My reinvention story: a journey from field biologist to renewable SaaS CEO

How many times do we have to reinvent ourselves?

For me, I’ve lost count.?

These days, I’m a co-founder and CEO.?

I have a team of more than 30 talented, hard-working people who’ve put their trust in me.

And I’m a new mom, sometimes waking up at 3:30 am to get a tiny screaming person out of bed.

But of course, it didn’t start that way. In fact, it all began one summer as a bright-eyed, nature-loving biologist just out of college.

Under the Texan sun?

It was 2006, and I’d just gotten a job as a field tech for an environmental consulting firm. Land developers hired consultants like my employer, aci consulting, to assess and solve for the environmental and permitting issues on their proposed projects.?

Without us, they could end up unknowingly clearing endangered species habitat or interfering with water quality.

So out in the 105-degree Texas sun, I’d walk transects (yes, that's where our company name originated) from fence line to fence line wearing my snake guards and a backpack full of water, on the hunt for karst features (dissolved cavities in the limestone that are a direct conduit to the Edwards aquifer).

At the end of those long days, I was exhausted.?

But it was the right kind of exhaustion, the type where you’re soaking up every drop of knowledge and experience you can.?

Pretty soon, I started to learn the ropes around permitting, mitigation, and project management, and for six years I focused on learning everything I could about environmental consulting.?

My first reinvention

In 2012, I took on a role as director of the national resources division for Southwest Geoscience.

The only problem was, while I had six years of experience in consulting, I didn’t know much about setting up and running a new business line.

I’d never hired anyone before. Never managed people. Never done a full budget cycle.?But my new boss believed in me and took the bet that I could figure it out.?And I did.

This was a time when the price of oil was at a historic high. Southwest Geoscience focused heavily on oil and gas, and so when I joined, I hit the ground running with more pipeline work than I thought I could manage.?

Those first years in the role, I didn’t sleep much while I tried to manage everything and meet the never-ending demand for our services.

Our company was later acquired by a larger firm Apex, and still the site assessments didn’t slow down.

Sometimes it felt like we were factory workers: Land a client. Do a site assessment. Create a report. Rinse and repeat.

We were incredibly productive and did the best we could in a busy time. And I knew this work was important for protecting the environment. But if I was honest with myself, something didn’t sit right.

I started to wonder if it was time for another reinvention.?

The simple question that changed everything

I talked about my concerns with some close friends. And slowly, a question took shape.

What if there was a way to automate the whole site assessment process — to collate digital data, automate the consultant expertise, and provide an instant desktop analysis??

I formed a focus group to find out.

There were three of us: I was the environmental professional with the deep industry experience. Sam was the business and finance guy. Colton, the brilliant coder.

One weekend that spring, we were sitting in my hot tub.

“Is this even technically possible?” I asked.?

Colton lay a towel across the pool edge, grabbed a cocktail, and got to work in the hot tub. I remember feeling excited and nervous as he clacked away.

A little while later, there it was. A map, a line slicing through the pixels, and the data that showed if the land was worth developing.?

Yes, it was possible.??

Transect was born in that hot tub — and I was a startup co-founder.?

Starting to get traction

We felt we were onto something big.

With our software, land developers would be able to get their site assessment reports done in minutes instead of weeks.

They’d save thousands in time and money, and these automated reports would even be more accurate than manual ones.

We formed our business in June 2016. While keeping my day job, my first mission was to validate the startup idea with my industry contacts.?

Sure enough, my connections were interested.

We started working to raise funds from friends and family. And in January of 2017, I quit my job to go full-time on the company.

Those first few years were a grind.?

For two years, we researched and developed our product. We sold a few one-off reports and tried not to burn through our money.

In January 2019, we got our first two contracts, and we were able to hire a few employees to add to our scrappy team.?

Meanwhile, we started getting some early adoption with renewable energy developers, which felt perfect for our environmental focus.

Things seemed to be working.

And then COVID hit.

The world of venture

COVID could have easily taken us down.

Many land developers hit pause on their projects. Hiring became more difficult. Like everyone, we felt anxious about the future.

But we made a key pivot after Blue Bear Capital, a serious investor in high-growth companies, invited us to Houston.

Over dinner, we learned about their portfolio companies and what they’d accomplished together.

We’d never seriously considered venture capital. But at that dinner, we finally understood what venture could offer us: a completely different world of opportunities.

We decided to go for it and closed a funding round soon after (a moment of luck I will always appreciate: we closed the deal the week the whole world shut down because of COVID).

I was no longer just a startup founder, but a CEO backed by some serious capital.?

Staying true to our mission

Those decisions paved the way to where we are today.?

Over the next four years, we grew to a team of more than thirty, while my original co-founders moved on to other projects.?

We established ourselves in renewables, signing on big names like NextEra and Engie while still serving our traditional energy and real estate customers.?

With a focus on renewables, we’ve played and continue to play a key role in accelerating the energy transition. Speeding up projects and removing bottlenecks, we’re combating climate change one renewable project after another.

We brought on new partners and investors, like the incredible Pine Brook Partners and the corporate venture arm of one of our clients. We formed a brilliant board.

As Transect and my responsibilities have grown, I’ve had to grow, too.

I’ve had to make tough decisions about hiring, firing, and leadership to ensure that Transect is a company where people want to work.?

I’ve had to figure out how to grow a company while starting a family. (Let me tell you, closing a major funding round two days before having a baby is a special kind of pressure.)

And I’ve had to adapt our product to the changing needs of our industry.?

Most importantly, I’ve had to say no to opportunities that would distract us from our mission of balancing the conservation of the natural world with the needs of the built world.?

It hasn’t always been easy, but I’m proud to say we’ve stayed true to this mission.

Embrace reinvention — the world needs it

Over the years, I’ve had to reinvent myself again and again to rise to the challenges in front of me.

Just when I think this will be the last reinvention, there’s another opportunity to evolve and adapt. This, I’ve realized, is what it takes to overcome challenges and grow.

Collectively, we’re facing one of the greatest challenges of our time: climate change.

Many of us are asking ourselves what more we can do.

My belief is that when we’re willing to reinvent ourselves, we can accomplish more than we think possible.

Whether you’re a renewable developer, or just a person trying to find your place in this fight, I’d ask you this:

What kind of identities do you need to shed to make the most of this moment??

What kind of habits and activities are slowing you down and keeping you from solving problems??

I certainly don’t have all the answers.?

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that necessity is the mother of reinvention.