Adam Knudsen
General Manager
Power. It’s in our name. It drives us forward. It’s what we do. Power conversion systems are what our company was founded on 60 years ago and remain the centerpiece of our business today.
Although pioneering advances in power technology built the company, we wouldn’t have succeeded without other forms of power: the power of our values, the power of innovation, the power of collaboration and teamwork, the power of vision, the power of always looking ahead, looking for what’s next, and most critically—the power of our people.
When Dynapower was founded in 1963 in Detroit, Michigan—providing power conversion systems to vehicle manufacturers and adjacent industries—the world was a very different place. More than 7.6 million cars were built in Detroit that year—the second highest number that had ever been produced there. Business at Dynapower boomed amid smokestacks largely powered by coal and other fossil fuels. But in 1990, despite 75% of the company’s customers being located near Detroit, Dynapower management decided to move the company to Vermont with the goal of providing a better quality of life for employees. It was a risky decision, but one that reflected an early and ongoing commitment to a core set of values based on creating a better world.
My journey with Dynapower began in 1993 when I joined as a Sales Engineer. During my tenure, I’ve witnessed the company’s ability to both anticipate and adapt to the changes going on around it. While still faithfully serving our legacy customers in metal finishing, mining, and steel and chlor-alkali production, we also broadened our portfolio to serve the nascent (now booming) clean energy industry. Powered by the pursuit of a better planet, we emerged into the energy storage space in 2007, and thus began our quest to support the world’s growing demand for clean energy.
Using this new technology in a number of groundbreaking projects, we’ve helped our world adapt to its changing climate by stabilizing outdated grid infrastructure and providing critical backup power—all while creating new revenue streams. And through our unwavering commitment to a clean energy future, our innovations are helping to expand access to clean energy, even in isolated areas and traditional industries that are heavily reliant on fossil fuels. By bringing along industries like steel production and transportation, we’ve spread our wings even further with flexible solutions that marry power conversion with energy storage to help them embrace clean energy alternatives in their operations.
As we look to a future that’s rife with clean energy opportunity, we can’t help but look back at what helped bring us to this point. 60 years of caring as much about our own people as we do about changing the world. 60 years of leadership that energizes and strengthens our workforce and thusly, the products we make. And 60 years of shared values around the same goal: to work towards something that’s bigger than ourselves.
Throughout my time here, if I’ve learned one thing it’s this: although we make power conversion products, the power really lies within us.
Let’s power ahead boldly, together, for another 60 years of making the world a better place for all.
