A stormy start for this LI chief exec
Chief executive Stephan Rottach says his company in Edgewood, SRI Holdings AG, will hire 15 more people in the next year. The company’s executive assistant, Monica Hardiman, is at left. (June 10, 2011) Credit: Ed Betz
Stephan Rottachhad a flaky start on Long Island.
The chief executive of renewable-energy company SRI North American Corp., a unit of SRI Holding AG in Durach, Germany, was trying to set up an office in Edgewood in December, as well as a home on the Island's North Shore for himself, his wife, Melanie, and their 1-year-old daughter, Emma.
Rottach was already on the Island before the Christmas storm last December. But his wife and daughter arrived in the middle of the Dec. 26-27 blizzard, the first of a very snowy winter. The family's furniture arrived during the second blizzard, Jan. 11-12. And the last piece of equipment for SRI's Edgewood building arrived -- you guessed it -- during the third blizzard, Jan. 26-27.
Rottach and Andreas Fischer, SRI's chief operating officer, dusted themselves off, and in the less than six months the SRI unit has been here, it has hired 10 Long Islanders, nine of whom had been unemployed.
SRI has won three contracts for solar energy equipment, one from a neighbor, Direct Grid Technologies Inc. And SRI has spent about $4 million on machinery and building upgrades.
Rottach said he plans to hire 15 more people in the next year or so.
"We made our way through the snow," said Rottach.
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