CEO Advances Volta Power Systems to Leadership in Lithium

Jack Johnson, Volta co-founder and CTO, right, chats with attendees. (Photo: The Lakeshore-West Michigan)

Jack Johnson’s first full day as CEO of Volta Power Systems began in an 8-by-10-foot office sitting in front of a used laptop. Twenty lithium battery packs were stacked next to his desk in the fluorescent-lit office.

“We started tearing into them and redesigning them to meet our applications,” Johnson told reporter Luke Ferris for an article published The Lakeshore-West Michigan.

Since 2014, Volta Power Systems has provided safe, powerful, and simple lithium-ion energy storage solutions for small to midsize businesses. They specialize in service industries, including RV, marine, utility, emergency, and military vehicles.

Volta may have started in an 8-by-10 office, but Johnson’s energy for the business concept had been generating for more than a decade.

During his 16 years working at Johnson Controls as an engineer, Johnson led a $250 million project to take military lithium battery technology and repurpose it for a large-scale automotive manufacturing plant.

“Nobody had designed a plant on that scale,” Johnson says. “Large format lithium really wasn’t a thing at that point.”

Johnson developed a reputation at Johnson Controls for problem-solving that he says came from growing up on a family farm in Columbus, Kansas.

“I’ve always been an entrepreneur in my heart,” Johnson says. “I lived that entrepreneur life as a kid.”

As the plant got up and running, Johnson saw a gap in the market for the product they were trying to deliver. Johnson says payback on electric vehicles in 2008 was equivalent to $8 per gallon and had a minuscule demand compared to today.

So he started “Project MacGyver” to research how they could find uses for the batteries that provided better profitability and security. The name referred to the “MacGyver”-style creativity Johnson developed working on the farm.

“[We thought] let’s take the product we have, and let’s figure out a different market that can utilize this technology without starting from scratch,” Johnson says.

Johnson learned that the primary value of batteries is that they are quiet, lightweight, emission-free, and long-lasting. Next, he narrowed in on the target markets of RVs and camping, because they are generally luxuries where experience is more valuable than the cost.

“Those all created these really great value points that made them more valuable than a generator,” Johnson says.

But when Johnson pitched his findings to his bosses, he received universal “nos.”

So after years of service to one company, Johnson finally decided to step out on his own and turn Project MacGyver into a full-fledged business.

“I went and started [Volta] on those lessons learned,” Johnson says.

Read the the full article here.

Source: https://rvbusiness.com/ceo-advances-volta-power-systems-to-leadership-in-lithium/