Small Redway Store that Became a National Solar Company to Close Next Month
Alternative Energy Engineering [Photo from MapQuest]
The small company founded in 1979 as Alternative Energy Engineering in a Redway garage by David Katz, a local solar pioneer and enthusiast, is reported to be coming to an end in early May. Alternative Energy Engineering which grew from its small SoHum beginnings to become a national solar equipment company with a few name changes along the way.
David Katz, who sold his shares long ago and continues to live in Humboldt County, was instrumental in recognizing and fostering the potential of solar energy during a time when the concept was largely on the fringes of mainstream energy conversations. The ’60s and ’70s saw a significant movement towards back-to-the-land ideologies, with many individuals moving to Humboldt County in search of a simpler, self-sufficient lifestyle. Katz’s business grew up among the back-to-the-landers, initially selling batteries before transitioning to solar panels, catering to a community that had cash to spend because of the burgeoning marijuana cultivation industry.
The growth of Alternative Energy Engineering to AEE Solar over the years is a testament to Katz’s vision and the increasing recognition of solar power’s potential. By the late ’90s, the company had caught the attention of major energy players leading to its acquisition and name change.
When reached for comment, Katz would only say that he hasn’t been an owner since 2014. He did add that it was a fun period of his life and he “worked with many wonderful and amazing people for nearly 40 years.”
Saying goodbye to AEE Solar is turning the last page of a chapter in the big book of the Back-to-the-Land movement. The former Alternative Energy Engineering business was a leader in our journey toward embracing solar energy. Thanks to David Katz’s trailblazing spirit and the one-of-a-kind vibe of Humboldt County back in the ’70s, the company carved out a special place in the story of how solar power found a path forward.
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It’s ironic but their departure from Redway resulted in the creation of another small solar business in Humboldt. One that specialized mainly in building cables for the solar industry.
AEE became our biggest customer for several years and I joked that it was the perfect relationship. We sent them product, they sent us money, and neither side of the transaction had to put up with the other.
Their orders from us have been shrinking over the last couple of years so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
I owe David a huge thanks, both for the job I had working for AEE almost 30 years and for the help and encouragement in starting our own business PV-Cables.
Meeting and working for David was one of the best things that could have happened to me.
Charlie, please straighten out the sequence of AEE homes, per comments below.
Great Business for us alternative heads…
he did sell the building to a major Big Headed person who immediately evicted all the stable businesses including Ballet and School Tutors .
Worst person in the town David sold it to and now has the building back due to said Bucky who defaulted …
Congrats David Katz
what next …
homeless have been camping with tents there now
Sure, blame Bucky for the Covid epidemic, and for the County of Humboldt, that both cost him, and plenty others, their fortune, and put so many investors, like him, right out of business…
Maybe Mr. Katz could/should have worked with Bucky on some kind of “epidemiological” renegotiation/payment extension, all things being considered…
After all, so it seems, the business was destined to eventually fail anyways, hindsight being 20/20, which Katz, being the shrewd and astute businessman that he obviously is, likely correctly deduced, prior to selling it to Bucky…
The deal falling through, likely came as less of a surprise to Mr. Katz, than it did to Bucky…
Mr. Katz likely anticipated it…
It isn’t very astute or shrewd of you to blame Bucky alone for the default, as I’m sure that he lost a pretty penny and had no original intention of doing so, and I’m also pretty damn sure that Bucky would have made good on the deal if the business wasn’t horribly hemorrhaging so much money, and at such a full flow, and it hadn’t become such an overall losing battle for him…
Highly experienced Mr. Katz, likely came out smelling like a hybrid tea rose, compared to Bucky, not that I begrudge him it…
But, under the circumstances, though, a compromise may have worked out best for all concerned, in the long run, as we can now clearly see, with the AEE final chapter, coming to an ultimate close…
I don’t think a reasonable compromise would have been financially devastating to Mr. Katz, with all due respect, and may, just may, have kept AEE in business, under Bucky’s tutelage.
The urge to repossess may have tipped the scales against Bucky’s continued ownership, albeit, on renegotiated terms…
That being said, I’m sure that Bucky would be delighted to hear your sweet-talking slights directly from you, to his face, not that you’d likely acquiesce to being thusly inclined to do so, Mr. Hit and Run, Brave Keyboard Warrior Extrordinare…
Bucky is certainly not the “Worst person in town”, as you now have, so graciously and so convincingly, just proven…
Good Day…!!!
I seriously doubt that Katz figured the business would go under. It sounds like David was the good guy for carrying the loan instead of forcing it to a financial institution.
The writing was on the wall, and in the books, for all Southern Humboldt business’ downturn, not just AEE…
I seriously doubt that Mr. Katz didn’t see what was coming, nor what was “in store”, for his long standing, formerly very successful business…
There may also have been other PV regulatory changes, tax incentives, etc., that were happening at the time, that if one wasn’t paying as close of attention as Mr. Katz most likely was, one might not have properly anticipated the eventual future financial consequences…
He is fortunate that he found a buyer when he did.
Like I have already said, Mr. Katz is a very intelligent man…
Nothing wrong with selling one’s business at, or just past it’s peak…
That would be the savvy, prudent, thing to do…
Nothing unethical about that, whatsoever.
I don’t underestimate Mr. Katz’s wherewithall, especially when it comes to his alternative energy field of endeavor…
To call him a genius would probably not be much of an exaggeration, if it would be an exaggeration, at all…
I also truly believe that his honesty and integrity are unquestionable.
Very uncommon indeed.
There are probably only a small number of other individuals with his level of understanding, concerning his type of business, and I’m sure that he knew HIS AEE business, and it’s profitability at any given time, the very best.
I would not have even commented, had the other commenter not have cast unnecessary aspersions towards Bucky.
I cannot say enough good things about David Katz. He has helped me and many others selflessly. He has been a great asset to our community in many, many ways.
He is smart and trustworthy. I have always been amazed at his courage to dive into a new investment idea and turn it into a success.
I was fortunate to have known and worked with him at concerts and The Garberville Rotary Club. He helped me convert our Garberville store’s power system into an uninterruptible power supply for our twelve computers that to be rebooted every time the power blinked.
He and his wife Annie, will be missed in the local business community.
Amazing to survive 45 years through everything…
Congrats and good luck in the future!
Feeling very sad about the end of AEE. I feel like it is a death of a friend of which an obituary should be written of all the triumphs struggles and memories of that amazing solar coaster ride. AEE gave the training and know how to a hundreds of solar installations companies to launch and grow their solar business. When the news came out I got a myriad of calls from folks I hadn’t talked to in years saying aee changed their lives. It sure changed mine. It gave me a home and family for 15 years. It gave me a purpose to help save the world, one solar panel at a time. AEE sowed the seeds that has blossomed into this vibrant solar industry is today. Many of the companies that are leading the charge today are all beneficiaries of the people that cared so much and would pick up the phone with a smile to said Good Day this is…….
Thank you David for hiring me and Thanks for all the legendary team of employees who made the company my home. Those memories will be with me forever.
“… saving the world, one solar panel at a time” is one of my favorite quotes from Richard Perez, cofounder of Home Power magazine. The magazine’s success was partly responsible for its demise. Thanks to David, his crew, Home Power mag, and many other solar pioneers, solar has become mainstream.
Just say it, the Chinese are pushing Americans out of the game utilizing the technology Americans developed. Well played, and don’t forget who did it. That’s right, Bill (the Billy Goat) Clinton.
Sorry to say that this has happened with almost every manufactured product the u.s. has ever made. The redway location won’t be forgotten. You put sohum on the map.
Smokin.
Billy just did the inevitable, hooking a car to BushSr.-backed nafta push. It was Nixon who opened the door (the GOP business-elite of the time jumping for joy).
It was actually Reagan who short-circuited (pun intended) America’s advancement of solar power globally when he immediately removed the solar panels, upon taking office, that Jimmy Carter had installed on the White House. Slick Willie’s mistake was to not re-embrace the potential of solar and allow its development to drive US alternative power development. Nice try at deflection, once again.
I also miss my long-since tattered Power to the People! t-shirt.
Net Metering 3 killed the solar industry. Look it up. Solar related business was down 85% in California in 2023 and isn’t better this year…….
The CPUC/PG&E are responsible for the solar industries collapse……
Wasn’t AEE’s original store location in downtown Briceland in the A-frame building that was initially Steve Squiers’s book store and later served as a classroom/library when Beginnings had high school classes?
According to AEE’s origin story it was a Redway garage. I assumed they were correct and when I search Alternative Energy Engineering Briceland, I don’t get any hits. But perhaps someone could provide some evidence, photos? written statement from the time? then I could update the article.
I think the AEE story started in Briceland, then moved to Garberville, and then to Redway. I originally wired my home for 12 volt DC, and was very pleased to buy electrical hardware and DC appliances from AEE.
You are correct. From Briceland it moved to that corner L location in Garberville near where the new Mexican Restaurant now is. Then to Redway. I still have my Trace 24 volt inverter I got there in 1998. Works like a champ.
It started in Briceland as a VW repair shop (there were a lot of driving bugs then), and morphed slowly into home power based on 12volt systems like the cars had. David used to say there were more solar panels in SoHum than anywhere in the world at one time. It was the first landing spot for Arco panels when it almost appeared they were going to switch from oil to solar way ahead of the pack (they dropped the solar and went full bore into fossil fuels, alas). In the Briceland store it was not just solar panels and batteries, it was also a source of pelton wheel hydro-power, 12v appliances and lighting! (the way we got off kerosine fumes and wick-trimming) and lots of backwoods engineering, swapping of ideas to make life better in the hills.
My memories of AEE are of a great environment to work in, with committed people that knew their stuff. Top to bottom it worked. One of the few jobs I actually enjoyed. Thanks David!
This area has a special magic that seems to foster all kinds of interesting developments that later benefit the world outside. From AEE to Real Goods when they were in the storefront in Willits, the back to the land movement essentially created the practical application of renewable energy technology, which since has moved worldwide. The magazine HomePower, published by inspired back to lander’s, while based in farther-northern California, has a lot of overlap here, with many participants, and readers here still.
One could make the argument the days of mom and pop cannabis was also a no-harm magical time, later destroyed by the green-rush culture.
There are many other topics around social justice that were standard here long before wider adoption.
The local author, Jentri Anders, in her 1990-ish book “Beyond Counterculture…” saw this with clarity, making sense of this place for a new arrival. Her book and ideas have aged very well and I recommend it to anyone interested.
Dave is a good guy. The business is another victim of Prop 64 and all its fallout.
The abatement program. Healthy black markets exist just not here.
Sad to see it go, it paved the way for many Back-to-the-Land and other folks, and was part of a marvelous turn in off-grid consciousness – which led, I feel, to the expansion of roof top solar inter-tie systems as well.
While the store/business itself is closed now, the movement to solar and other AE projects large and small was definitely helped by what AEE did and made available,
They were, and are, Solar Pioneers in the history of renewable energy.
And while I appreciate the article I have one disagreement with it… “ Saying goodbye to AEE Solar is turning the last page of a chapter in the big book of the Back-to-the-Land movement.” I would say it is turning A page, not the last one.
Back-to-the-Land movements are eternal and seem to flow in waves. Certainly in the 1940s and 1960s, and I see that there are new young people heading that way again now as land prices come down.
Back-to-the-Land does not necessarily include cannabis farming, and one of the factors in some folks NOT starting their own homestead was the inflated real estate prices during the heyday of growing.
I got my first AEE catalog in 1987 while living near Santa Cruz and planning on off grid-living…First goal, find a reasonable place to begin a homestead. Just happened to be in Piercy.
The rough shack that was on the land had a small, old solar panel and a dead CAT Battery, I hooked them together with some switches and a meter on site and had a light and the radio- Hello…KMUD… the meter was branded Alternative Energy Engineering- I later donated that old panel and the meter to the collection of Bryan Norkunas- the owner of the successor business in the Redway location- PV cables. Who also helped me with an upgrade from antique PV panels to bigger ones only 10 years old, funny, a majority of the PV panels I have had were recycled, or re-rated off casts, the originals slightly scorched from the reflectors used at the decommissioned Carrizo plain Arco Solar site.
Just about then solar water pumping was becoming a thing, with the help and ready advice of the AEE crew in the funky Garberville location, where Tsunami sport is now, I spent the next 5 years upgrading pumps to get water up 175 feet from a spring to a gravity feed tank for house and garden. The pump I finally settled on 25 years ago, a big cast iron piston pump and its 1/2hp motor after various overhauls for consumable parts a couple of teardowns still runs whenever when the sun comes out. By happenstance the one it replaced I sold with all its fittings and a filter mounted in a nice box in the parking lot of AEE with the blessing of the crew, a good deal for the purchaser. I used the proceeds to buy a linear current booster for the new pump.
I bought a new modern panel with same easy to handle dimensions of the old Arco from David when he was having a yard sale of the odds and ends that had to go as he moved out of the Redway building.
My first Panel purchase was 48 watt Kyocera panel that cost about $500.
We milked the low capacity of that Old heavy equipment battery until a couple of 6v L16’s arrived, I went through a few generations of those before Bryan hooked me up with nice sealed lead acid 12v cells designed for the more refined remote telemetry stations and the like.
I once ordered a Pioneer turntable from the Branscom’s Sears catalog store, now rdio shack and immediately took it to AEE to borrow a screwdriver and take it apart to confirm a transformer-ectomy would make it useable with my 12 vdc system. then did the same with a phono pre amp I got from Nat Childs shop next to NAPA. Charlie once coached me on what size resister was appropriate for my homemade sardine can AA battery charger, and fished an old fan blade out a bin that fit a nifty little motor I had.
For a time, my neighbor Elaine was assembling Highlifter pumps upstairs at the shop. Fiddling with little stainless steel and nylon parts.
Back when they were offering white label catalogs, I thought if I lived anywhere else in the world, running a small solar energy equipment supply shop could be successful activity.
Still running the house on 12vdc, LED lights, and allt he electronics of the modern age are kept humming and happy with solid pure sine wave 350 inverter, including my electric bike battery. Down the hill a 400 watts run a 24vdc pumps the water, never did get around to owning a refrigerator.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
@waking
Thanks for posting this! Bring back memories. Proves persistence wins every time.
Wow, I just looked it up, my SolarForce pump has actually been providing domestic water with a 175′ lift and 900′ of pipe for 30 years! couldn’t have done it with out AEE.
And, the pace of pumping, only during the solar window, virtually guarantees it is impossible to ever over-pump from my spring source.