea stage had it not been for Pamela's input and instruction, and all of the connections she helped me make," says Easton, who plans to use his award funds for MicroWind's first year of research and development.

To stay ahead of the competition, Easton says he needs to introduce a microturbine into the marketplace by 2010. He is currently finalizing a prototype design, which, by his calculations, will generate about one-half of an average American household's energy needs.

"I'm sure a lot will go wrong before we get the design right," he says. "But I'm hopeful we'll be the ones to make wind power mainstream."