Bonnie Hagen, founder and COO of Bright Energy Services, a sustainable energy firm in White Plains, didn’t exactly follow a traditional career path. She spent the first two decades of her career advising Fortune 500 companies on marketing and business development before starting her own spa in Hartsdale. She loved the spa industry’s focus on health and sustainability, so when she was ready for a new challenge—“I exceeded my five-year plan in only two years,” Hagen says—she turned to another industry that needed to be healthier: energy.
Hagen says she wanted to “make sure all the work that was being done to create healthy bodies, minds, and spirits was not being nullified by living or working in an unhealthy built environment.”
Hagen’s company, launched four years ago, is an arm of All HVAC, a 30-year-old heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning company in Brooklyn. While her initial goal with Bright Energy was to help All HVAC’s clients secure financial incentives and rebates for minimal energy efficiency and conservation projects, she ended up doing so much more. Hagen helped both new and existing clients entirely rethink and redesign their energy systems by using cost-effective, sustainable technologies like LED lighting, solar photovoltaics, and building controls.
This year alone, Hagen’s firm has identified more than 8,375,000 kilowatt-hours in energy savings—equivalent to removing 6,366 tons of carbon dioxide from the environment, taking 1,216 cars off the road, or replanting 4,734 acres of forests.
