ROB KLENNER

>> Craig Gould: Rob Klenner thank you so much for joining me today. Rob, you’re the president of GreenFire Energy. Formerly you were the director of geothermal innovation and Technology at Baker Hughes. Rob, I want to talk to you all about the emerging field of geothermal energy and what’s going on there and your role in that innovation. But with my guests I like to step back because I feel like our road to where we are kind of informs our future. And just wondering, what was your first job? Rob?

>> Rob Klenner: I grew up in South Dakota and so for, people say, you know, people actually live in South Dakota and get out of there and do something. So I’d say my first true job was milking cows. And I, I grew up in the country, small, small farming community. the nearest kind of bigger town city was over 30 miles away. So I, and I live way out in the, in the country, middle of nowhere. and so yeah I would my first job where I remember collecting a paycheck was getting up at 5, 5:30 in the morning, going a couple miles. Either either my m, my parents would have to drive me. But when you’re 14 you can drive yourselves and go milk about 50 head of cattle and take me three hours. Of course as a kid, nobody wants to get up that early and then if I had to do it all over again, I did it all over again about 4 in the afternoon. So that was my first job. Lots of odds and ends along the way of course, just picking rocks and fields, spraying weeds, detasseling, you know, corn and all sorts of things. But yeah, all sorts of farming jobs in the community that I grew up with in South Dakota.

>> Craig Gould: So any lessons from that that you still take with you?

>> Rob Klenner: I, I think it’s more of where have I been and where am I today? Right. And, you know, I, it’s one of those of, I could have done a lot of early mornings, hard labor type jobs, but, you know, getting an education and knowing where I needed to go in kind of my career, it’s, it’s just a good, good reminder, I think, of where I’ve been and where I am today and the value of hard work, I think. And I, you know, try to instill that into my kids. You know, this is, this is what you have to do to earn a few bucks and you got to figure it out from here of where you need to go. So it’s a, it’s just a good reminder of where I came and, you know, wouldn’t trade it, trade anything out of it either.

>> Craig Gould: South Dakota is not known for energy. So how did you wind up in energy?

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, so again, kind of being that small town country, South Dakota kid. You know, South Dakota is not known for energy. And I think it was more, you know, you come from Texas, so people see oil wells all over the place. It’s a fam. Family thing in Texas and some of these other states. You know, thankfully I got to, you know, my parents would go on road trips and we went across country, but I remember seeing an oil well and you’re just kind of fascinated. It’s almost like a mystification of what is this thing? And, and you know, growing up where you, we’re, you know, working these jobs, right, that, that I was telling you about, and you see an oil well and, you know, people still synonymously put it together of, oil and money are two things of the same. And so I was like, hey, you know, I can, why can’t I go figure out where this oil is, drill a well, get something out of the ground. And you know, obviously as you get older and different things and you try to understand where you want to go. But, you know, eventually I kind of settled on geology, and that’s my background. Got a bachelor’s and a master’s in geology and, you know, more so thinking I’d be going into the oil and gas industry. Well, this was around 2000, 2005, and about the same time shale oil was picking up. but I had a professor, he went to SMU. We talked about the SMU connection, Dr. Gosnold, well known in this geothermal community. But I saw something on tv. I was reading something, but, you know, SMU came out with this heat flow map. And so I kind of took A look at this geothermal map and I just said wow, this, this energy is everywhere. Like how do we get this out? It’s like, you know, how do we harness this? It’s base load. And so the, in the end, you know, it was just kind of a curious of what is this energy? How do we get energy out of the ground? And then you know, became more inclined on, on geothermal. Right. This, I, you see the resource, you know, it’s fast, and then it, and then it just, you start to just kind of have an affinity for. And where do we actually go from here and get it out of the ground? So no, it’s just very interesting, very intriguing. You know, my geology, and into geothermal, kind of gave me that interest and then from there kind of mothballed into you know, different things in my career as I have done many, you know, energy career focused jobs over the past, you know, 10, 15 years.

Tell me about the heat map. I mean obviously we think of Yellowstone as a geothermal hotbed

>> Craig Gould: Tell me about the heat map. yeah. Is it. And ah, I don’t mean to get real scientific here. Do we see that where the plates are coming together, where we have these convergent boundaries? I mean, I imagine it seems like places where you would expect to have some earthquakes, honestly. Right. I mean, is that kind of what we see? And it’s not just the west Coast. I mean obviously we think of Yellowstone as being kind of a geothermal hotbed. But there are spots kind of in between the coast where we have a lot of heat down there.

>> Rob Klenner: Well, in general, I tell everyone you can drill pretty much anywhere. It’s just how far do you have to drill to get to a certain temperature? Right. So most of the more economical and favorable areas are your west coast. But you know, then there’s areas that you know, have, have higher temperature gradients where, you know, how do we start? It’s, it’s all about how can we take geothermal and, and do it in other areas where it hasn’t been traditionally done, like a Texas, like a North Dakota, a Colorado, you know, and more wide, widespread. So I think that’s where the interest was because again I was studying at the University of North Dakota and I was like, hey, there’s you know, good temperature gradients here. How do we start to tap into this resource, and use it, you know, and how do we make it more affordable? Right. So then not only are you thinking about geology, then you’re thinking about the new technologies people are talking about. And you know, I’m Lucky enough now that I get to be a part of it. And how do we innovate in this industry to actually make this happen?

>> Craig Gould: And it is a lot of innovation. I mean you, I think you’re actually running an innovation lab in Oklahoma before landing with Green Fire.

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah. So as a part of GE Global research, and just through, you know, different mergers and how things kind of went over time between GE and Baker Hughes. But yeah, we, when I was with ge, they set up this innovation, center basically in Oklahoma City. A first of its kind to look at innovative techniques, and sustainability techniques. So carbon capture, sequestration, geothermal enhanced or recovery. So a very dedicated and focused technology center. and you know, it was great opportunity to learn and grow my skills. So I haven’t been in geothermal my whole career. It’s actually because again, geology is a, you know, a critical discipline in many energy spaces. So carbon sequestration, geothermal, oil and gas. And you know, it’s been fun to just apply my knowledge in those different sectors and over time have been part of that research and innovation, looking at different technologies and it’s always, you know, how do we make it faster, cheaper, cleaner, more affordable? Right. And those are kind of some of the key drivers to push innovation.

Closed loop system is essentially an enhanced oil recovery technique

>> Craig Gould: If I were a stranger sitting next to you at a dinner party who had no idea what your company does, and I wanted you to explain to me what the closed loop system is. How would you start to explain that to somebody?

>> Rob Klenner: It sometimes can be difficult, right? But the simplest form is. And we can talk more about, you know, the different types of geothermal reservoirs. Whereas geothermal today. And you know, there’s very similarities to oil and gas. But the key projects and the key areas that we’re at is, we’re doing a demonstration project at the Geysers in California. So this is an area where, over 500 wells have been drilled over many, many decades. And just like any other type of reservoir, it’s been producing well over time. But as time goes on, maybe pressure depletion and resource depletion from the water mass occurs. and so you always say, well, how do we get this reservoir back to some condition where we’re back to the capacity it was at before. So our kind of target areas of where these current reservoirs is we go into an existing well and we put a, basically a casing in an inside tubular and we stick that down in the current hole in the ground. And then we just start circulating fluid in that closed Loop casing and insulated tubing. So it’s a, you know, two straws, intertwined in each other. We’re circulating fluid in there and the fluid is basically picking the heat up and bringing it back up to the surface. And then we can take that heat and put it into a power, generation unit that uses the heat to generate electricity. So that’s probably the simplest form, but you know, it’s, it’s basic when you describe it that way. But there’s a lot of conditions we have to understand about the subsurface and how well these systems are going to perform.

>> Craig Gould: So, so basically a pipe inside a pipe, so a nested pipe and you are sending, you know, ambient temperature water down the outside pipe. Then you have, just because of the nature of temperatures down there, you wind up having high pressure, high temperature product come back up the inner pipe. And that’s, and that’s what we convert into, you know, I assume electricity, right?

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, electricity. Or it can be used for heat or any other purposes. And you know, I, I tell people, what are you actually trying to achieve? Because geothermal can mean many different things. Sometimes you want to generate power, or sometimes you want to use the heat directly. A lot of industrial processes use heat. And if you’re using the heat directly, you’re not transferring the heat to electricity. It’s, you know, there’s some efficiency factors you lose in that. But in general, where a lot of these reservoirs are already producing geothermal, there’s a lot of wells, there’s a great opportunity and sometimes I explain it to especially people in the oil, in the oil and gas industry. It’s almost like an enhanced oil recovery technique because there’s, you know, this is something that educating the industry of, even on the oil and gas side is there’s a lot of technologies to get hydrocarbons out. Not, not all of them are the same, they’re all good and how you apply them in different reservoirs. And so that’s basically what we’re doing is how do we enhance recovery out of these existing fields, these existing reservoirs around the world. and that’s, to me that’s very exciting because we’re working with some of the top developers in the world on how our technology can be applied in their assets to improve overall heat recovery, in their geothermal field.

>> Craig Gould: From an outsider’s perspective, it seems that the opportunity to repurpose oil wells that have reached their end of life, or maybe we’re dry from the get go, seems like a big Opportunity, because that, that’s a sunk cost. Right. And hopefully, hopefully the well hasn’t been capped. Right. Because uncapping is a huge expense. But if the possibility is there that if an oil well had been deep enough, regardless of whether or not we thought of it as being, a geothermal hotspot, there’s a possibility that you can utilize this to recoup the investment that you had made in that well. Right.

>> Rob Klenner: Currently we’re, we’re in the geothermal fields that there. And there’s some differences between geothermal wells and oil wells. And obviously the temperature is one. So when we’re working in a geothermal well, you know, the temperatures are 400, maybe 500 degrees. Some of these oil wells, yes, it’s hot down there, but they’re about half the size in diameter. You can’t flow as much fluid and then they’re not as hot. So you need heat to make hydrocarbons. You know, that’s kind of just the process of what it looks like. There are some very significant high temperature oil and gas wells. You know, you think about the Haynesville is I think almost 400 degrees Fahrenheit. And other pair, you know, some of these other basins in North Dakota, has some higher temperature gradients. But the challenge is, you know, the amount of flow you need in this type of system and the constriction. So it, it’s basically comes down to they’re not, they’re not developed the same as a typical geothermal reservoir. And it’s, it’s okay because we can go. It’s all about proving your technology and innovating. So, so I want to go to places where I know I can, can do it affordably and scale, you know, scale it. and then as we improve the technology, maybe on a performance, but also on a cost basis, I think that starts then to open up doors where we can look at existing oil and gas wells.

You’re working with oil and gas companies to develop geothermal wells

And we understand there’s so many more oil and gas wells out there than geothermal wells. but in the future that, you know, we are working with oil and gas companies and we said, hey, what if, what could you do to drill an oil and gas well differently to accommodate a system like this? And so it’s, you know, oil and gas continues to evolve. but like you said, if rather than abandoning a well, what else could it be? You know, can we think of this as an energy well rather than just an oil and gas well? And when we start to understand that a little bit more, I Think in the, you know, upcoming decades there’s going to be opportunities for some of these other areas to be also you know, developed for geothermal.

>> Craig Gould: If you put on your strategy hat, you know, are you overlaying the heat map with the electrical grid and where somebody can tie in. Where do you see geographically those opportunities? Is it where geothermal has historically been utilized or do you see opportunities geographically where there’s low hanging fruit in certain areas?

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, and it’s a balance, right, because you don’t want to go try something completely new where it’s never been done before. Now there’s a lot of interest in places like Texas, like Louisiana. And then it comes down to well, what are the power prices there versus a place like California? But in California, you know, we could drill in certain areas there. And there’s, you know, regulatory environments you have to consider as well. So there’s a lot of variables you have to consider. But overall I’d say we’re more positioned to test our technology where we know the heat is, where we know the infrastructure is like, like you’re saying, it lowers the risk overall, from a development strategy and, and you know, just from a economical financial strategy. Right. So most of the projects we’re focusing is in these existing geothermal areas, where we know the heat’s there, we know it’s plentiful, we know there’s some, like you mentioned, a heat source that’s providing the heat there. and so our, yeah, kind of. Our two key projects at the moment in California are centered at the Geysers and kind of helping in field revitalization there, which I think currently produces around 800 megawatts. So it’s a fairly substantial complex with, with numerous operators. And then we’re also looking at other areas. So we’re, we’re down in what they call the Salton Sea, that’s in Southern California, just to the east of San Diego, and working with the Navy there. So there’s a military base, lots of geothermal fields kind of spread around this area. And so we have an opportunity to actually go on base, develop a geothermal power plant that would essentially power this whole military base. And that gets back to, you know, all sorts of reasons to do that. From secure, you know, energy security and you know, kind of diversity too, of you know, different energy supplies and the baseload capability that geothermal brings. So you know, I think again I’m just trying to keep, keep our technology, proven in some of these well known geothermal areas. And then I think as we can bring costs down and improve efficiencies of our technology naturally I think we maybe see an eastward progression where we can, where we can do this in other places.

>> Craig Gould: I had a recent conversation with somebody who ran the innovation lab at Google and he was talking about innovation being an ongoing incremental process. Not thinking of it as a leap forward or big ideas that are out there on the horizon but a matter of what can we do today? Because I mean, and I’m sure that’s important to what you do because there are a lot of people that you need to build consensus with, that need to understand or appreciate. Well we can take this incremental step and get a win and then see where the next step is.

>> Rob Klenner: Yep, yep, exactly. Yeah it’s, and that’s you know, getting, leading by example. Right. You have to have some site where you’ve tested, you’ve showcased what it can do and then it’s all about the product roadmap. How do we, how do we make this more scalable, easier to deploy, cheaper, more available too. So yeah, we’re very, I’d say focused on our key project and getting that into deployment at the end of the year and hopefully the plan is in the first quarter of next year we’ll have a fully commissioned green fire system working in the field. We’ll have a really good understanding of its overall performance and then it’s. Yeah, how do we go from here? How do we replicate this? You know, what did we learn? How do we improve it? So of course we’re gathering a lot of data and information, running things like fiber optics down hole to understand temperature distribution, running different flow rate scenarios of how fast can we run this system because there’s a balance of running too fast, then the temperature is going to be a little bit lower. So, so there’s a lot of things and you know we’ve, we’ve been working with Calpine who’s out there and they’re, they’re a great partner and yeah, just very excited to, to get everything up and running in a full commercial type scale at a, at a well known geothermal reservoir. So we could, we have a really good baseline I think is kind of how I look at it. This is our baseline. How do we go from here type of thinking.

>> Craig Gould: What are the biggest hurdles that you’re having to face? I mean is it regulatory, is it scalability, is it just showing those Incremental wins and being able to establish a profitability margin for people that are already in adjacent energy projects.

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, I see it as the wins kind of the first mover challenges. Right. I, I can go out and tell people all about our technology and how we implement and what, what we can do, you know, the associated costs, where we think they can how much energy they can get out, what, what’s the, what’s the return they would get on the, on the overall investment. And then it all kind of comes back to well we, we want to see one of these out in the field. Give you know, can we get some information. And so to me it’s all about, you know, just leading by doing. I, I think is, and that’s my kind of, my personality too. if I don’t have anything to, to back me up and, and show, show the numbers and, and what it actually can do, it’s very challenging I think from my own perspective. Otherwise I’m, I’m arm waving and coming up with whatever I think I can come up with. Right. So it’s, it’s the first mover, you know, status I kind of see and then from there it’s, it’s really replication, speed to scale I think. And how do, how do we do more of these and how do we innovate quickly and iteratively And I kind of see it similar to again kind of going back to the oil and gas industry. If everybody knew about, knows today about shale and what we can do with the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. But very, very expensive projects, very risky. And where did they start with those? Well they started in well known areas where they knew the technology will work and hopefully get the return on the economics. And then after a while they just kind of tiered out from there. Right. And that’s kind of the same approach I just mentioned. We’ll start in these good areas and we’ll tear out as necessary. But by replicating quickly they were able to bring costs down significantly and ultimately improve performance. Right. And you know, thankfully for, for Green Fire we have you know, key and strategic investors behind us in our Series A oil and gas companies like Baker Hughes, HMP and Valorex. So we have you know, the ability to work with them because they provide key components into our system and at the same time we can work with them to also innovate and scale up and strategically to kind of develop our system too.

>> Craig Gould: I don’t want to get real political but we are in the middle of a transition and I feel like the current administration’s energy plan did have incentives for renewable energy and the next administration has been talking about an emphasis on energy independence. Right. Does your corner of the energy industry play, in both realms? It is renewable, but it’s also able to come alongside this concept of energy independence for the U.S. yeah, I mean.

>> Rob Klenner: Geothermal is a baseload energy supply that people can tap into and to just kind of go back to the program that’s with the Department of, or the Defense Innovation Unit and the Department of Defense at looking at military bases. One of their strategic goals is energy security. Right. And doing this on site, having almost, you know, again, full, full availability of power on the base and you know, geothermal is really the lone base load renewable that that’s available. and I think it plays still key into that energy security, you know, mindset that we need, that we need to have a good understanding. And you know, I think there’s other abilities of the oil and gas industry and what they’re playing as the, as far as their role in this with the technology, you know, most of them have, you know, companies like Baker Hughes and HMP and Valeric have been a part of the geothermal industry for many, many years. And you know, I just say in general that it’s still a key player, I think in energy security. It’s just a matter of again, how do we innovate quickly to make it a key factor, I think in the energy security plan.

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Greenfire is a startup focused on developing geothermal projects globally

At this point in, the life of Greenfire, how are you growing? is it a matter of finding strategic partners? Is it coming alongside, established energy companies from A strategic perspective. How do you foresee growing from where you are to where you want to go?

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, and I think one of the challenges as a startup, and you know, keep in mind, I’ve been in this role for a few months, but, one, you have to navigate who you are as a company. And traditionally Green Fire was, hey, we have a technology. We can help developers, and we’ll sell and engineer the solution. My goal and mindset is how do we sell electrons? How do we develop geothermal projects using our technology as a tool in the toolbox. keeping in mind that there’s other technologies to get heat out of the ground, and then it’s okay. Where can we actually, you know, play in these segments? And I see us on, two different sandboxes, if you will, because again, smaller companies or companies in general like to blame the whole sandbox and just will say, hey, we’re doing everything. Here’s the hockey stick. We’re, we’re gonna achieve everything. And don’t talk to anybody else. and it’s important to, I’d say, understand your sandboxes because your team internally knows what you’re doing and what your strategy is. And so when I, when I talk to internally and externally, I again say our, our key areas are these existing geothermal fields. And we, we’ve had a lot of good reception. we’re working with Kenjin in Kenya, Huge, huge developer there, how our technology can revitalize their field. looking at, EDC in the Philippines, very similar. And then I mentioned Calpine. So these are, I’d say more your field revitalization opportunities, and building out a portfolio like I just mentioned. So working in, with these, you know, top three of the top five developers when it comes to geothermal globally and what our technology can do there. And then it’s, you know, this growing demand of almost behind the meter applications where, how can we bypass the grid but just drill wells on site and just build them for our data center? Build them for a, you know, almost remote communities. We’re seeing a lot of that as well. And then, yeah, military bases are kind of the top of the list as far as behind the meter type applications. So, you know, building out, again, core would be to build out a portfolio in those kind of almost two segments or sandboxes, as I like to say. And then, demonstrating what we can actually do there. and then it’s just replicating that again in those existing fields or, you know, other existing customers. So again don’t want to claim, claim all the territory but I, you know, you have to be, you have to be strategic and understanding of, of what you can do. You know, again we have, we have about 20 people on staff. and then it’s, you know, as we get these in, how do we start to grow and, and replicate quickly, on top of what we’re already doing?

Bitcoin mining operations could use geothermal energy to get cheap energy

>> Craig Gould: In your answer there, it reminds me of when we started talking about the strategic placement of energy alongside corporate facilities that really demand energy. over the last four or five years I’ve been thinking about these Bitcoin mining operations located wherever they can get cheap energy. So traditionally one of the biggest ones was in Iceland, you know, where they were able to use geothermal to get really cheap energy. But just in the news cycle from the last couple of months, you know the news that the growth of AI and the amount of CPU power that’s going to be necessary. Microsoft has bought one of the reactors at Three Mile island to fire it back up to you know, privatize its own energy for the use of its AI. So if I’m imagining right there’s the opportunity that you can partner with somebody and say here’s a hotspot. This would be a great place for us to build an evergreen sort of energy source for you alongside your high energy need location.

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, exactly, that’s. And we have partners we’re talking to on how do we, you know, almost from a greenfield perspective. So you know it’s, it’s still a behind the meter segment and we want to find the most ideal locations where whether it’s the technology where we have several patents, but there’s other technologies we can utilize to get heat out of the ground too. But it’s exactly that of how do we, how do we build and develop geothermal alongside you know all these, under other industries that are scaling very quickly. And you know it’s, it’s fun for me because I hear a lot of conversations and I think they’re, I think people understand now. It’s like wind and solar can only get you so much and there’s only so much you could get and everybody’s fighting for wind and solar right now. And yeah, you’re, you may have to pay a premium right on something like geothermal because well, you don’t have to wait for the wind to blow or the sun to shine. It’s, it’s always there, it’s available and it’s, it’s Attractive, right, For, for people to start. So lots of conversations starting to come in. And this is very supportive for the industry too. Right. So it’s, it’s been great. Now it’s just a matter of rather than putting megawatts on paper, which a lot of, there’s a lot of megawatts on paper, let’s go actually get something in the ground. And I think that’s the difficult part, right? And going back to innovation and everybody wants to go try something, but then when you start talking about the cost of something and maybe the return or the payback isn’t there. Conversations change pretty quickly. And so it’s just trying to find the right partners that are willing to be a little bit more you know, I wouldn’t say risky but just having a, an appetite to for innovation I guess to go try some things and try some new things and how we, how we take these technologies. But yeah, it’s been, it’s been fun to, to kind of be the again going back to small town kid roots. It’s like geothermal is kind of a small town kid. And now you’re finally getting out there and you know, people are looking at you like hey you, you came from somewhere, you know what you’re doing, you got some new technology. How do, how do we go apply this? So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s all about the problem, right? And if we can, you gotta understand the problem and how your solution fits.

I’m keen to working with other industries that are looking for renewables

>> Craig Gould: If you were hoping this conversation to reach the right ears, on the partnership front, how might someone identify as being a great potential partner for you?

>> Rob Klenner: I mean that can mean many things in many industries, right. And you know, I won’t name. Yeah, I think there’s the obvious customers, you know, when you think AI and you know, industrial and data centers, but there’s a lot of other industries out there that are looking for renewables and I, I think a lot of people approach, approach the big companies. but I, I want to talk to other companies, you know, maybe whether there’s, you can call us a startup just in other startups, right. You know, how can we work together? Maybe they have a new approach on an agricultural sector or a, you know, the cement sector. Some of these other industrial sectors that we know we can, we can help and work together. So ah, I want to work with other companies that you know, just aren’t looking for pure climate goals. But want to be a good partner with us as well and work, work together and you know, I, I’m keen to working with, with other industries as well. And, and several of these industrial energies or industries are, are very interesting. and so, yeah, you know, if anybody’s out there and it’s kind of like us, you know, we don’t get necessarily all the attention and I think there’s other partners that don’t necessarily get all the attention. And you know, I want to go, go work with them and do something together that can kind of set a standard and set a bar and, and behind the meter kind of decarbonization, activities.

So what has your transition been like, going from the Innovation center to being the CEO

>> Craig Gould: So what has your transition been like, going from the Innovation center to being the person at the top of the organization? What have been some of the challenges you’ve had to face there?

>> Rob Klenner: you know, every day comes with different challenges and I think, you know, it’s, there’s always challenges, I think, you know, and it’s, you know, organizationally we have, you know, a lot of remote kind of employees. we have things going on in the field and California, but we’re, we’re spread across everywhere. which can, which, which can be challenging, but it also can be a strength if you look at it that way. And then, you know, it just kind of comes down to making sure our team is focused. because again, you know, being in a startup, you, you want to, you want to go after everything, you want to be talking to everybody. You want to be trying to put yourself out there. But I have to kind of remind everyone these are our priorities of getting projects done and, and lining up some of our key collaborations and partners that we have right now to go on and start executing a few other projects. So I’d say the challenge is having a small team and staying focused, making, sure we’re all on the same page and executing towards the same goals. And it’s just difficult coming from a, a huge organization that I used to be a part of, where resources are, you know, seem endless sometimes. But when I, when I have to do if, you know, a few other things, working with, you know, outside legal or, you know, when it, whether it’s intellectual property and all these other things, I, I think I, you almost take for granted what, what I did before and hey, these people are just. In our organization, you send an email and, you know, they take care of it. Now it, it’s a little bit different, let’s put it that way. And but it, but it’s been, it’s been great. You know, we have the right I believe we have the right team. I believe we’re focusing in, in the right areas. And now it’s just a balance of, you know, how much do, how much do we focus on now and how do we go get more opportunities in the, in the future. So. But overall, it’s fun. And, you know, the other challenge is getting everybody together at the right time to, to make sure we’re all on the same page and moving forward together.

Can you talk a little bit about how you’re thinking about company culture

>> Craig Gould: Well, I mean, I, I don’t think it’s ever too early to be thinking about what your company culture is. Right.

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah.

>> Craig Gould: And can, can you talk a little bit about how you’re actively thinking about the company culture and just the challenges of trying to permeate that when you do have a distributed workforce like you do.

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, no, Company culture to me was probably the first thing I wanted to focus on. you know, we, again, with everybody being remote, it’s hard to communicate sometimes, and roles and responsibilities in a, in a remote and even in a startup can not necessarily be communicated well. And that was one of my first goals, was making sure people understood where and not necessarily their lanes of what they should work on. But, this is kind of, you know, your, your title and, and what your, you know, mission and goal is and, and how you guys work together as a team. which is challenging because when you’re a startup and you’re growing very quickly, everybody’s doing everything and then as you bring in, but you’re bringing in people to help alleviate you from doing everything right. And so I think there was a little bit of people still trying to do all sorts of different things. And, when that happens, you’re not really pushing the ball forward in, in certain directions and things kind of slow down almost a bit too. So, culture, you know, defining our mission of really who we are, defining the goals of what do we want to achieve in, in the short term and the long term, those are all very important. And if you can kind of start to outline those, that’s when people can align a bit better. They see, see an identity. you know, recently we, we rebranded too. We got a nice new logo. and that also helps too, right? Just to kind of say, hey, we’re, moving. We’re moving in a bit of a different, different direction like I mentioned to, to develop our own projects. we have some new team members. And so just, yeah, overall it was a good, A good thing to do. Rebranding just kind of gets everybody kind of like, hey, we’re we’re all in this together, let’s keep moving forward type of mentality. And you know, it’s, it’s just been great to work with everybody and yeah, continue to transform and set your culture. But to me, if, if you don’t have a good culture, it’s very difficult, to run fast and forward with everybody.

>> Craig Gould: No, we were talking earlier about football and how we, we both were offensive linemen at different, stages of. And I mean that was the one thing that I was always thinking about when I was playing the game was it wasn’t just about who I’m supposed to block on this play. I really wanted to know where everybody else was supposed to be on the play. So you can anticipate where the play is going to develop. And so whenever I’ve satisfied my primary responsibility, where can I head to anticipate helping because that’s where the play is developing. And so I don’t know if I’m really one that’s big on sports metaphors, but I kind of see similarity there, right? I mean, you kind of want everybody to know that this is your piece, but this is where we’re headed together.

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah. No, and I like the sports analogies because I use them every once in a while too. I used one yesterday. So, but growing up we were a nine man football team, so we ran the ball all the time. And you know, so you’re just all sorts of blocking and pulling and trap traps and whatever else you need to do as alignment. So sometimes you’re moving a bit faster than usual. but, yeah, my, my football coach, I don’t want to. He, he, he passed away, six or seven years ago. But this, you know, I called him up and I said before he passed away because he but, but I said to him, I said, hey, football wasn’t about winning or losing. And it taught me several things in life, right? Like you just said, teamwork, strategy, working, hard, the outcomes. You win together, lose together. And you know, and you know, it’s more, more than just winning or losing, but you learn things along the way and, but anyway, kind of rolling into where, where I’m at now. And you know, my, my kids will say, hey dad, you know, are these, I heard this guy’s working for you now. How is that going? And I go, you know, I don’t really see people working for me. You know, I see us as like you said, a team. And then I tell them, I go, I kind of see me as the Coach, you know, I need to make sure people are in the right position at the right time, understanding, the strategy and who we’re playing and who we’re going against or whatever. And then, you know, I have my offensive coordinators, defense coordinators, and other people. But, you know, even at the same time, I, I need to jump in and be alignment or whatever. It may be right to do things and get things done and lead the way as necessary too. So, yeah, I’ve told our team a few times, or other individuals, I go, you don’t work for me. We’re a team. I’m a coach. You’re the, Your job’s the offense coordinator, run the plays, get, you know, get to where we need to go to score the touchdowns and, and then when it comes to the field, you know, making sure we have the right people to, to execute. So that’s kind of how. Yeah, very, very similar. I, you use, use them every once in a while, the sports metaphors. But anyway, that’s kind of how I, I see us as a, as an organization and as we kind of grow, it’s, you know, making sure we have all the right players on the field to, to get us to where. Where we need to be.

>> Craig Gould: Well, Rob, if folks were interested in learning more or reaching out to you or following you on socials, where, where’s a good place for people to, to keep an eye on Green Fire or engage with you?

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, I mean, LinkedIn, I’m, is. I’m not on anything else. I’d say LinkedIn is probably a place where people can easily find me and follow me and follow what Green Fire is doing. You know, we put out some content every once in a while to those interested and, you know, can send you kind of a quarterly update on different activities that we’re doing. But we have a great marketing team, so they’re, they’re putting us out there giving updates. And I’d say LinkedIn’s probably, probably the, best way to find out what we’re doing and what we’re up to and partnerships, projects, whatever it may be. And we’re, Yeah, I’m always willing to educate people too. So if they have questions and want to know about geothermal energy, I’m sure we can support that too.

Rob, thanks for sharing your insights on geothermal energy with us

>> Craig Gould: Well, Rob, I really appreciate your time and, it’s been a really informative conversation. It’s, illuminating on, an industry I really didn’t have a lot of knowledge of, and I, I really appreciate you opening it up. And telling us all about your company, your field, your path, your, your journey. And, Rob, thanks for being my guest today.

>> Rob Klenner: Yeah, no, thanks for having me. And, you know, pleasure to, to talk more about this and hopefully people, when they’re out there, listen to this. When next time someone says, hey, tell me what you know about renewables, they say geothermal first, before wind or solar, because that’s what I’m up against, whenever they ask that question. So make sure, geothermal is at the top of your mind. And, yeah, thanks for having me again and being able to share everything about us.

>> Craig Gould: Absolutely.