What started out as a stop-gap measure to maximize power production for their sailboat, turned into a life-changing product with seemingly endless uses on a global scale. Brian Bosley, CEO and founder of Solar Stik, has an engineer’s brain mixed with a strong entrepreneur’s spirit. After moving to St. Augustine for his wife Stephanie Hollis’s job as an anesthesiologist at Flagler Hospital, Brian spent much of his spare time developing an efficient power source on sailboats. Soon word got out and people began asking him to build something similar for land uses. Before Stephanie knew it, Brian was traveling to any trade show, convention, and potential client’s doorstep to get the word out about his ideas. Knocking on every door he could think of – including those of military decision-makers in Washington – finally paid off. Solar Stik, a small company with a handful of employees, got a military contract.
At first, the contract was similar to buying something off the shelf, but Brian developed enough knowledge to ask the right questions, enabling Solar Stik to create products based on the Army’s needs. This led to more contracts, and sixteen years and thirty-five employees later, Solar Stik is one of the area’s most coveted employers.
Stephanie says one of the most humbling aspects of her work is hearing that their product helped save the lives of many soldiers in the desert. Using hybrid-solar portable power, Solar Stik products are able to make gas-powered generators “crazy efficient” and, in a hostile environment, fewer fuel supply runs means fewer chances of attack. This alone is worth every lost hour of sleep, missed vacation, shaky financial scenario, and sacrifice the couple poured into the company.
Today, Solar Stik is able to branch out, and Brian is constantly thinking of new potential applications. Being in the medical field, Stephanie sees obvious uses in third-world countries to help power medical clinics, refrigerate vaccines for children, and help provide clean water. Stephanie says it’s sometimes harder now to keep their focus because there are so many possibilities. But some things will never change — their “team” of employees are family, they will never compromise on producing 100% American-made products, and they will never stop improving their product. Solar-powered vending machines, large-scale UPS (uninterruptible power supply) sources, and perhaps one day, medical missions are in their future. In the meantime, every single component is assembled and shipped out from their facility on West King Street. “I’m not Mother Theresa or anything, but we are making progress. We are helping people improve their lives, and we get to save lives too.” Now that is a power source that will never go out.
For more information on Solar Stik, visit www.solarstik.com. Photography by Brian Miller.
