Geronimo's Rebrand, Marketing, and the Importance of the Farmer-Founded Ethos to Winning Community Trust

My latest Scaling Clean guest is Blake Nixon, CEO of Geronimo Power, formerly known as National Grid Renewables. Blake discusses Geronimo’s rebrand and what it signals for the company’s future. He also shares the inspiring story of his mentor, Geronimo Power founder, Noel Rahn.

As a marketing and PR professional, I’m always curious to hear how different cleantech companies develop their marketing program. Blake had an interesting take (25:26): 

Melissa: At what point did you hire a full-time marketing person? 

Blake: 

“I'd say it was year five. We were probably 12 or 15 people. If you think about what we do, so much of it is building trust. It's not just customers, vendors, or construction partners that are building projects. It's really communities. 

That's your initial sale. 

That's why the first thing you should read every time you look up Geronimo Power is we're farmer-founded and we're community focused. Anybody will build you a project, anybody will sell you some commodities. Our core nexus – and I believe this is more important today than ever – is at that foundation and in the community. 

And I think it's the most overlooked part of our industry. It's to the peril of those who overlook it.”

I want to underscore the importance of his last point. My Tigercomm colleague, Ayelet Hines, leads our community engagement work that’s focused on helping developers apply a campaign mindset to win permits in rural communities. This task is increasingly difficult with shifting political tides, as well as resentment fueled by social media and anti-renewable interests.

A few more standout moments from our conversation:

1️⃣  6:20 - Be a risk taker. It doesn't get easier to take risks as you grow older. So take them young.

2️⃣ 7:43 - At any point in your career, you can choose how much you want to grow in your role. You can stick to a job description, or you can add your own ideas. You get to decide. 

3️⃣ 18:39 - Mistakes come with leading a company. It’s your job to experiment, push limits, and learn what works or doesn’t. Get comfortable with not knowing and needing to ask questions.

I want to acknowledge Blake’s praise for his PR and marketing team members - more than once in this conversation he gave them a shout out. 

Marketing communications and PR are 10 people’s jobs: PR, social media, website, SEO, advertising, copywriting, content creation, event planning, internal comms, and now SEO for AI. The list has variations, but you get the point. 

So much work goes into planning a community event or a ribbon cutting. Even more goes into executing a company rebrand. Blake said the spreadsheet of action items for the rebrand had over 500 items. Kudos again to Emily Morissette, Lindsay Drew Smith, and others on Blake’s team for “flipping the switch” so seamlessly. And thanks to Jennifer Haugen for helping us set up this interview. 

Thanks, Blake, for sharing your wisdom with the cleantech community. Congrats to Geronimo and their marketing team for completing the major rebrand!

Listen to our conversation at the link below, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Also listen on Apple, Spotify, Radio Public, Amazon Music, and iHeart.