Morrison & Company 2623 Forest Avenue, Suite 110 Chico, CA 95928 (530) 893-4764 www.morrisonco.net www.morrisongrants.com
Winter 2012
REFLECTIONS ON 10 YEARS OF MORRISON & COMPANY
Morrison helps secure record funding for California solar project Dave Roberti and his family run a cattle operation in Loyalton, California, and were looking for a way to decrease the cost of powering their nine 100-horsepower irrigation pumps.
I started Morrison & Company in February 2002 with three main goals: Offer services that are valuable and unique, not cookie-cutter or “off the shelf.”
Morrison & Company Tidbits: Toni Scott, Morrison & Company consultant, was recently selected for the 2012 Class of the California Farm Bureau Federation Leadership Farm Bureau Program. The yearlong program will include 250 hours of instruction and focus on governmental affairs, personal development and agriculture issues. Toni will join nine other Farm Bureau leaders from across the state. Toni chairs the Butte County Young Farmers and Ranchers and is a founding director of the Butte Agriculture Foundation. Geoff Chinnock, Morrison & Company Principal, completed a year-long leadership program through the Civic Pioneers Institute in Fall 2011. Each year up to 25 individuals are selected to participate in this Butte County leadership program. The program is open to people in government, private business, education, and nonprofit groups. The monthly sessions and workshops were designed to provide professional development and civic engagement.
Principals Brent Morrison and Geoff Chinnock took part in the Agricultural Council of California’s 2011 Legislative Day, meeting with legislators regarding important issues impacting California agribusiness and grower-owned cooperatives. In addition to meeting with legislators and their staffs, Brent had the chance to chat with Governor Jerry Brown.
Be sure to visit our blog at www.morrisonco.net to stay up to date with the latest happenings at Morrison & Company.
Brent Morrison with Governor Brown
Who We Are Morrison & Company was founded in 2002 to provide specialized consulting services including business planning, interim and part-time executive assistance, special businessrelated projects and specialized grant writing. We serve companies in food, agribusiness, processing, distribution, alternative energy, manufacturing, and other industries.
Learn from what I liked – and didn’t – about working with consultants during my 20 years in private industry. Live out one of my favorite verses: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” The amount of work and the expertise it required quickly outgrew what I was able to do on my own and I began subcontracting to meet the need; one of the first to help was Stacy Kennedy, CPA, who is now one of our most experienced professionals. Our first fulltime employee, Geoff Chinnock, CPA, became a principal in the firm in January 2011. Our team today is rounded out by Toni Scott, a former newspaper reporter and a gifted researcher and writer; Tim Peters, CPA; grants consultant Morgan Chinnock, and; administrative assistant Caitlin Villalobos. We now work with scores of clients around the United States (and even a few internationally) in four service areas: Planning/Feasibility: Strategic planning, budgeting and financial models, business plans, feasibility studies, product line extensions, business acquisitions and sales, mergers and alliances, and most other business planning needs. In addition to our own team we have long affiliations with like-minded specialists in fields including engineering, marketing, and Continued on inside
For Roberti Ranch, solar energy seemed a viable option and Dave came to Morrison & Company seeking help with a Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) loan guarantee and grant, in hopes of receiving financial assistance for the 500 kilowatt project. Morrison & Company Consultant Stacy Kennedy (center), Jane Roberti (left), and Dave Roberti, celebrating the installation of the Roberti’s 500 kilowatt solar project.
REAP is a USDA program that offers grants and loan guarantees to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to help offset the cost of alternative energy and energy efficiency projects. The program is extremely competitive and requires an independent feasibility study to accompany grant and loan guarantee The Roberti Ranch 500 kilowatt solar applications. Along with grant writing project in Sierra County, California. services, Morrison & Company’s staff includes several highly-experienced CPA’s, allowing us to complete complex feasibility assessments in-house. Our experience with REAP grant applications (and 100% award success rate with the program) ultimately benefitted Roberti Ranch and in late summer 2011, we learned that the Roberti’s application was successful. Roberti Ranch secured the largest REAP grant award in California at $204,000 and the largest REAP loan guarantee in the nation at $1.4 million. In October, Morrison & Company staff traveled to Loyalton to celebrate the ribbon cutting for the solar project, the first in the Plumas Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative District. Sharing in the festivities allowed us to see the tangible result of hours of research, analysis, number crunching, and writing. We were honored to have a part in helping secure the financial and environmental sustainability of Roberti Ranch. The Rural Energy for America Program is just one of many energy and agribusiness programs Morrison & Company specializes in. To learn more about our grants practice, visit www.morrisonco.net/Grants.htm or our grants website at www.morrisongrants.com.