As an English-born immigrant entrepreneur who founded a successful solar company, Anita Worden is passionate about welcoming immigrants and women into the growing renewable energy and tech sector. Listen to the episode to discover how she believes we can shift the narrative on immigration in the United States.
Transcript
Denzil Mohammed: I’m Denzil Mohammed and this is JobMakers. Women have long been underrepresented in crucial economic sectors like technology, a place where they can innovate and have a real impact. For Anita Worden, while things certainly have improved for women in tech, there’s still much more work to be done. Anita was born in England, of Indian parents, grew up in Algeria, and moved to the U.S. as a teenager. Graduating at the top of her class, she went on to MIT, where she co-founded her first company, Solectria Corporation in 1989 while still a student and then went on to found Solectria Renewables in 2014, both of which were acquired. Now retired, Anita is working to promote tech as a viable, lucrative, and satisfying career choice for women and girls. Just as she’s working to educate Americans about climate change and changing the narrative around immigrants in the U.S., as you’ll find out in this week’s JobMakers. Anita Warden, welcome to JobMakers.
Anita Worden: Thank you, glad to be here.
Denzil Mohammed: Tell me about your past 30 years and what you’ve been doing.
Anita Worden: Oh wow, 30 years! So, I started my first business with my husband in 1989. For about 15 years, we built solar and electric vehicles. I say solar because our first vehicles actually had solar panels on the roof. These were small commuter cars and you could run the fans and accessories with the solar. But, we later took off the solar panels and focused on building electric vehicles. Personal commuter cars were four doors and hatchback commuter cars. Then, we later moved into electric pickup trucks and step vans, like bread vans. They were all electrified before we sold the business. We’re actually building a lot more hybrid vehicles, including hybrid school buses and big several-ton trucks or facilities with large cargo-carrying capabilities. In 2005, we sold that business to a Canadian company, and we started to spin off the organization. A distributed energy business to build inverters, which were electronic boxes that would be able to take similar technologies that we had in the electric vehicles but then use them for grid-connected capabilities. So, our focus had started within our first business, but the new acquirers didn’t want to have anything to do with that. They wanted to stick with vehicles, and we didn’t want to have anything to do with renewable energy, so we will spin off our business, taking all the technology that we had developed, for a dollar, we were able to license that royalty-free and we spun off into Solectria Renewables, a pretty sizable organization, which then we started to focus purely on solar applications. So, that business went on for several years before we were acquired in 2014 by a Japanese company. But we still believe that renewable energy is the way to go for us to combat climate change. As it comes to the forefront almost daily in our news cycle, weather patterns in different parts of the United States and the world, we realize that we have large strides to make in order to take away our dependence on fossil fuels and move into a cleaner lifestyle. Lowering our lifestyle energy, becoming more efficient with our processes, transportation, homes, and so forth.
Denzil Mohammed: When you started your business in 1989 with your husband, I recall that you said only about 30 percent of the graduates at MIT were women. How do you see women playing a role in tech these days?
Anita Worden: I was gratified, certainly in the last 10 to 15 years, to see more women involved in technology, although not as much as I would like. For instance, MIT is now close to 50 percent women, which is wonderful to know. Hopefully, this will not be an anomaly, especially in technology, particularly in solar, where we have seen many women involved both on the technical and business sides of things. However, we still have to make strides in getting more women involved in the business and technology side of things. It comes from women seeing women in those fields. If you see someone you can relate to, you are more likely to go into that area. I think we need to do a lot more with STEM education at younger ages, and I have been involved in supporting young girls to join STEM opportunities in middle and high school. We should also introduce them to STEM at younger ages by teaching them that it is just as acceptable to be in this field as anything else.
Denzil Mohammed: As you talk about STEM, we see, especially in Massachusetts but across the U.S., that STEM fields in colleges are really dominated by immigrants and people from other countries. Why do you think that is? And why do you think there is not enough being done to encourage STEM for U.S.-born children?
Anita Worden: I think STEM has not been glorified as a lucrative career choice, which I mean in a way that other finance sectors are glorified. “Oh, you can make tons of money working for Morgan Stanley or somebody like that,” but I counter that with the fact that you can make a ton of money being an engineer. In fact, engineers are more sought-after today. If you look at the competitive nature of today’s job market, companies are doing their best to literally steal people from other tech companies with great employment packages because they need software engineers, mechanical engineers, and electrical engineers on their teams in order to develop the products that are making a difference today. So, I think it comes from a career choice from the financial side, but I also think it’s a matter of some amount of work ethic. I agree that when we were hiring engineers, nine out of 10 of them were immigrants. It’s too bad because I think immigrants should join those wonderful fields, but it’s also important to have people born in the United States, even if they’re from an immigrant household, to join the STEM field. We actually work really early on to let them know how fun and interesting it is to be a scientist, technologist, engineer, or math major. God forbid, I don’t want all of our development of technologies to happen in other countries. I want immigrants to come here and do it here, so I’m fine with that.
Denzil Mohammed: A little bit. You talk about STEM and also the fact that you were an employer. Take me back to your childhood and the kinds of values that were instilled in you that would eventually prompt you to get into STEM and to be an entrepreneur. You were born in England, I know, and you grew up in Ghana. Is that correct?
Anita Worden: Yeah, I actually grew up in Algeria. So, I attribute a lot of my work ethic and belief in working in a STEM field to my dad. He was an electrical engineer and worked both in the UK as well as in Algeria. Later on, when we were in high school, we moved to Miami, and he worked there as well. For me, it was more about modeling by dad. He would show us stuff and explain things at home. My brother and I became very interested in what he was doing. He had an amazing work ethic, and we saw the fruits of his labor pan out into a great, comfortable lifestyle. He came from a family where his dad was a farmer. His dad toiled with some things on somebody else’s land. He didn’t own his own land, and similar to my mother’s family. But my uncles were engineers, and we had a couple of my mom’s side of the family that immigrated here early on back in the ’70s. We immigrated here in 1981. You could see that the work ethic and success of being an engineer parlayed into a really good lifestyle. We weren’t just experts in our trade, but we were also interested in politics, philosophy, and all the things that come with it.
Denzil Mohammed: Did you set out to be your own boss? Was that something that you had in your mind growing up?
Anita Worden: Absolutely not. We did not have any entrepreneurs in our family to my knowledge, especially growing up. I mean everyone I know, my two uncles who were engineers, always worked for somebody else. My dad also worked for somebody else, and all of my family members were not entrepreneurs. Interestingly enough, one of my brothers is now an entrepreneur. As for me, I was, you know, working for my husband, and then a couple of my husband’s siblings were entrepreneurs, so it’s another generation. We talk about the immigrant story, and we lift it. We came here for the land of opportunity, and my dad, in his wisdom, brought my brother and me here. We took full advantage of that opportunity, and we got great educations. We worked really hard. We moved here in ninth grade, and somehow we immediately got to the top of our class. Don’t ask me how that happened, because there were lots of brilliant kids in our classes. We graduated as valedictorian and salutatorian four years later, and never prior to that had we lived in this country. That allowed us to go to really good colleges, and Dad helped us which was amazing. He used a lot of his savings to help us pay for college, and we got some loans, which was really important. Both of us worked in college to support ourselves and to support some of our financial aid packages. Soon after that, that work ethic led us to start a business. You probably already know this, but there was no downtime. When I met James, he had this idea to go into electric cars, and that could come across as like, oh, that kid, he’s got great ideas. I still say, thank you to my dad for allowing us to move to the U.S.. He had this opportunity presented to us, and we took full advantage of it and built an amazing company. We got two big, amazing companies that employed lots of people and hired a lot of immigrants and changed the lives of a lot of people. I feel like I should take credit.
Denzil Mohammed: You talk about taking risks at that time. But of course, being an entrepreneur, you do take risks. And also, being an immigrant, you take a risk. You move to another place, and you’re not entirely sure what it’s going to be like, or what the transition is. And I’m sure moving from Algeria to Miami was a bit of a drastic change, right?
Anita Worden: Growing up in Algeria, and traveling to other countries, as well as going back to India every couple of years, gave us a unique perspective on the world. Even as teenagers, we felt like we understood and knew a little bit about the world, which is an opportunity that many kids in this country don’t get that opportunity. There are kids in my own town who have never left the area, maybe the farthest they have gone is across the border to New Hampshire so they don’t understand how lucky we are in the United States and how many opportunities we have compared to other parts of the world. They also don’t understand how different people live in other communities. We had a better worldview. We were lucky that our parents allowed us to see those things, which gave us a broader perspective on the world. Going to college wasn’t such a culture shock for us because we had already met people from countries like Morocco, Vietnam, China and others. It was great to be part of a melting pot and to live in a multicultural setting. We had a tiny taste of that experience from moving overseas.
Denzil Mohammed: So you’re getting into something that is a little bit controversial for some people, the idea of the melting pot, of America being a home for immigrants from all over the world. It has always been that way, but it’s so contentious nowadays. I mean, what are your thoughts about America as a home for immigrants, and what are your thoughts on the public perception of immigration today? How can we fix that?
Anita Worden: Oh gosh, you know, many times I think that we live in a bubble in Massachusetts because Massachusetts has been more welcoming of immigrants. Look at all the high-tech companies that have started and staffed in Massachusetts and even New England, and a majority of them are immigrants. I mean, who isn’t an immigrant, really? That’s the thing that shocks me when I think about people not accepting immigrants. If you look back enough generations, you’ll realize that your family was once an immigrant to where they are now. You got the opportunities available to you now on the backs of those people who came here from a different place. One of our friends, her grandfather immigrated from Italy. People who went through Ellis Island, that original New York transition, all worked hard to get here. They probably had to put their life savings into that journey into this country. So many people who have forgotten that you know. I look at the vast wealth in this country and the businesses that have been founded. So many of them are founded by immigrants. Okay, maybe they’re second-generation, but many of them are first-generation families who have started small companies that have grown into multinational corporations and employed so many people. People who disparage immigrants forget the fact that so much of this country’s wealth has been because we have had immigrants starting businesses or running businesses or providing the technology for those businesses. So, I think we need to ask ourselves, can you and I make a change? Maybe not single-handedly, but perhaps as a community, we can get the message out there that we are all one and we live under the same roof. We have the same aspirations for food, shelter and a good quality of life.
Denzil Mohammed: It’s a story that hasn’t changed. Immigrants moved here for particular reasons generations ago, much the same as immigrants are moving today. They are fleeing natural disasters, persecution, and they need some sort of safety, both economic and physical. It is something that people seem to forget and not make the connection that 1900s immigrants and immigrants from 2020 are not much different. They may look different and have different accents, but the story remains the same. Your perception of immigration comes from your deep relationship with the city of Lawrence. You have actively worked to develop Lawrence economically and in so many other ways. Your factory or business took hold of one of those great mill buildings in Lawrence for all these years. Tell me a little bit about your experience in Lawrence?
Anita Worden: Well, I love the fact that we were able to move to Lawrence when we found it, thanks to Solectria Renewables. With a little story behind it, my mother actually saw the “for lease” sign on the building as I was driving back with my newborn from a doctor’s appointment. It was located at Riverwalk, right off the highway. What was great about it is that it was thousands of square feet and, at the time in 2005, a lot of it was unoccupied. We were able to get great rates there. But the best part was that we were in a community that had all this raw talent, and we could hire locally for all of our manufacturing and staff, most of whom came from the city of Lawrence. At one point, I looked at our production staff and 75 percent were Lawrence residents. I am very proud of that. It was great to have people come from the local community, many of whom used public transportation to get to work or carpool with their friends. They would come in the morning, and the great advantage of our production environment is that most people start at 7:00 AM. That’s when the parking lot was empty, and by the time I left working there, that parking lot was always full. It just showed that the complex became very busy and active with lots of businesses in it. The team that we hired was able to be trained, and they came with a large skill set. We had folks that had been trained as HVAC technicians, worked at Raytheon or worked in a small startup environment. They had a skill set that wasn’t predetermined to be an inverted manufacturing technician. That’s not something you hear often. But because our technology was not rocket science, we had great manuals and work instructions. We had this team of very skilled laborers, and they developed a technique that enabled our customers to look inside our product. That all came from the team that we hired there. We talked earlier about ESL training. One of the things that I realized came about because I was in the hallway one time with one of our custodians in the building. He walked up to me and said, “My uncle just moved here. Do you think you could give him a job?” I said, “Sure, what’s his skill set? Give me his resume.” He said, “Well, here’s the thing. He doesn’t speak any English, but he has this technical background from the Dominican.” I cringed inside because all of our manuals were in English at the time, and my production manager was not bilingual. Later on, I had bilingual production managers, which was a very big asset to have. However, the instructions were not such that someone with only a Spanish background could read, translate and work in. So I realized that we needed to do a lot more for ESL training in our community. Both James and I spent a lot of our personal charitable giving to make sure that ESL programs were well-funded. There’s never enough funding for those, and there are never enough seats. But that is something that I continue to want to champion because whether you came back in the 1900s or are an immigrant today if you don’t have a foundation for the English language, many times you don’t have a skill set from your mother country that you can jump right into a work environment with. Suddenly, your economic prospects are not validated.
Denzil Mohammed: It’s an underutilization of skills, and we have to bear in mind what you just said. People come here with skills. They come here in their 20s and 30s with skill, talent and a real desire just to work. That’s why immigrants have a larger presence in the labor force. They come here with the intention of working, and the English language is the vehicle that allows them to transfer their skills, grow, pay more in taxes and become incredible contributing members of our community. There’s this terrible perception that immigrants don’t want to learn English, but I can safely say from The Immigrant Learning Center’s free English language program, which is almost entirely privately funded, we’ve always had a waiting list, even after the 2016 election. The waiting list jumped to well over 1,000 people, and there’s no English language program that does not have a waiting list. People really want to learn the language, and they’re passionate about it. We need to give them a warning. This was a truly fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for joining us!
Anita Worden: Thank you very much Denzil, it was a pleasure to be with you today and I certainly hope that we can help move the needle and all the things that we’re doing together. So I applaud you for all that you’re doing as well.
Denzil Mohammed: And I applaud you for all that you continue to do, even in retirement. JobMakers is a weekly podcast produced by Pioneer Institute, a think tank in Boston, and The Immigrant Learning Center, a not-for-profit that gives immigrants a voice. Thank you for joining us for today’s inspiring story featuring another immigrant entrepreneur. If you know someone who should talk to, please email Denzil at JobMakerspodcast.org. And please leave us a review. Join us next Thursday at noon for another episode of JobMakers!