Sunflower Corporation is proud to present the Sundolier™, an innovative “Active Daylighting” system that tracks the sun to maximize daylight delivered to interior spaces throughout the day. The Sundolier™ is the first in a product line of day lighting systems that are designed to deliver high quality indirect daylight to large spaces.
Sunflower’s products improve the indoor lighting environment for our customers by substantially increasing the quality and usability of indoor natural light. Studies show that natural light positively impacts students and teachers—including improved concentration, attendance, student test scores, and well being. Natural light also improves productivity of office workers, and sales in retail stores.
With Sunflower, those gains are achieved while eliminating energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions! With daylighting at its core, Sunflower will deliver innovation in daylighting and hybrid lighting (harmonized daylight, electric light and control) that materially improves both the indoor and outdoor environment: two critical needs for sustained quality of life and wellness.
Sunflower offers a daylighting system that eliminates the issues and challenges found in daylighting commercial space—problems with high roof penetration, hot spots, glare and solar heat gain. Designed with input from customers like you in education, office, retail, and industrial; the core of our system offers high quality daylight without compromises or the high costs of less effective daylighting solutions. Using proven systems for tracking from active solar and satellite communications industries, we offer a robust system with very low roof penetration (<0.4%) that is capable of meeting general lighting requirements for 1,000 to 2,500 square feet of space. Natural daylight is proven to improve the general wellness of building occupants—daylight increases the speed or learning for students, increases productivity of workers, and increases sales in retail environments. Plus, low roof penetration means miniscule heat transfer costs through the small glazed area.
Sunflower has assembled a Management Team and Board of Directors with experience in daylighting, lighting controls, energy efficiency, process improvement, sales, marketing and execution in both large and small start up businesses.
Peter Novak, CEO –Peter has over 20 years of global business development, operations & customer satisfaction. This experience was obtained while living and working in the USA, Europe and Asia. His expertise is working to design and deliver products and organizations that excel at meeting its customers expectations in business to business environments.
James Walsh, President is a Sunflower Founder. Jim has a deep understanding of managing projects in commercial construction, energy efficiency and commissioning. He has a passion for energy efficiency and improving sustainability in commercial buildings. A large part of his focus professionally has been in the education sector, where he has created environments that allow educators to focus on students by constructing facilities that optimize student learning.
Jeff Dale, Director Branch Operations – Jeff brings depth in sales, entrepreneurship, environmental public policy and education. As Director of Branch Operations, Jeff is responsible for Sales and Marketing efforts. Contact him if you are interested in learning more about Sunflower’s products or you would like to suggest improvements on how we can serve you with our products or services.
Dr. Ross McCluney is a Sunflower Founder. Ross is V.P. for Research and Development. He is a principal contributor to Sunflower’s pending patents and serves as the principal research scientist for Sunflower. Ross served as a Principal Research Scientist at the Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the University of Central Florida, for over 30 years. He continues to pursue his long-time career as a technical consultant. He brings exceptional fenestration and daylighting experience to Sunflower. His research specialty is optical system design and he is the inventor of Sundolier’s® distributing reflector (patent applied for). Ross holds a PhD in physics from the University of Miami, an M.S. in physics from the University of Tennessee and he studied physics as an undergraduate at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN.
Robert Fenwick-Smith is Chairman of the Board of Directors for Sunflower Corporation. Robert is also a global entrepreneur, investor and executive. He is an active investor with a passion for clean water and sustainable business. He also works with Sunflower as a member of its Business Development Committee, helping us to better understand customer demand and turn this knowledge into management action.
Gary Cler is a Sunflower Founder. Gary is the principal mechanical engineer for Sunflower’s products. He brings several decades of experience in mechanical fabrication, design and sustainability to Sunflower’s team.
Gary leads the detailing of Sunflower’s mechanical systems for the heart of our daylighting systems. Gary has a MS in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University and a BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois.
Dr. Larry Kinney is a Sunflower Founder. Dr. Kinney is President of Synertech Systems Corporation, and offers 30 years of experience in energy efficiency and daylighting R&D, with expertise in applied research and innovation in daylighting.
Larry’s years of applied research and innovation in energy efficiency and daylighting provides excellent depth to the innovation teams efforts. Larry did undergraduate work in physics and philosophy at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN and holds a PhD in philosophy from Syracuse University in Syracuse, NY.
Research and Development Staff
John Hutson - John is the principal inventor of our concentrating daylight harvester. He brings a deep understanding of optics, mechanics, motion control, and tracking systems to Sunflower’s innovation team. John holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Yale University.
Dr. Ross McCluney, Gary Cler, and Dr. Larry Kinney also serve as Research and Development Staff in addition to their leadership positions within Sunflower Corporation.