Employee Spotlight: Eric Toback, VP of Sales & Marketing
At Optimum Energy, one of our greatest assets is our talented and dedicated team. Our Employee Spotlight Program celebrates and showcases the individuals who make our company thrive and deliver exceptional client outcomes. This program offers a behind-the-scenes look at the diverse talents driving Optimum Energy’s success, client outcomes, and industry standards.
Can you share your journey with Optimum Energy and how your role has evolved since you joined?
I joined Optimum Energy in 2012 as an energy engineer designing and supporting the technical aspects of our energy optimization solutions. Energy Engineers at Optimum Energy are very customer-facing, so I learned first-hand the challenges our clients were facing with their critical infrastructure and the importance of developing comprehensive solutions to meet their needs. That experience led me to transition into sales where I felt I could have an even bigger impact for our clients. After a few years, I became Vice President of Sales, managing and leading our sales team.
In 2021, I left Optimum Energy for a career change. However, my journey led me back to Optimum Energy, where I recently returned to my previous role as VP of Sales and Marketing. Today, the firm is backed by the experienced investment team at Bernhard Capital Partners and the leadership and vision of our new CEO, industry veteran Lisa Roy. With Optimum Energy poised to be the industry’s premier energy savings solution provider, I am incredibly excited to be back.
What is your favorite part about working at Optimum Energy?
My favorite aspect of working at Optimum Energy is working day in and day out with a passionate and dedicated group of individuals who are the best in the business at what they do. Whether it’s engineering an optimization roadmap, diagnosing a central plant flow issue, troubleshooting building BAS controls, or developing a complex Energy as a Service financing and operational solution, our team works tirelessly to achieve our client outcomes.
Describe an accomplishment at Optimum Energy of which you are particularly proud.
I’m proud of Optimum Energy’s ability to consistently exceed client expectations time after time, which is driven by our approach to cultivating long-term partnerships with our clients. We take pride in our ability to perform proper due diligence and develop projects that align with client needs. Whether your facility is in LA, Shanghai, or anywhere in between, we’re going to deliver on what we promised.
What is one thing you have learned while working here that has significantly impacted your approach to energy optimization?
My most important takeaway from this experience is that energy optimization must be approached holistically. For example, it’s one thing to improve the efficiency of the HVAC central plant; however, you’re only solving one piece of the puzzle. The building zones determine how hard the central plant must work, so your approach must consider everything from the space requirements back to the central plant since it’s all a connected system. To truly be “optimized,” you must take a holistic approach, being careful not to “rob Peter to pay Paul,” as they say.
Similarly, the solution providers must take a comprehensive approach to delivering client outcomes. It’s not enough to have best-in-class technology without the industry expertise to apply it to complex systems correctly. Similarly, subject matter expertise can only take you so far without the technology, tools, and processes to deliver predictable and repeatable outcomes over time.
How do you see the future of energy optimization, and what role do you believe Optimum Energy will play in shaping it?
I see a future where energy-saving solutions providers, like Optimum Energy, will play an ever-increasing role in their client’s facility operations. Companies are faced with rising complexities and an increasing demand for resilient operations, cost reduction, and sustainability, which are often competing interests with one another. These challenges will require suppliers to innovate their offerings and assume more operational and financial risk from their clients to remove implementation barriers and streamline facilities’ operations and maintenance. Optimum Energy is poised to lead in this new era by building on our 20-year history of combining best-in-class technology with industry-leading experts.
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