Last week, I highlighted our first customer, the University of Utah, and I told how our founder, Chris Atkins, had helped them through their first major metering project.
Today, I’m going to try to add some color to that story.
Chris is a man with three loves: energy management, movies, and his family; not necessarily in that order.
An economics major in college, he soon realized that it was the engineering, math and computer science aspects of economics that most interested him. His initial work at the University of Utah was focused on the internal measurement and verification of the work that an external well-known Energy Services Company (ESCO) had done for the University.
That work led to a key role for Chris as an energy manager for the University and later for the State of Utah. In 2004, Chris completed the necessary course-work to earn the status of “Certified Energy Manager.” Energy management turned out to be something that he was naturally very good at and passionate about. That passion led to the founding of Summa Energy Solutions in 2008.
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Since then, he has further developed his talents in energy management, business, and software development. Those skills have played a key role in the development of our Vitality energy analytics software platform and help explain why it is so good at addressing the needs of energy managers everywhere.
But energy management isn’t Chris’s only passion. He is a man of faith and a family man. If his wife or any of his five children needs anything, from support at an important event to help in a crisis, Chris will instantly drop everything to assure that they are taken care of. Family outings and faith promoting activities are high on his list of priorities. All together, this makes Chris a pleasure to work with as we all know where his priorities lie and we know we can trust him to do what he believes to be right.
Finally, Chris is a movie buff. Nothing seems to release his inner child like the release of a new Star Wars, Marvel or other good movie. If I’m not mistaken, he saw the latest Guardians of the Galaxy movie four times – all within the first 24 hours of its release! Now that’s a fan!
There is so much more one could say about Chris, but in the interest of space, I’ll conclude by saying that Chris is not only very good at energy management but a pleasure for all of the rest of us in the Summa family to work with. If you have a chance to meet him, take a few minutes and try to get to know him. I’m confident you will feel enriched for having done so.
