OLDS — A town councillor says his decision to sell energy and internet services through a company he bought is not in conflict with his position as a town councillor, nor does he see it as a competitor to the community-owned Olds Institute, which has Mountain View Power and O-NET under its wing.
Mitch Thomson staked out that position during a recent interview.
Thomson and his wife Jennifer have bought Residential e.nrg Services, a Calgary-based company that sells electricity and natural gas and has been operating for about nine years. Jennifer is also continuing to operate a daycare centre the couple set up.
They bought the business in January after Mitch parted ways with the Olds Institute (OI) last year. He had served as its executive director for seven years. His last day of work was Dec. 31.
Over the next couple of months, the couple plan to rebrand Residential e.nrg Services as Acorn Energy and not only sell power to customers, but also green energy, internet service and smart home products.
Thomson announced the move Feb. 2 on his Facebook page.
Under the umbrella of the community-owned Olds Institute, Mountain View Power sells electricity and natural gas to residents of the area while O-NET provides broadcasting, phone and internet services to local residential and business customers.
During an interview, Thomson said he saw no conflict of interest running this business either in his position as town councillor or as a member of the community.
“There is a little bit of an optic there where people think I could (be competing) but that’s not my motivation,” he said.
The company serves 57 communities from the Raymond/Magrath area in the south to Fort McMurray in the north.
Thomson said small businesses like his in this field currently only control about two per cent of the market, so he says there’s lots of room to grow.
“As it is now, I’m not going out to try and gather Mountain View customers or O-NET customers to this point,” Thomson said. "There’s so much opportunity out there that I don’t really need to go and try and you know – go after previous employers’ customers.”
Besides, he added, his plan is to primarily serve the southern part of the province, which he said is currently underserved.
“We’ve actually had some people that asked about internet and I’ve let them know that I felt their best product was O-NET and that’s who we’re using personally and supporting as well.”
Thomson said so far, he and Jennifer run the company themselves, with assistance from staff at a call centre in Calgary.
“I haven’t hired any staff at this point,” Thomson said. “There are people that have expressed interest in coming aboard but at this point it is myself and the wife and we’re just a small company.”
Thomson said he and Jennifer decided to rename the company as Acorn Energy because “we believe the business has the potential to seed good things in the community. We hope to leave a legacy in each community we serve.”
He said the plan is to donate at least 10 per cent of the profits the company obtains to a charity in each community it serves.
Thomson was asked if Acorn Energy might some day provide TV services of some kind.
"You know, there are some other really neat products that are out there. The way that people are today going to consume content, there are other ways to do that,” he said.
“I don’t expect that we’ll get into the TV market, but providing other internet-enabled services, we likely will in the future.”
