Green Tech: Dan O’Shea of ABB E-Mobility On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact On The Environment

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan O’Shea.

Dan serves as Vice President of Business Development for ABB E-Mobility in the United States, currently leading the company’s efforts across utilities, public and fleet segments, which includes frequently providing subject matter expertise to utilities, investors, retailers, and other organizations for the electrification of transportation. Prior to working in the EV infrastructure market where he’s worked for over a decade (going back to 2010 with the EV Project), Dan managed advertising sales and business development in the radio industry over a 25-year career in NYC, LA, and Seattle. His career change came while attending the Sustainable Business graduate program at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Seattle. Dan’s been driving electric since 2010 and is patiently waiting for an all-electric camper van.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in suburban Long Island where I snuck into the city a lot and rode bikes everywhere. One day when I was 15, I biked to a progressive rock radio station that I listened to, offering to work for free. I ended up interning there all the way through college and after. However, my first exposure to environmental activism was at 12 when I got a water testing kit as a birthday gift (no idea why), and I tested all the water in my town.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Well, which career? I spent about 25 years in the radio industry before transitioning to EV charging where I’ve now been for 13 years. I did take over a year in between to go off the grid — and this was before email and cell phones. During that time, I took a backpack and a one-way plane ticket west, visiting over 5 continents and following summer season. Months would go by where I had no contact with anyone back home, but during that break, I worked a little, as a carpenter, a piano player, a truck driver, a cook, and a camp counselor before re-entering the business world. This taught me that if you’re good at something — if you make an impression in both your work and life — then you can step away and reflect, enjoy, and try something else to see what happens.

In my EV career, going to the Formula E races has been most interesting because it’s incredible to watch the test-bed of performance racing impact EV innovation so directly and rapidly. However, every day is interesting because this industry is all so new. We’re uncovering new things in technology and business models all the time, and we will continue to be for perhaps a decade or more. Some additional interesting things I’ve done so far include being part of new product launches, learning SaaS, and being on the front-end of smart charging as the standard. There was a lot of debating around that topic in the past but now public chargers are almost always connected and networked. The early EV days were dominated by evangelizing — selling the dream of zero emission driving in cars that weren’t here and chargers that hadn’t been made yet. There was a lot of skepticism. I REALLY dug into the concept of evangelizing to convince people and change minds.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My wife. She gave me the book Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart as a gift. She knew I was looking to make a change, of course, and this book showed me a different way of looking at how business and design can radically change the world for good by combining business and the greater social good. She knew this would be something that matched both of our views of the world. Within two weeks of reading this and The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken, I signed up for a sustainable business graduate MBA program.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Life is where you AHHHHH, not where you wish to be.” The backstory to that quote is a Netflix series with the army, a spy, a pancake, and a priest. For me, it means that there are times when you can have success and happiness even if all your goals are not being met. Even if some things aren’t going your way, the people around you can really make that difference. It sounds sort of Zen, which I am definitely not, but I can aspire to it.

Another quote is from Thelonious Monk — “There are no wrong notes,” which means that everything has a context. You have to understand what came before and what comes next and how to get there.

A final one that inspires me is “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed” from William Gibson in The Economist, December 4, 2003. Some people have it…everyone doesn’t have it.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I’m driven…some would say obstinate…but I’m focused on a goal. I have confidence in what I say. It is what you say AND how you say it that gets remembered, and I like to think of myself as a storyteller. Lastly, I have curiosity. I seek out new opportunities because I want new challenges and I always actively search for what the NEXT thing is.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on the planet and the environment. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

With my team, I am aiming to solve problems related to global warming, climate change, air, and water pollution. We are working every day to enable everyone to use transport without carbon emissions. A big part of that is congestion, so the electrification of transit buses is critical. We can’t make more cars and build wider roads simply because they’re electric. There has to be a strategy behind it all.

Once you get into that big question there are the more details and questions to answer, including: what are the business models that enable EV charging to succeed? Zero emission transportation to succeed? Which technologies will be the most sustainable? What is the ecosystem that needs to operate to enable this massive transformation?

How do you think your technology can address this?

ABB has been serving the electricity industry for 135 years, has innovated in power electronics for more than 50 years, and DC fast charging is a combination of those two fields. We have a history of innovating and we’ve done that by launching the first high power chargers at 50-, 150-, 175-, and 350-kW power levels all over the world. We are committed to the next century of innovation.

We’re scaling hardware, software, and service development to meet the demands put upon us by the imperative of climate change and to do everything we can to avoid raising average global temperatures another 1 or 2 degrees to avoid catastrophe. So, we know WHY we’re doing it. The HOW is by exerting our expertise into this mission, by recruiting the best people and by allowing them to think about these problems and apply themselves to it with the heft of ABB behind them to do it. ABB E-Mobility’s mission to zero is about our own footprint and about enabling others to reduce theirs. We do this with integrity, safety, and sustainability as the foundation.

Our products and services touch every sector of the U.S. economy from transportation to utilities to buildings, and we will help customers make critical investments in America’s energy ecosystem. With our history of innovation, we’re primed to provide technologies to reduce planet-warming emissions and mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, while creating American jobs.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

When I was transitioning from the radio business into the realm of sustainable business I had two choices, two job offers that came my way. Both were super cool opportunities. One was market development for a retail goods manufacturer that used only recycled materials and the other was at a new EV charging company that was applying for a large federal grant to make and deploy chargers for the new Nissan Leafs and Chevy Volts. It was a hard decision, but it came down to the huge positive impact I could have in eliminating tailpipe emissions.

How do you think this might change the world?

Transportation is the number one greenhouse gas emitting sector. We must move forward with making this change quickly. It might enable humans to avoid the catastrophe of another 1 or 2 degrees rise in global temperatures

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Many people may not be able to afford some of the new, high-end electric cars. Cars might stay too expensive, and we still see luxury-only offerings — I don’t want that trend to continue. We don’t want to make the same equity mistakes as were made during the original electrification of the U.S. more than a century ago, and more recently with broadband access.

Also, cyber threats are a concern. The connectivity of vehicles and chargers is essential to managing assets along with grid power; there are huge economic upsides to grid-managed charging and so therefore cybersecurity is critical. Electric utilities have been on the cutting edge of dealing with cybersecurity for many years, and the trend toward more requirements is growing, as it should.

Lastly, self-driving technologies are exciting but like with any new technology, there have been safety challenges that will continue to be worked through.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”?

· What problem are you solving? We are solving for zero emission transportation

· Do you have the right people? Are you all deeply passionate? I am fortunate to work alongside smart, passionate, respectful people. ABB has a fantastic university outreach program and ABB is the kind of company where smart folks stay for a long time so we have a combination of new and experienced people.

· What’s the wheelhouse of what you do? Economically, technologically, philosophically. For us it has been the best EV charging hardware in the world, We added connected services and service and are growing the latter two segments rapidly.

· Can you be the best in the world at it? We are and realizing our segment is getting more competitive every day we need to focus on staying that way.

· Can you execute? Yes!

This list is liberally lifted from Jim Collins must read book, Good to Great.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

Connect whatever it is you do to a greater societal goal. Accountants, artists, wait staff, white collar, blue collar, gray collar… anyone can ensure that their surroundings are causing less harm and even making progress from paperless billing to diversity hiring to making a product that leaves the world better than it was when you started.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

The best way to engage with me is via my LinkedIn channel, which can be found here. Looking forward to connecting with all the forward-looking minds out there!

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.

About the Interviewer: Jilea Hemmings is a staunch believer in the power of entrepreneurship. A successful career revamping Fortune 500 companies was not enough for her entrepreneurial spirit, so Jilea began focusing her passion in startups. She has successfully built 6 startups to date. Her passion for entrepreneurship continues to flourish with the development of Stretchy Hair Care, focusing on relieving the pain associated with detangling and styling natural black hair. For far too long, people with tender heads have suffered in pain. Until now.