Alden Group Ltd., a suite of businesses founded by president Wayne Alden, completed work on a LEED-certified interior build-out, which was designed to pay for itself within 10 years. During the project, Alden discovered that energy companies were giving rebates to businesses with lowered energy use, and he saw the opportunity to establish a consultancy of his own to put together rebate packages designed to generate the greatest returns. From this, Alden Energy was born, and it’s only the latest example of Alden’s ability to respond to a changing market and expand his company by identifying and tapping new industry sectors for revenue.
Alden Group was born from adversity. Alden himself worked as a project manager for a large construction company in the late 1990s, but he found himself without hours several days a week whenever work became slow. So, to help make ends meet, he began consulting work.
Within a few years, his consulting business continued to grow, and in 2003 he founded Alden Metro, a full-service design-build firm for commercial construction. Eventually, Alden also created Intercon, which focuses on interior build-outs; Alden Builders, a public-sector construction business; and Prefab Inc., which erects preengineered buildings. “Every company in our group was built out of a talent of a previous company,” Alden says. “Our design business led to the need for a carpentry business, which led to the need to assist clients with costs savings through increasing energy efficiency.”
Alden saw the move simply as a logical step whose time had come. “Renewable energy is not a new idea, but it did not gain notice and become mainstream until recently,” he says. “We formed Alden Energy for a specific reason—because we found businesses were looking to find any way they could to save money, and increasing efficiency is now showing its ability to provide cost savings.”
Through business connections, Alden has since expanded his new division’s services to include the brokering of relationships between energy clients and companies leasing rooftop space for solar-panel installations. And, he is also exploring opportunities—again, through long-term business associates—to use ethanol for energy.
Next, Alden plans to enter into more business relationships to revitalize areas of Long Island, New York, where Alden Group is based, through development opportunities. The company has already begun to form partnerships to purchase empty buildings that it can then revamp and bring up to code in order to lease them to other businesses. Alden says his company is also looking at ways to match businesses that need to find new properties with other businesses looking to sell properties.
“If you want to survive, you have to be diverse, and we’ve a created a niche for ourselves by being able to offer clients the complete package,” Alden says. “Clients literally come to us with ideas on a napkin, and we can follow them all the way through their project—from providing a feasibility study to helping them purchase property to construction with an eye on energy efficiency.”
