Dan Juhl | Founder | Juhl Energy
PELICAN RAPIDS, MINN -- Forty years ago, when Dan Juhl was just starting out in the wind industry, there really was no “industry” to speak of.
“For many years it was very difficult. There was no technology, and there were no policies. In 1978 when I started the business, I started a business who my competitors were the largest monopolies in the world. And I was this lowly guitar player thinking I was going to make some electricity,” Dan remembers.
Today Dan, a self-professed “long-hair” is retired, but still serves as Chairman of the Board of Juhl Energy. Dan founded the company in 1978 after a brief stint in the Navy and some time playing in a rock band. Today, the Chanhassen-headquartered company has completed 30 wind farm projects to date and helped pioneer community-based wind farms. In fact, the company, through Dan’s vision, built the very first wind farm in the Midwest on the Buffalo Ridge in Minnesota in 1986 for Northern States Power Co.