Two discover passion for renewable energy

Staci Matlock | The New Mexican

12/19/2007 - 12/20/07

Henry Herman and Gary P. Miller think big.

Herman is the idea man and development director of Green Energy Wind LLC, a 2-month-old company working with Nambé Pueblo to explore construction of what would be the largest wind-power farm in the state.

Miller started Green Energy Wind and is its managing director.

Herman finds the land and makes the deal for the wind farms. Miller finds the financing.

They call their goal with Green Energy Wind "five by five": Within five years, build wind farms capable of producing 5,000 megawatts of electricity.

The two men's résumés have little to do with wind energy directly.

According to their résumés and interviews, Herman, 37, is a Chicago kid, the son of a U.S. Army paratrooper who fought in the Korean War and an Army paratrooper himself.

He has been a certified rigging engineer with the U.S. Army, testing drop loads like tanks from cargo planes, and has trained with the Army Reserve Special Forces. He ran his own company, Millennium Design Group; designed prototypes for products from dinosaur molds to cellular phone parts; made a lot of money; and sold the business. "I moved to New Mexico to dig for dinosaurs six years ago," he said.

During brief science and technology teaching stints at McCurdy High School and Pojoaque Public Schools, he was picked out of a casting line to act as a stand-in for actors Liam Neeson in Seraphim Falls and Roger Boyce in No Country for Old Men.

But Herman was keeping an eye on the next big thing, and wind farms seemed to be it.

Miller, 43, hails from Monterey, Calif., the son of a U.S. Marine. He worked for 14 years as a music producer and composer in Los Angeles.

Tired of the big city, Miller moved to Santa Fe and became a real estate finance broker. He ran his own mortgage company for a while and now works as a senior loan officer at American Capital Mortgage in Santa Fe. "Someone told me I went from composing and arranging music to composing and arranging financing," he joked.

In August, Herman approached Miller with an idea for developing wind farms. "It piqued my curiosity because I was looking for my next passion, if you will," Miller said. "I felt renewable energy would be the next driver of the economy."

Miller formed Green Wind Energy and is working with investment banks and private investors to raise capital. He said the wind energy industry is growing rapidly, driven in large part by federal tax incentives. But the incentives are not permanent. "There is a sunset on these tax credits, and if the tax credits are not renewed, it will kill a lot of this (wind energy) development," Miller said.

Besides the proposed 300-megawatt wind-energy farm at Nambé Pueblo, Miller and Herman are working on three wind farm proposals in Colorado, each a 50- to 100-megawatt project.

Green Energy Wind is not the only ambitious renewable-energy company Herman is starting in Northern New Mexico. The other is Jet Stream Wind, a company that will manufacture wind turbines and parts for solar and hydrogen power systems. "We will probably become one of the largest manufacturers of renewable energy parts in the country," he said.

Herman said the company's stock will go public in April. He said Green Energy Wind will hire 150 local employees when it opens — "all high-paying jobs but not highly technical."

Herman said land owners interested in housing a wind farm can call him at 920-4874, and Green Energy Wind will pay them an annual rental fee and a percentage of the electricity sales revenue.

Contact Staci Matlock at 470-9843 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.