By KENNETH AARON, Business writer
First published: Sunday, April 15, 2001
Plug Power leader is coach, teacher
Colonie -- President, chief executive brings 30 years of Ford experience to job
There's a new coach in the dugout at Plug Power Inc.
Roger Saillant's appointment late last year as president and chief executive at the beleaguered company signaled that officials there were determined to become a fuel-cell maker instead of just a fuel-cell developer.
The Plug roller coaster hasn't stopped since the company went public at the end of 1999. Shares soared, shares fell, management left. Now, Plug's partners, insiders and analysts are starting to say the addition of Saillant -- and others -- looks like a good move.
"If we weren't with Plug Power today, we should be tomorrow,'' said Henning Rittsteig, a business-unit manager at German heating-appliance maker Vaillant GmbH. His company is developing a product with Plug, scheduled for release in 2004, that both heats a building and generates electricity.
It wasn't always so smooth. At times, Rittsteig said, there were frustrations about working with a company not as geared to make something real. "They're pros now,'' he said. "It makes us believe more strongly in their success.''
David Smith, a Salomon Smith Barney analyst who covers Plug, said the company, headquartered on Albany Shaker Road in Colonie, deserved kudos for putting someone like Saillant in charge. "I think the one thing about fuel cells, the mentality has to be, 'We're going commercial,' '' he said.
At an invitation-only analyst event on Thursday, a term commonly used to describe the company's management was "gray-haired.''
Over the past several months, new executive hires have included Saillant, with more than 30 years' experience at Ford Motor Co. and its Visteon parts-making spinoff; John F. Alter, hired in March as Plug's vice president of research and system architecture after a stint at Eastman Kodak Corp. and a 30-year career at Xerox Corp.; and Mark Sperry, hired last May as the company's chief marketer after 15 years at Xerox.
That's a good thing for a company trying to overcome start-up hangups, when commercialization takes a back seat to neato technology.
One of Plug's biggest challenges will be to slash its fuel-cell costs. If the product is not competitive with electricity delivered the traditional way -- over transmission lines -- then it never will reach mass-market acceptability, which is where Plug wants to go. After all, its stated goal is to be the first company to sell 1 million fuel cell systems.
That's not likely for years to come, though: In 2005, the company plans to sell just 30,000 to 50,000 units.
Saillant's background is in chemistry. But technological know-how is "only one part of the story,'' said David Meador, senior vice president of finance at DTE Energy in Detroit, which co-founded Plug.
"Back when I was at Chrysler, we used to watch Roger a lot at Ford,'' he said. "Roger, I think, is known for being soft-spoken and humble and straightforward, but at the same time, having a very strong vision.''
Smith, of Salomon Smith Barney, said Saillant has "got a great background in manufacturing ... I have to give the company full credit for hiring him.''
Saillant said his buddies at Visteon regard some of what he's doing to revamp the organization as nearly amateurish.
Part of it involves asking people to abandon what they believed in order to get better as they move forward. "Giving up what you believe is the first step,'' he said.
So instead of trying to master the development of every part of a fuel cell -- simple in concept but extremely complicated to build, as the guts of the products were on full view Thursday -- Plug designers are accepting a move to outsource many components in future products.
The us-against-the-world mentality is not necessarily productive, said Saillant, who has gone so far as to send letters to competitors urging them to solve common technical problems together. It's not clear whether they'll bite; the letters just went in the mail.
On a tour Thursday, company officials and engineers pointed to several components they have simplified greatly. A mess of pipes and valves, for instance, soon will be replaced by a single molded plastic box. Dozens of wires used to monitor the pulse of the fuel cell will be replaced by an easy-to-attach, pre-wired strip.
"We're doing everything we can to keep costs down,'' Saillant said. "We're sending letters postage due. Whatever it takes.''
Meador went on the tour, too, and noticed a big difference now from when he was at the Latham plant last year. "A year ago, I think I saw a bunch of test units, but generally you just didn't get a feeling that the group was as well-organized,'' he said. Cost problems, or simplification problems, were not easily solved.
"I saw more than that, too -- I saw a lot of people speak up for their areas (of expertise) in a very confident way (last week),'' he said.
Some said that Saillant may be a tough driver, but he has a soft side, too. On Friday, for example, Plug workers got an unscheduled day off -- a thank-you from Saillant for putting in lots of hard work in getting the company ready for Thursday's event.
"What I heard from people was that he was playing the role of a coach and a teacher,'' Meador said. |
