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This podcast episode has answers to three questions that we all want to know:

1. How do I not contribute to climate change?
2. How is green energy produced?
3. How do I lower my energy bills?

David Tam is the entrepreneur in Eugene who wakes up every morning with an agenda to work on tech innovations that would answer the above three questions.

David is the senior vice president of Green Energy Corp, a company that provides software solutions for clean energy generation, and the former commissioner of the City of Eugene sustainability commission.

Since the beginning of his career, David focused on researching green energy technologies that were not in the US or in China. “My father immigrated to the US in 1970, worked as a dishwasher at a restaurant, slept on the floor in a small room with four other guys. That was the situation when he came to America with almost nothing on his back,” David tells his back story how his parents, who started their journey with nothing encouraged him to start his own journey to become an entrepreneur.

David is also the co-founder of R2B Microgrid Solutions, a firm that provides microgrid services with clean energy and energy conservation in mind while implementing sustainable development.

“A microgrid is a portfolio renewable assets to generate onsite power for a commercial, industrial application,” David explains. In simpler terms, microgrids are small grids powered by renewable energy resources–such as the wind, turbine, and solar–that connect homes, businesses and other buildings to central power sources. Since microgrids use renewable energy resources to generate and store energy, they are a cheap and climate friendly solution to generate and store power.

David, along with his team at Green Energy Corp and R2B Microgrid Solutions, is developing software solutions to develop efficient microgrids that are resilient to outages and are economically efficient. “We deploy Green Energy Corp software to create microgrids to make sure that 85 per cent power comes from renewable sources,” David explains.

Microgrids are a fairly new technology. According to Navigant Research’s 2014 report, worldwide vendor revenue from microgrids that was $4.3 billion in 2013 will grow to $19.9 billion in 2020. “People thought it is a little crazy,” tells David, who now as Green Energy Corp’s Asia president is tapping the potential of emerging microgrid market in Asia.        

“Asian market would be the largest for microgrids. It will surpass the United States,” says David, who also thinks that Eugene is the green gateway to Asia because the cost of power is really cheap in the region.

With the use of microgrid technologies, David and his team are creating solar buildings and green communities not only in Oregon and the US but also in Asia to truly expand the sector that uses green energy over fossil fuels. “We are working on a variety of projects from retrofits and commercial buildings to community-based microgrids for Native American Reservation Tribes,” David adds.   

David credits his entrepreneurial drive to his parents who built their lives in the US from nothing. “I think that my father was very driven to support his family, and he had father had a really amazing woman that is my mother. My mother was the backbone. My dad is the front man, but my mother has always been a smart decision maker. I really believe that both my parents have really influenced me in a lot of different ways. My father taught me about ceasing opportunities and taking risks and my mom taught me to be very diplomatic, very personable and being able to focus on relationships.”

David believes that forming relationships and networking are two things that make everything work. As the chair of the non-profit Asian Celebration, he wants to create a platform for all the community-based groups, especially children, to come together to share and celebrate Asian culture, share food, and educate people.

“If I can contribute to passion in helping inspire children, inspire business people, inspire people to go green, inspire people to take care of one another, those are the things that drive me… Whatever I can do to create change for the better that really what starts and drives me… I want to be a guy who is remembered as a person who tried to do his best he could,” David tells when asked about what drives him as an entrepreneur.      

David’s also shares his two important morning rituals that get him going: working out and being appreciative of everything he has. “When I have stressful and rough days, I think about going for small wins that make my day look better. And spending time with family is extremely important,” David adds.  

Here is how you can reach David, who loves to help people and gaming in his free time: davidytam@tanglobalconsultants.com