Borrego Charts the Gigawatt-Scale Course with New Hires & Promotions

Continuing to invest in company growth and build utility-scale bench strength through key new executive hires and promotions

SAN DIEGO — Borrego, a leading developer, EPC and O&M provider for large-scale renewable energy projects throughout the United States, has hired a seasoned industry executive to head its O&M group and promoted five senior team members. The move supports the company’s recent expansion into the utility-scale sector and plans for each of its business units to reach gigawatt scale by 2024.

Borrego named Mikael Backman Executive Vice President of its Operations and Maintenance (O&M) group which provides services for more than a gigawatt of solar and energy storage assets. He joins Borrego after more than 22 years with Wärtsilä Energy Business, most recently as the head of energy business in North America.

“Mikael rounds out our executive leadership team at a time when we are focused on both growing in the markets we are already strong in, and moving into the fast-growing, utility-scale market,” said Mike Hall, CEO of Borrego. “To lead in the industry in gigawatts developed, delivered and maintained, we need driven talent with utility-scale experience.”

In addition, Borrego announced a number of promotions. Joe Thorpe has been promoted to senior VP O&M and Greg Shambo to VP O&M business development. Brian Barker was also promoted to VP and general manager of the EPC utility-scale division. In that same division, Ben Walter was promoted to VP of the new department of engineering and technology.

Although much of Borrego’s growth is in the utility-scale segment, Borrego continues to lead in the commercial and industrial solar markets where the company was recently named the number-one, non-residential EPC by Wood Mackenzie in the 2020 Year In Review PV Leaderboard data. In the distributed generation EPC business unit, Joanie Brooke was promoted to VP of operations for the western division.

“Growing talent from within is one of our core values,” said Hall. “We always seek to invest in our people and challenge them to grow.”

These leadership changes follow the recent announcement about the appointment of Daryl Hart, vice president of utility-scale project development, who joined Borrego from NextEra Energy Transmission where he was director of development.

Borrego’s growth is planned to continue throughout 2021. It plans to grow its workforce by 25% this year and is actively looking for new talent, especially those with utility-scale experience and skills, for each of its business units.