Days after Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana in August 2021, Paul Shmotolokha followed the Grammy-winning band Lost Bayou Ramblers as the musicians rode through devastated neighborhoods on a flatbed trailer. He watched with wonder as the group’s morale-boosting traveling concert lured residents out of damaged homes for tunes, dancing, and refreshments.
His company’s solar battery units provided the juice for the musicians’ amplifiers and instruments, and powered community Wi-Fi and charging stations that helped thousands of people reconnect with loved ones. “It gave me a buzz about how much you can directly impact people,” Shmotolokha says. “It was my first experience working with NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] in the field to help people, not make money.”
As chief executive of a solar energy company, Shmotolokha has enjoyed long careers in telecommunications and renewable energy that started with building cable TV markets and progressed to supplying portable power units. He credits much of his success and interest in serving others to the year he spent in Chile in 1991 as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. “I can’t emphasize enough how formative that year was,” he says. “It started my journey of being able to learn to...”
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