Anthony Maslin will be heading to the Maldives in two months to fulfil part of the dream he had for his company, Solar Energy Systems.
When the 2004 40under40 winner set the company up six years ago, his aim had been to create something that could bring water to the developing world and turn a profit at the same time.
Mr Maslin will spend three months in the Maldives honing the business model behind the company’s Solar Flow solar-powered desalination project by setting up and running the water retail business.
He said the water purification and retail business should deliver a steady income stream to the company operating it, once any problems with it were dealt with.
The Maldives community involved with the Solar Flow trial currently buys its water from Coca Cola.
The Maldives move also better suits the former Hartley Poynton stockbroker’s start-up style.
In recent times he has stepped back from the day-to-day running of the company, leaving that to new CEO Duncan Stone.
Mr Maslin, by his own admission, is more of a business creator than a business manager.
He said the resignation of SES chief operating officer Greg Allen last Christmas had caused him to reassess his own role in the company.
Mr Stone had been responsible for the company’s acquisition of Solco, a WA company that made solar hot water systems much favoured in the Australian outback.
That acquisition took SES away from being a one-product company reliant on the volatile agricultural market and may have paved the way towards its maiden profit.
One driver for the deal was that SES’s Sun Mill distributors were already stocking the Solco water heaters.
“One of the exciting things from the Solco deal is that now we have more products, we become more important to our distributors and they push our products harder,” Mr Maslin said.
SES had been relying on its Sun Mill solar powered water pump to secure income.
With much of the rural economy struggling under drought conditions, Sun Mill sales fell, causing SES to post a larger loss for 2003-04 than it had for 2002-03.
Mr Maslin said the past financial year had been disappointing, as he had hoped the company would have posted its maiden profit.
With the Solco business added to the SES range, and first quarter sales for Sun Mill trending up, he is confident of that maiden black ink appearing on the 2004-05 annual report.
SES’s other offerings include a projects business, which Mr Maslin said performed well last year, a battery saver, and its Hobby Mill range of smaller solar-powered pumps.
SNAPSHOT
- Anthony Maslin was a 2004 40under40 winner.
- He is executive director of Solar Energy Systems.
- Former stockbroker with Hartley Poynton.
- Heading to Maldives to oversee major SES project.