Solar panels and sunny forecasts: Grape Solar's first year
EUGENE, Ore. -- When Grape Solar opened in Eugene nearly a year ago, CEO Ocean Yuan said the firm would hire up to 300 people within a year and pay high wages - welcome news in a community facing double digit unemployment.
But nearly a year later, the solar panel firm on Pacific Avenue has hired just six employees: one receptionist and five engineers.
The company has used unpaid interns recruited from the University of Oregon and Lane Community College. Two of those interns filed complaints with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries saying there were treated unfairly and received thousands owed in back pay.
Chuck Forster, executive director of the Lane Workforce Parternship, said Grape's first year has been largely a disappointment for a community desperately needing good jobs.
"When you've got 20,000 people looking for work," Forster said, "your hopes are going to go up pretty quickly, and your emotions are going to drop pretty fast when you see these jobs not coming through."
Yuan said Grape remains committed to its plan of hiring 300 employees but needs to build up its business first.
"That's still a feasible outlook if our business grows," Yuan said. "You have to be sustainable financially ... when it comes to when you do your hiring."
As for the BOLI claims, Yuan said he wasn't familiar with Oregon's law on internships, which generally requires employers to pay interns if they are doing work that doesn't provide educational experience.
"I learned from that lesson and will do it professionally" from now on, Yuan said.
In April, Yuan gave KVAL News a tour of Grape's facility, a warehouse in a west Eugene business park. Walking through the solar panel displays, Yuan said he is optimistic for his company's future.
He acknowledged Grape's hiring had been slow. But Yuan said the company is exceeding its financial forecasts by a large margin.
He said privately-held Grape posted $20 million in revenues in its first 6 months, and will grow to $200 million by the end of the year.
He said the firm is now selling panels to residential and commercial customers in the Northeast, Canada, India and South America.
Locally, he said Grape has sold to Advanced Energy Systems, Growing Solutions and is in talks with Jerry's Home Improvement Center.
"We're talking about a $2 billion company within five years in Eugene, Oregon," Yuan said. Asked if he meant billion with a B, Yuan responded: "$2 billion within 5 years."
"We want to be the largest solar company in the world. Sounds crazy, right? But it's so possible," he said.
Grape doesn't build the solar panels in Eugene. Instead, the panels are imported from affiliated manufacturers in China, where Yuan worked earlier in his career after graduating with a business degree from the University of Oregon.
Grape assembles the panels into kits and then sells them worldwide by the kilowatt-hour, often to customers who reap generous government tax credits for embracing renewable energy.
Unlike many solar companies in Oregon, Grape has not applied for or received a state subsidy, said Diana Enright, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Energy.
Grape burst on the Eugene business scene last year going by the name of Centron Solar. But the company had to change its name after a German firm -- Centro Solar -- filed suit, claiming trademark infringement. Yuan said he chose the name Grape partly because of the fruit's connection to the sun.
Yuan said the company is well-positioned to tap into the growing market for solar panels.
"We don't borrow any money from the bank. We're debt free. We're very strategic in what we plan to do and very global," he said.
Interns complain to state, receive settlement
Last summer, Paul Hughes-Rod found an ad for an internship on craigslist.org. He said it looked like a great opportunity -- a chance to learn about an emerging industry, get some experience and maybe a letter of recommendation.
But a week or so into the intership at what was then called Centron, the LCC student found himself entering hundreds of sales leads into a database. Hughes-Rod and another intern told BOLI that data entry was not what they signed up for, and they were putting in long hours but not getting much useful experience.
"It's unfortunate," Hughes-Rod said. "I think they decided to save on the startup costs and take advantage of college students in summertime to get the ball rolling for them. And that just happened to be me."
Yuan denied that and said he strives to treat all employees fairly. He paid $3,350 to settle the two claims.
