Burning Ambition

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Then there was agricultural waste. By Burnett's reckoning, a farmer who grows corn, for instance, sacrifices $200 worth of power per acre when he plows stalks under the soil -- those stalks have energy value. His research showed there were at least 80,000 small farmers and 25,000 corporate farms in the country.

All told, Burnett counted nearly 600,000 potential customers, from Burger Kings to industrial laundries. He would need to build five different models, he figured, each capable of paying for itself within three years. A $7,500, 5-kilowatt version would handle small-business needs. For larger companies, he'd provide a 100-kilowatt number retailing for $49,500. The add-on solid-fuel device, the Gas-fire, comes in four sizes ranging from $7,000 to $18,000.

Burnett projected sales of $46 million in the first year, rising to $161 million in the second and $394 million in the third. He saw a total market approaching $22 billion in the United States alone, with much more overseas.

That was just on the commercial side. He also envisioned residential versions, no bigger than central-air-conditioning units and running on engines something like those used in lawn mowers. For about $2,000, a homeowner could put one out back and create electricity from yard waste, paper, food scraps, and the like. Refuse that would not turn to gas -- cans, glass, plastic -- would collect on a grate, to be scooped out. A home model might not meet a household's entire electricity needs, but it could help out while also alleviating the landfill crunch.

All the machines would be interconnected to the local utility's power lines. Installation could be handled easily by electricians for $500 or so. With routine maintenance, Burnett believed, the machines would last 20 years. By arranging the various components in a specific way and adding some proprietary features and design work, Burnett filed for a number of patents, which are pending.

The opportunity was there all right -- Burnett was sure of that. As for starting a company, well, he'd faced bigger risks before. As a Navy SEAL team commander in Vietnam, for instance, he had taken part in commando raids to rescue POWs. Never doubting that Goldfire would perform, he and his wife, Mary, moved in spring 1990 to Bradenton, Fla., where they had honeymooned. "We could build this company anywhere," Burnett says. "Why not do it someplace we liked?"

All he needed was capital. Having spent $40,000 on designing the machine, and lacking funds to go further, he went to work for an engineering concern while he looked for seed money. A few venture capital firms seemed interested but nothing materialized. The fund-raising task ultimately fell to a man named Sunny Decker.

Decker, a local industrial-equipment salesman, quickly grasped Goldfire's promise. "Every business has two fixed-overhead items each month -- the electric bill and the trash bill," he says. "With a device that could eliminate both, you had a gold mine. So I volunteered to raise the money Keith said he needed."

At age 60, Decker has a huge number of contacts. Between October and January he raised $140,000, selling limited partnership shares at $4,000 each and taking a small equity stake himself. By the end of the year the Burnetts had moved into a 3,500-square-foot space in an industrial park, with part-time mechanic Decker supplying hand tools to build the units. Thus was born Waste Energy Inc.

Burnett knew he was undercapitalized, but he'd planned for that. His own operation is 25% fabrication and 75% assembly of parts from the likes of Westinghouse and Honeywell, supplied on a just-in-time basis. The steel cabinets for the Goldfire are built by a local metalworking shop. "By outsourcing, we cut our initial capital requirements by better than half," Burnett says. He got the company up and running for about $25,000.

Not that there weren't snags, like the time he lit up the first test unit and filled his little factory with smoke. "You couldn't see the back door from 50 feet away," he says. "It was a minor miscalculation, and we got it fixed." By last February Burnett and his tiny but talented crew were ready to unveil the first full-size Goldfire prototype. The local media and potential buyers were invited to take a look.

Iley Conley, president of a Bradenton Buick dealership, was so intrigued by the machine that he ordered a $41,500, 50-kilowatt model. "The concept is terrific for small companies like ours," Conley says. "Our trash bill is more than $1,000 a month, and we pay dearly to get rid of used oil and other things. I particularly want to avoid any liability for the waste we generate -- one of those Superfund sites has cost us thousands of dollars. If the machine can burn this stuff and create electricity to help run the business, it's a win-win deal for us."

The reaction was much the same in March, when Burnett hauled the machine to a Las Vegas trade show for owners of quick-change lubrication centers. He came home with contracts and commitments totaling $5.1 million, including some machines for a California man who wanted to help market them in Asia.

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