Back in 1999, Joseph Conroy and Carl Bomgarnder met. At the time, Joe was the CEO of a company called Envatec and his company had recently produced a gas analyzer for EPA+OSHA called the Envair2000. The Envair2000 employed AI and advanced sensors to discriminate between very similar gas molecules such as Chlorine and Chlorine dioxide (first of its kind) and detect them at part per trillion levels. International Paper, a customer of Envatec, asked Joe to join a technology board to work on getting a new technology called Predicitve Emissions Monitoring Systems (PEMS) approved by the EPA.

Carl Bomgardner in 1999 was a Senior Research Scientist for International Paper (Fortune 50). He had developed a new indistrial process optimization system using Artificial Neural Networks (AI) for many processes involving the manufacture of paper. In his work he realized that this new AI technology could “predict” the emissions of the combustible process and save International Paper millions annually in reduced environmental monitoring compliance costs.

The EPA’s Emission Compliance Group was also part of this Predictive Emission technology board. The EPA was very interested in the fact that a secondary benefit of the PEMS technology was a reduction of the combustion emissions due to the modeling and corresponding optimization of the process with  AI.

This PEMS technology board was a success and we were able to obtain approval from the EPA to use it in place of the conventional in-situ monitoring system. In the process Joe and Carl became friends.

Carl soon left International Paper and came to work for Envatec. At Envatec, he was in charge of the software and AI development for the optimization of industrial processes, PEMS, and the Envair2000. During this period, Envatec optimized many industrial processes for companies such as Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and International Paper.  And the DOE awarded Envatec a $500k grant for the amount its technology could reduce the carbon footprint if implemented on a national basis.

In 2000, Ramin Abrishamian and his investors purchased Envatec. The new company was named EnvaPower. EnvaPower was focused on the optimization of the regional power grid systems. Here we would use our AI technology to improve the reliability of the grid, and reduce the amount of power plants needed on standby and correspondingly reduce the carbon footprint.

Our pilot test with the New England Power Grid was a success. Our AI technology demonstrated about a 35% improvement in the load demand forecast which equated to about 100MW/hr of power resource reductions. With the success of the project, EnvaPower and the New England ISO were in the process of establishing a service agreement for an ongoing arrangement.

Then on September 11, 2001 everything changed. With the attacks the Federal Energry Regulatory Commission (FERC), reduced the number of power grids in the US in order to increase the safety of them (??). In doing so, the New England Power grid merged with New York’s. With the merger, New York advised EnvaPower that even though they are impressed with our results for New England grid, they are going to stay with what they have.

In an instant, 18 months of work and progress vanished. We had investors to answer to and they were not going to like what we had to say.

During a stressed-filled brainstorming session, Carl came up with idea of using our electrical demand forecast AI models we made for the New England Power Grid as an input for a electricity pricing model. Here we would pivot and become a commodoties forecaster for the electricity market which operated on NYMEX. Brilliant!

Carl went about setting up the new models and Joe & Ramin hit the road to share the new course for EnvaPower and hopefully garner more money from the investors. From here, we were able to survive all the ups, downs, and scrapes and be acquired by GenScape in 2008 for 8 figures.

Ramin and Joe went onto new adventures, but Carl remained with EnvaPower under the new owners. Here the new owners were working on how to replace EnvaPower’s AI models with their own. Over the next 12 years, the new owners brought in the best minds from MIT, Micorsoft, and IBM and spent tens of millions of dollars trying to replace the EnvaPower technology with something at least equal in performance.

Finally in February of 2020, the new owners let Carl leave and moved on with their own AI technology which was still 20% less accurate than EnvaPower’s.

Then in March of 2020, Covid-19 struck and shortly thereafter Joe called Carl. They both knew they had to do something. And that something is called InnoVita.