Red
Herring…
A Good
Thing?
THE WARMEST SOLUTION
Keith McKinzie’s solar powered shades look sharp and heat your home to boot.
BY KATIE PELTON
IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES of conversation, it’s obvious that Keith McKinzie’s conviction for his product is the key to his success. When he says, “This is the best
product in the market and I’ll tell you why,” he’s not being
conceited; this Two Harbors, Minn. native can back it up.
After starting as a hobby in college, McKinzie’s Solar
Choice has become a booming business and his profits double on a monthly basis.
“When I saw the price of gas go up a few years ago, I
thought, ‘Look what I’ve done to my fuel bill with this [solar
heater] I’ve built’,” McKinzie says. “I got it tested at a university and they said this is the right product and it will work for
about anywhere with a south facing window.”
“There are no moving
parts, zero emissions
and no carbon problems.
This is about as green
as it gets.” —KEITH MCKINZIE
McKinzie started solarchoiceheat.com and “hooked
up with the proper people”—a.k.a. an investor who helps
emerging companies grow.
While all other solar heaters on the market are placed
outside, Solar Choice is the first of its kind to work from
indoors, giving it a significant advantage. This is especially
true in our fair, frigid state where this solar heater doesn’t
require additional energy to combat the freezing temps.
Masquerading as vertical blinds, the heater works
for any and all south-facing windows. The product
places highly absorbent metal into a plastic sleeve to
create natural convection that results in capturing the
sun’s heat. It brings the cold air off the ground and
pumps the hot air in.
Although McKinzie and his five employees also work
with national distributors for hotel chains and schools,
his website is the easiest way for consumers to purchase
this true energy-saver.
“There are no moving parts, zero emissions and no
carbon problems,” McKinzie says. “This is about as
green as it gets.”
TED stood for “technology, entertainment, design”
when it was first unveiled in 1984 as a nonprofit
conference meant to bring influential people from
the three aforementioned worlds together to talk
shop and, although it technically still means that
today, it has evolved into much more.
Dedicated to aggregating “ideas worth
spreading” and providing “riveting talks by
remarkable people, free to the world,” if you go to
ted.com you’ll find video archives of some of the
most important speeches of the 20th century …
Including one by Minnesota’s own, Dan Buettner.
Buettner, a world renowned explorer and
National Geographic writer, is a speaker with
TEDx TC, an independently organized TED
faction. His speech Blue Zones: Secrets of a
Long Life is one of only five local talks ever to be
published on ted.com.
TED, Meet Dan Buettner
EDINA-BASED
ORASI MEDICAL
has won a Red Herring
100 Global Award.
The awards are a
compendium of the
most promising private
technology ventures
from around the world
and have become a
mark of distinction for
identifying promising
new companies and
entrepreneurs—see
former winners
Goodle, Yahoo, Skype,
Netscape, You Tube
and eBay. ¶ “We
are honored to be
recognized by Red
Herring as one of the
100 most promising
technology ventures in
the world,” says Orasi
CEO Shawn Lyndon. “I
believe this demonstrates
the innovation of our
employees to provide a
breakthrough solution
for the pharmaceutical
industry that will reduce
the cost of neurological
drug development.”
¶ Orasi, a med-tech
company developing
technology to measure
the effect of neurological
treatments and track
the progression of
neurological disorders,
was one of over 1000
submissions, and
chosen from a list of
200 finalists.
