Saving Today’s Environment

PurposeEnergy

“SAVING TODAY’S ENVIRONMENT”

NAME: CORNELIUS ZENAS CHRISTIAN

ID NO: 300849797

COURSE: BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS - 1 (BUSN732-003)

DATE: 26TH JULY 2015

INSTRUCTOR: PROF. CLIFFORD MICHAELS

PurposeEnergy- Eric Fitch’s Vision for a Clean Environment

Introduction

This report showcases the details about Eric Fitch, a innovative and dynamic entrepreneur and the founder of a biogas project company PurposeEnergy Inc. it highlights how Fitch’s education and work experience synergized with his vision for healthier and safer environment guided his career towards entrepreneurship. It also brings out his growth, progress and challenges to fulfill his vision. In order to prepare this report, several articles were consulted. The research and information gathering about Fitch and PurposeEnergy are presented here.

Eric Fitch – a dynamic U.S. Entrepreneur

Fitch is a successful entrepreneur from Boston, Massachusetts. He is the founder of PurposeEnergy Inc.: a biogas facility project that converts the waste byproducts from the beer brewing industry into renewable natural gas, treated water, and organic fertilizer.  

Education and Career

Fitch graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Mechanical engineering degree (1991-1996) also accomplishing his Masters degree in the final year of the term. He started working as a Product Development Engineer in ACX, Inc. (1996-1999) and continued as a Senior Mechanical Engineer in SynQor, Inc. for a short duration of time. He further continued working in several companies and assuming different job roles as a Packaging Team Leader, Senior Sales Executive and a Contract Negotiator. He became Director of the Board of 484 Phi Alpha Foundation in 2001 and is continuing as the same till present. He became the founder chairman of his dream project PurposeEnergy in 2006 and is committed as Chief Operating Officer Role. He holds nine U.S. patents and one international patent.

Motivation behind PurposeEnergy

During his graduation, Fitch developed a passion for brewing beer. Over a conversation with one of his college sports teammate over the issues dwelling in beer brewing industry, his mind stroked the opportunities over beer brewing industry at that moment. He worked summers on the family farm and was familiar with the anaerobic digesters and related technology. He already had the pre-thought of doing something different as he had been working over other people’s start-ups and wanted to start his own company.

PurposeEnergy – The Innovative Enterprise

Eric Fitch started PurposeEnergy Inc. in 2006. As he was already aware of the disposing technologies for the beer brewing industry and familiar with the machineries related to it, he started working on a hybrid farm digester along with wastewater treatment plant builders and modified it to an extent that it capably handled the high concentration of brewery waste solids.

In July 2010, with the help of the project, the biphase orbicular bioreactor went online at Magic Hat, where it started extracting energy from the waste grains. The resulting natural biogas is used by the brewery to supply power to the plant. 200 cubic feet of biogas per minute is produced by the device. The bioreactor has enormously efficiently treated the plant’s wastewater as well, removing almost 100 percent of the organic matter. It is also designed to utilize the waste heat from the generator’s exhaust, coolant and engine oil to heat the digester and preheat the water used in the brewing process (renewable project of the year, 2010).