Accelerate Wind has named a chief operating officer and a fractional chief financial officer.
The new COO, Sophie Schaffer, is the former operations manager. She graduated from Olin College of Engineering with a data science degree in 2020 and worked at Accelerate Wind as an intern starting in 2019.
Schaffer stayed on after her summer internship as a contractor, was hired as a data scientist after she graduated and switched her focus to operations. She was promoted to operations manager of Accelerate Wind in 2021.
She also founded and operates B.Home, a short-term co-living home and community space for entrepreneurs, creatives and change-makers.
"I have always loved management and teamwork," Schaffer said. "As early as during my undergrad I ran a restaurant out of my dorm room and directed a musical."
Charlie Walch was also named fractional CFO.
Walch has been starting and running businesses since 1989 including Pluton Biosciences, a micromining startup that generates biopesticides and antibiotics from microbes.
Accelerate Wind, originally a St. Louis-based startup, has a goal of developing affordable wind turbines for commercial buildings. It made the move to Birmingham after participating in Techstars Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator and receiving an Innovate Alabama grant.
CEO Erika Boeing said in an interview with the BBJ last year that the company was born out of a realization that the solar market was expanding, especially on rooftops, but commercial building owners could not produce their entire energy demand from solar alone.
