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January 2019 Newsletter

Dear Friend of Servato,

Frost and Sullivan formally recognized Servato as the Global Entrepreneurial Company of the Year in the energy storage space this January. The award garnered the attention of ABC, MarketWatch, and regional news outlets such as The Oklahoman (more on that below). Energy storage and transmission played a significant role several months ago during the California wildfires as PG&E's aged transmission lines and natural gas facilities sparked mass-incineration resulting in several executive firings including CEO Geisha Williams. PG&E personnel also allegedly falsified records in a rush to comply with California regulators.

Conversely, Servato customers afflicted by the polar vortex streamlined portable generator cycles by having insight into their battery backup time. We should expect more stringent regulatory reactions to both of these "natural" disasters, especially as federal infrastructure spending continues to earn more lip service from politicians as it did during the recent State of The Union address.

Federal infrastructure debate contributed to the partial government shutdown that shook the national economy, reverberating through the suburban and rural corridors of our country where many federal workers reside. Read this original content piece that visualizes how significant this actually is.

Federal Shutdown Impact on Rural America

Lastly, scroll to the bottom to read my interview with our very own CEO, Chris Mangum, about his recent discovery that his grandfather won a Silver Star in WWII.

 

Saints Swindled?

The New Orleans Saints' football season came to a controversial end two weeks ago in the NFC Championship game when a "non-call" of two serious penalties arguably kept them from going to the Super Bowl. The non-call took place with less  than two minutes remaining, with the game tied. Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman decked Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis on a third-and-10 pass prior to the ball arriving, blatant pass interference. In addition, Robey-Coleman made helmet-to-helmet contact with Lewis.  Either call would have resulted in a 1st and goal situation for the Saints, allowing them to potentially run the clock down and kick a game winning field goal.  As a current New Orleanian, I obviously felt slighted as I watched the game amongst grinning Patriots fans, who admittedly would have rather had their team play the Rams in the Super Bowl. However, demanding a replay of the game was never a solution in my mind, or choosing to simply skip watching the Super Bowl this year in boycott.

If we go back to the in-game play calling, we see consecutive pass plays that did not milk any clock. We also see that there were two missed face-mask calls against the Saints that would have set them up for scores, so maybe it is a wash. Players like Michael Thomas quickly tweeted after the game citing clauses that allow for Commissioner Roger Goodell to take several actions under estraordinary circumstances, including restarting the game. The NFL called head coach Sean Payton later that evening apologizing for the missed calls, but indicating that the scenario was not extraordinary enough to trigger Goodell's intervention.

I suppose the chips should fall as they may. My take from all of this, and from my own experience playing football, is that human error plays an important role in any athletic competition. I played football for four years at the division-one collegiate level, and I never had a call go against me that so drastically changed the outlook of the season; however, what does sport look like if everything can be reviewed? That would imply referees would no longer be needed, except perhaps to communicate with spectators what the cameras saw. To some that probably sounds great! I see referees  in a different light. They selflessly embody the sports they oversee.  They overcome often hateful personal attacks for mistakes or even for good calls that just don't go the way certain fans would prefer them to go.  And they are incredible ambassadors for the myriad benefits that sports can instill in someone's life, such as discipline, community, and teamwork. I had a great basketball referee in my youth who took the time to help kids as we made mistakes on Saturdays at the elementary school gym. He passed away a few years ago and the school named a memorial scholarship in his name. I would go on to win that award to play college football, forever connecting us through our shared passion for sports and everything that accompanies them.

But what about the economic and emotional impact on the Saints franchise, on the city of New Orleans and on the fans themselves?  A Super Bowl win can dramatically impact the value of a team, and no doubt the Saints franchise value is less today than it might have been with a Super Bowl appearance or win.  Players are also impacted as they fail to realize economic incentives they might have received with a Super Bowl appearance or win.  These incentives may be direct (as a cash bonus from the franchise) or indirect (in the form of endorsements tied to their public personas as winners).  Saints QB, Drew Brees, emerged from the controversy with a league sportsmanship award and stepped up as a true leader in encouraging his team and their fans to keep their chins up and focus on next year.  Whose jersey would you rather see your child wearing, Drew Brees or Jared Goff?  As for the impact on New Orleans, the city has hosted 10 Super Bowls, second only to Miami at 11 (after just hosting Super Bowl LIV).  The controversy shouldn't hurt the attraction that the world has for New Orleans.  The fans are probably the most impacted of all.  As evidence of this, Saints fans turned out by the thousands to "boycott" the Super Bowl game and demonstrate their love of their team.  Viewership in New Orleans was the lowest in the history of the Super Bowl. It certainly was a heart-breaking disappointment to get so close (yet again) and have the opportunity slip away due to something outside of the team's control.  But, that's what makes sport so compelling.  It is a metaphor for the struggles of people in life.  In a few hours on any given Sunday, men take to the field and clash until a winner emerges.  Homer blamed the swings in momentum in ancient battles on the intervention of gods with selfish intentions to favor one side or the other.  Today, we simply blame the referees.  

In summary, I can not help but think back to Sunday's Super Bowl as a similar metaphor, a karmic balancing. The Patriots exposed the Rams' weaknesses, perhaps giving Los Angeles what they deserved in the eyes of Saints fans.  The Saints will remain the "what-if" candidate of the year, and (hopefully) ultimately recognized for taking the setback in stride. For Servato, the controversy helped us avoid an awkward championship game pitting the Saints (our HQ is in New Orleans) against the Patriots (our technical and sales teams are in Boston).  Perhaps the no-call was divine intervention after all.  

 

Word on the Street

Frost and Sullivan brought attention to Servato in early January after they declared us their 2018 Global Entrepreneurial Company of the Year in Energy Storage. The attention and coverage extended well beyond the initial press release. You can find a few outlets here:

 

2018 Year in Review 2018 Year in Review

 

 

 Rural Life

The 5 states or districts with the largest percentage of federal employees in-state are unsurprisingly Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. and perhaps surprisingly Alaska and Montana. The Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture, respectively, employ thousands of people in more rural states. Midwestern states make up the next echelon in terms of federal employees. In these states, reliable Federal government jobs form an economic foundation that is very important to their local economies. This economic framework means that Federal furloughs can disproportionately impact rural populations more so than urban ones. Take this topical example - a federally employed woman in downtown Milwaukee was able to pick up an Uber gig at the drop of a hat. Meanwhile, soybean farmers in Iowa sit mostly idle as they wait for USDA financing workers to return, originally a product of the 25% tariff implemented with China. The problems extend into national parks and Native American reservations, evident by poaching and millions of dollars of medicine not reaching afflicted tribes.

Last month I wrote about how quiet, outside forces control rural economic potential. In particular, 180 million acres of farmland is dedicated toward (industrial) corn and soy production, whereas, only 10 million acres are dedicated to fruit production and an even smaller amount for organic plots. The subsidy payments mostly support the large corporate farming organizations that sell these raw or processed goods under market value. A Wall Street Journal article this month featuring Kinnard Farms in Wisconsindiscussed how the dairy farming giant has swallowed up more than 100 smaller farms in the past 30 years, with mixed results for the affected farms and rural areas where they operate. I highlighted North Dakota last month in their efforts to bridge the rural broadband gap, but I believe that Vermont teaming up with Microsoft could prove to be an effective example of how a large, multinational entity can empower a smaller community without being too heavy handed. Local providers are doing their part by innovating for their communities, but we do need a more cohesive national plan that involves agencies such as the FCC or Rural Utilities Service. Christopher Ali writes an op-ed in The New York Times describing the ailments in our current system and the symptoms that favor national brands.

 
 

Analytics

Servato's SPS (Smart Power Systems) product line builds on innovative design and proprietary technology. Adaptive Charging forms the central nucleus of our approach to better battery management, driven by the intelligent algorithm that charges and rests batteries to maximize life expectancy and availability. We are pleased to announce that we are using the performance data gathered from managed batteries to provide our customers insights into how their networks perform from a power perspective.  Much as power utilities track the frequency and duration of power outages, our SPS solutions enable network service providers to track the same.  This allows them to quickly identify problem sites and prioritize them to address network reliability issues. Imagine having detailed outage data identifying which sites are more problematic than others.  How would that improve the field's ability to request capital to address these issues?  Now stop imagining and let's discuss in more detail.

Contact Servato

 


Sincerely,
 

--

Brandon Davenport

Business Development Manager

Servato

Brandon Davenport Servato

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Silver Star

Q/A with Chris Mangum

Our CEO, Chris Mangum, recently received a collection of medals in the mail after locating his maternal grandfather's military records. He discovered a Silver Star to his surprise (pictured above), igniting newfound curiosity about his late progenitor. We explore this unexpected family history, memories of his grandfather, and what it means to serve in the military.

BD - "What was your initial reaction when you opened up your FedEx Express package and saw a Silver Star staring back at you?"

CM – Well, it was pretty emotional. This had started as a project to document some of my grandfather’s military service for my younger son who is named after him.  I knew he had fought in WWII, but he had never talked with me about the war.  I learned from talking with my mother that he had been strongly impacted by the experience.  Through a significant amount of research, I finally found his Army separation document from when he was honorably discharged after WWII.  This single page document was barely legible, but it listed his awards.  I saw the Silver Star listed there, but thought it must be a mistake.  The Silver Star is a pretty big deal.  Surely, he would have mentioned this to his children.  On the other hand, I know that some veterans are so impacted by their wartime experiences that they tuck them away and never talk about them.  Bottling all that up can manifest itself in some pretty negative ways. I just wanted to get what information I could get so I could piece the story together. I went through the process to request replacement medals, and waited for about six months before they finally arrived.  I expected to open the package and find a note indicating a mistake of some kind.  But there it was – the Silver Star.  I got pretty choked up about it.

BD - "What is the significance of this award and how did your grandfather earn it?

CM – The Silver Star is the third highest award given by the military in recognition of personal valor against an enemy of the United States.  It ranks just after the Congressional Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Crosses.  I have not been able to find the citation for the award, which would describe the circumstances in which he earned it.  What I have been able to find through my research is that he was in an infantry unit trained by General Omar Bradley that landed in the second wave of amphibious landings at Normandy.  His unit made its way through the bocage to Paris, marched in the parade celebrating the liberation of Paris, and went on to fight its way well into Germany.  He was in Europe for three years, and fought in four major campaigns or battles.

BD - "You told me that a fire destroyed many records of veterans from WWII back in the 1970s. Have you discovered that others are also learning about military family members many years later?

CM – I wasn’t aware before I started this journey that many service records of veterans who served between 1918 and 1945 were destroyed in a fire at the National Archives in 1973.  These records are lost forever, and for those families that haven’t documented the service of their own veteran ancestors the process becomes much more difficult.  The good news is that many of the records that remain are now digitized and available online.  Through Ancestry.com, Fold3 and other websites, I was able to piece together enough information (Army serial number, approximate service dates, etc.) to request my grandfather’s separation document from the National Archives.  It was about the only thing still available, but it was enough to request his replacement medals and to begin piecing together some of his story.

BD - "What are some of those memories of your grandfather that you have kept?"

CM – Grandpa was quiet, a tinkerer.  He owned his own radio and TV repair business after the war.  He built his first two houses by hand, including the house my mother and her two siblings grew up in.  He had a gentle demeanor, but an intensity just beneath the surface. His first wife, my maternal grandmother, died when I was just a couple years old.  He struggled with alcoholism for several years afterward.  His second wife, Agnes, was a Godsend and pulled Grandpa back into our lives.  They joked years later that on their first date they went to see the movie A Clockwork Orange, not knowing how strange and violent the movie was going to be.  It was an inauspicious start to what were probably the ten best years of his life before he died of lung cancer (after a lifetime of smoking).  Grandma Agnes lived with my parents for several years prior to her death and they are buried next to each other.  They were part of that Greatest Generation, you know.  They just got it done and didn’t make a big deal out of things.

BD - "Did he inspire you to want to serve in the military either directly or indirectly?"

CM – He didn’t really, because I didn’t know much about his military service until recently.  If I had known more about his service, it would have been very influential in my decision to join the military.  My father was a more direct influence on my decision to join.  He was at basic training at Ft. Lewis, Washington when I was born.  I grew up wearing his dog tags and fatigues and hearing his stories.  I can still recall his serial number from memory.  He tells me his unit was on bivouac the day he got the news of my arrival.  Unable to do anything else, he carved my name in a tree nearby.  Twenty years later (almost to the day), I was at Ft. Lewis going thru my basic training.  I looked all over that base for that tree, but never found it.  I was lucky as a young man to have had good men all around me.  Many young men and women are not so lucky.

BD - "What does it mean to be a military veteran that represents your country, family, and company you founded?"

CM – Brandon, that’s a big question.  It didn’t mean as much to me when I was going through it.  I was young and didn’t fully appreciate the value of the experience and how it would change me.  In retrospect, joining the Army was one of the most important and impactful decisions of my life.  It militarized me, for sure.  But It paid for college, gave me structure at a pretty critical time in my life, made me more self-disciplined, taught me leadership lessons and just prepared me for the challenges of life. I knew I wasn’t likely to make a career out of it.  I had too many “civilian” goals on my checklist.  But I’m very proud of my service and consider it a true honor to have served.  I still have my dress uniform in my closet and show it to my kids every now and then.  Hopefully, someday my patches and medals will be as meaningful to them as that Silver Star was to me when it arrived.

 

 

From Last Month

Yours truly ran the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in New Orleans on February 10th. I hit my goal of raising over $500 by hitting $840, but I am still taking donations if you are interested.

St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Give meaning to your miles – choose your fundraising level and get ready to rock! Learn more about St. Jude.

 

 

 

Did You Know?

Servato's ActiView® platform displays a battery fuel gauge during outages allowing customers to easily prioritize site uptime.

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 Let's talk if you are looking to find an alternative way to test batteries that delivers a more accurate and predictive state of health measurement.

 

 

 
 
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Recent and Upcoming Events

The Servato Sales team has covered dozens of shows this year. We hope to see you in the near future, so if you are at any of these upcoming events, please come and visit our booths.
  • DistribuTech 2/5/2019 - 2/7/2019 in New Orleans, LA
  • Georgia Telecommunications Association's Annual Vendor Showcase 2/18/2019 - 2/20/2019 in Macon, GA
  • Louisiana Telecommunications Association 2/27/2019 - 2/29/2019 in New Orleans, LA
  • ITA Showcase 3/6/2019 - 3/7/2019 in Portland, OR
  • URTA Annual Meeting 3/17/2019 - 3/20/2019 in St. George, UT
  • MTA Annual Convention and Showcase 3/18/2019 - 3/20/2019 in Minneapolis, MN

About the Author: Brandon Davenport

Brandon Davenport
Brandon Davenport is a Business Development Manager for the Servato team. He covers the Southeast sales territory, manages marketing efforts, and leads battery analysis efforts.