Ike Nwabuonwu and Gabriel Okafor, Charmain/CEO and President (respectively) of Alpha Energy and Electric Inc and their team were featured on the cover page of the April 2012 edition of ThinkingBiggerBusiness Magazine. Below are excerps. Download full Magazine story HERE

When Ike Nwabuonwu and Gabriel Okafor started Alpha Energy and Electric Inc. in 2005, the operation was small, to say the least. It consisted of three people in two little rooms at 18th and Vine. Nwabuonwu and Okafor shared an offi ce and had to walk sideways to squeeze between their desks. Because they had invested all of their money in the company, they pooled funds to buy boxes of crackers for lunch.

They can now look back and laugh at the early days of the company, which has experienced impressive growth in its seven years in business. Alpha Energy and Electric has been part of some of the region’s highest-profile construction projects.

The company’s portfolio of services for its commercial, industrial and residential customers includes design/build, systems installation, energy audit and retrofitting, consulting, and design and installation of solar panels and other “green” energy products. Though the organization may come from humble origins, the owners have never had trouble dreaming big and planning for growth from day one.

“We were looking for a sector that had potential, and we identified renewable energy and electrical,” Nwabuonwu said. “Back then, only a few people really knew about the burgeoning industry.”

Today, they don’t have to squeeze between desks anymore: they recently renovated a 10,000-square-foot space in Kansas City for their headquarters and opened a second office.

Plugging In
Nwabuonwu, who is chairman and CEO, came from a background in information technology. Okafor, Alpha’s president, formerly worked in real estate development and municipal service. Neither one had a lot of experience with the energy and electrical sector when they decided to go into business for themselves. Nwabuonwu said both men had to learn quickly, and they did. It was only about six months after the company’s inception that they began to see growth, Nwabuonwu said. Some of their major projects include Sprint Center, Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, Schlitterbahn Vacation Village, the new JE Dunn headquarters and the Miller Nichols Library at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. They installed all of the underground cables, the emergency generator, cable tray, site lighting and some of the suite and concourse lighting at the Sprint Center. Their second offi ce, located in Knob Noster, Mo., was opened to cater to an important client, Whiteman Air Force Base, where Alpha has a contract to perform maintenance. >> Read more
 

===================================================

Source: Tammy Worth (2012). ThinkingBiggerBusiness. VOL. 21 // ISSUE 04 // APRIL 2012

Reprinted with permission of Thinking Bigger Business Media, Inc. ©2012, all rights reserved.

===================================================