about us

SunReports, Inc. was founded in January 2008 by HP Baumeister. Early development was centered around providing a place where users are able to store and manage their manually collected energy data, a service that remains in effect today. By developing tools for users to record both their solar PV data as well as their household energy data, SunReports has created a valuable location for the management, analysis, and comparison of energy data across multiple user sets. Recent innovations include the development of a 'monitoring system on a chip' which allows very low cost, 'zero configuration required' hardware at the user location, as well as a patent pending way of communicating with solar PV inverters.

SunReports is privately held. If you are interested in finding out more about SunReports or have an interest in making an investment, please contact Thomas Dinkel, CEO, at tdinkel@sunreports.com.

Founder, Chairman of the Board

Hans-Peter ("HP") Baumeister

HP Baumeister founded SunReports after becoming frustrated by his own solar PV system’s performance issues. An engineer by training, he began to record and analyze the readings from his inverter and realized that “something” was amiss. It was only through his data, persistence and numerous calls to his installer that they discovered that his system had been wired incorrectly, and as a result was performing at only about 2/3rds of its capacity. He would have never recovered his investment if the problem had not been corrected.

HP is a senior international business executive with in-depth business experience in general management, strategy, business development, marketing, sales as well as technical/R&D functions, in major corporations such as Eastman Kodak, Royal Philips Electronics, Tellabs, and now Fraunhofer, as well as in startups. He has spearheaded new business creation by identifying, initiating, developing and managing new businesses (i.e. in streaming media, IPTV, video conferencing, mobile content portal, electronic identification systems, solar system monitoring). HP has generated over twenty patents.

HP is passionate about renewable energy and energy efficiency, areas that are experiencing rapid market acceptance, growth and thus represent major business opportunities.

CEO

Thomas Dinkel

Mr. Dinkel (Tom) has over 20 years in the Renewable Energy and CleanTech marketplace. Beginning with leadership roles at both Honeywell and Johnson Controls in the energy conservation arena, Tom has been active on both the Utility- and the Customer-side of the energy meter throughout his career. He joined Whisper Communications as employee #7 in the mid-90s and helped define the AMI, SmartGrid and SmartMetering markets, securing projects with Portland General Electric and BC Gas. His career has been one of innovation, early stage company development, and creativity in the executive ranks.

Recently, he helped the innovative solar metering company FatSpaniel get into the marketplace. As an early member of their Advisory Board and later once they received funding as their first VP of Sales he established FatSpaniel as one of the leaders in the emerging solar monitoring marketplace.

Tom graduated from University of Washington with a Masters in Business Administration, and was a scholarship recipient for an exchange to the Cranfield School of Management in the UK while at U of W. He also graduated with an Undergraduate Degree from Oregon State University, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Business.

Executive Vice President - Chief Financial Officer

Dennis Evans

Dennis is a seasoned veteran with over 30 years of executive and financial management experience with both public and private companies in a broad range of industries including software, hardware, internet and public accounting (Price Waterhouse). Dennis is the former Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Secretary of Computer Access Technology Corporation (CATZ) where he guided them through the completion of a successful Initial Public Offering. Prior to joining SunReports, Dennis held senior financial executive positions with other high tech companies including Whisper Communications, Data Transit, Sherpa, and Space Applications.

VP of Engineering, User Experience

Carri Norton

Ms. Norton has over 14 years of experience architecting, designing, and implementing customer-facing software applications, as well as staffing and developing successful, energized engineering teams. At Renaissance Learning, she led her team during their transition from desktop- to enterprise-level software. During this time, she gained firsthand experience in scaling applications and databases. She has always had a strong focus on usability and creating applications that are easy to use, efficient, and elegant. Throughout her career, she has applied simple, clean design to the applications she has developed, and always makes sure a good customer experience is a priority.

She was Senior Manager of the group creating Shutterfly's desktop photo management client. She also co-founded Aspen Learning, a startup creating Web 2.0-based collaborative educational software for the classroom. As the VP of Engineering at Aspen Learning, she was responsible for all architecture and development of the user application.

Carri received a BA from Kalamazoo College and studied in Erlangen and Cologne, Germany, where she learned to speak German. Her background in leadership, enterprise software design, and user interface development puts her in a great position to help grow the SunReports team.

VP of Engineering, Architecture

Christian Ey

Christian (Chris) has over 10 years experience in software design, architecture and hands-on engineering in companies ranging from an unknown 11 employee startup in Germany, all the way to Netscape Corp. His passion is designing and creating cutting edge web applications using open source technologies. As a consultant at MGM Technology Partners in Munich, he laid the groundwork for half a dozen web applications, ranging from photo-sites to the tax system. He led architecture, design and development of ELSTER Online, the web application for accessing Germany's tax system. Back in Silicon Valley, Christian led the internationalization project of Cataphora Inc.'s web application and rebuilt the shipping application of Rearden Commerce Inc. from the ground up.

He is responsible for SunReports' technology stack, product and application implementation, and hosting. Christian graduated from University of Karlsruhe, Germany. During this time he studied abroad in Michigan for over a year and spent an internship in Silicon Valley. He is fluent in English and native in German.

VP of Engineering, Hardware

Ron Butterworth

Mr. Butterworth has been working in Silicon Valley for over 16 years with a passion for new product development, hardware design and project management. Prior to joining SunReports, he worked for a variety of both start-ups and mature companies.

As Co-founder of Aspen Learning, he was VP of Hardware and Operations, leading a team to produce a low cost server platform for the education market. Ron was recently Engineering Manager at Arira Design where he worked on a home networking device, a DOD communications platform, a touch screen driver for a not-yet-introduced PDA. He was Director of Engineering at MetaSound, an internet based messaging company, and has held lead engineering roles in companies such as Philips Multimedia (text based screen phone), OcTEL Communications (voice mail), Vadem (Windows CE PDA), AlphaSmart (ultra low cost computers for the educational market), and SET Engineering (dsl modem for VOIP). Ron’s focus has been to lead teams that produce high quality, high volume products, including architecture, operations, schematic capture, layout, code development, prototyping, mechanical design, manufacturing release, and field support.

Ron holds a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering with an Applied Mathematics Minor, from California State University, Chico.

General Manager, UK

Harold Forbes

Harold’s first job was with the IT department of a manufacturing company and he joined just as they were celebrating upgrading the mainframe CPU memory from 1 to 2MB. His role there was to provide an interface between the technology and the business users in a language both could understand, a skill that still has relevance today.

Most of his career was spent in marketing and market planning in high growth firms. He developed a deep understanding of how customers in markets develop and grow and the challenges that firms face in adapting to that change. His most recent project was putting that knowledge to use for the London Innovation Centre, a project designed to help early stage entrepreneurs.

Harold has published a book in the UK called "How to be a Humankind Superhero: a manifesto for individuals to reclaim a safe climate".

Harold has a Bachelor of Science Technology and Business from the University of Strathclyde and has completed executive education at the University of Miami and Ashridge College. He is responsible for developing the commercial opportunities for SunReports in the UK.