Mark Swanson

Earlier this year, Aeromine Technologies, the Houston-based renewable energy technology solutions provider, named Mark Swanson as its chief executive officer, signaling the startup’s move into commercial scale manufacturing and deployment. 

Swanson has more than three decades of experience in the solar, manufacturing and related industries with some large organizations, including Ford, Sunpower and Complete Solaria. It was the startup atmosphere and the chance to get in near the ground floor and build the company that drew him to the top position with Aeromine Technologies.

“I was looking for something like this,” he said. “I had been working in large organizations, and I was looking for something that was a little more entrepreneurial.” 

Founded in 2021 by Carsten Westergaard, Martin Manniche and David Asarnow, a trio interested in utility scale wind technology and aerodynamics, Aeromine Technologies develops wind energy generative systems that Swanson said pair well with solar energy initiatives, helping building owners implement more sustainable power sources. 

The CEO was tight-lipped about the clients Aeromine is currently working with.

“We’ve got six units on customer buildings right now,” he said. “We’re about to launch, probably, another nine units in the first half of the new year. We have really great relationships with a large number of very exciting name brands. We have a pipeline of 14,000 inbound inquiries, which is just shocking. I’m stupefied that as a startup we’ve got that many people excited about the idea.”

In June of last year, Aeromine completed a $9 million round of funding led by Veriten, an energy research, investing and strategy firm. Looking ahead, Swanson sees Aeromine as being able to hit a goal of high-volume manufacturing in the next four years.

“There’s an opportunity for wind to become an accepted and common part of the distributed renewable energy portfolio,” he said. “I think in the next four years we’ll be at a point where major building owners will be asking their [engineering, procurement and construction people] to provide proposals around solar, plus wind, plus storage. And I think we’re going to be leading that charge on the wind side.”