Neville Williams is the founder of Standard Solar Inc., a solar energy services company based in Maryland that sells and installs residential and commercial solar power systems in the Mid-Atlantic region. Williams and co-founder Leland Bristol, launched Standard Solar in 2005, drawing on 30 years of executive management, communications, and marketing experience. The company was recently named by Inc. Magazine the 73rd fastest growing company in the U.S. He first became involved with solar energy during the Carter Administration as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy.
In 1990, Williams founded a non-profit organization to bring solar electricity to un-electrified people in the developing world. The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) has assisted national governments and community organizations to implement “solar seed” projects in India, China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Brazil, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Indonesia, Kenya, Benin, Haiti and the Solomon Islands. Williams is the author of CHASING THE SUN: Solar Adventures Around The World, an account of delivering solar lighting to rural communities on three continents.
To expand solar energy services in Asia, Williams later founded the Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO), and was its chairman and CEO until 2003. Now known as SELCO-India, which he co-founded, the company with 175 employees is headquartered in Bangalore. This first-of-its-kind social enterprise has installed over 120,000 solar home lighting systems in South India. The company was honored with the U.S. State Dept.’s Award for Corporate Excellence in 2001.
A former journalist, Mr. Williams was a correspondent in Vietnam and later worked as a writer/producer for WNBC-TV News in New York . In 1987, he joined Greenpeace USA for two years as its national media director where he became interested in renewable energy and solutions to global warming.
Presently, he consults for select clients in the solar power industry and has just published his second book about the history of the solar industry titled “Sun Power, How energy from the sun is changing lives around the world, empowering America, and saving the planet”. He lives in Naples, Florida.
