By BLAKE METCALF-HOLT
GIPPSLAND Solar founder and Mirboo North local Andy McCarthy is ready to reveal his long and windy road to success from a high school drop-out to renewable energy pioneer in the Latrobe Valley.
Here Comes the Sun is a candid and electrifying tale of entrepreneurship, overcoming mental health battles and finding your purpose in life.
“I really started writing the book and capturing the journey that we’d been on as a form of trying to help me cope with all the pressure I was under as the business was growing,” Mr McCarthy told the Express.
After settling in Mirboo North, Mr McCarthy started working out of his garage, fighting tides of contempt in the local coal mining region to build one of the biggest solar panel and home storage battery companies in Victoria.
Running a business of over 100 staff, winning contracts across the country and eventually selling his baby to RACV – it was an unimaginable position considering where he was in his youth, growing up in Geelong.
“I was a very troubled child… I was in a lot of trouble,” Mr McCarthy said.
“I had ADHD and in the early ’90s no one had much respect for that as an illness or a condition, so I was bunted around from school-to-school, I left school before I was kicked out at 16(-years-old) before the end of Year 10.
“I was in trouble with the law, I was in trouble everywhere and I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t have anywhere I felt, I belonged.”
He would find himself working for a local solar power installation company where he would install his first solar panel and immediately found his “salvation”.
Mr McCarthy met his future wife, Kelly, during university, who originated from Gippsland and convinced him it was the place to be.
“We went overseas, travelled the world for five years and came back to raise a family, and then she said ‘I want to move to Gippsland. I loved my upbringing and I want to raise our kids in a small town in Gippsland because that’s the best upbringing for them’,” Mr McCarthy said.
“So, we looked at a bunch of towns on the map and we fell in love with Mirboo North at first sight.
“I really liked being close to the Valley and to live up in the hills and it’s just the perfect town for it.”
Having no luck finding a job in solar in the surrounding area, and with a baby around the corner, the couple were left with one option – start from scratch and do it their own way.
“(We) took a $10,000 loan… bought a logo and a magnet for the side of the car (and) an invoice book from the newsagent and a little $6 ad in the Mirboo North Times, a little ‘here’s my card’ ad, that was our marketing budget for the first 12 months,” Mr McCarthy said.
Like many start-ups, there’s plenty of doubt that creeps in, and Mr McCarthy had given up with no sign of traction.
He truly believes Latrobe Valley was “the worst place to start a renewable energy business in 2010”.
Upon recouping and pushing all his chips in, from there on out it was exponential growth year-on-year.
Mr McCarthy points to certain moments over the last decade that sparked the acceleration of renewable energy in the Latrobe Valley, such as the 2014 Hazelwood open cut mine fire and with the cost gap narrowing between solar and electric power.
“Certainly around 2015 when the cost of living of buying solar panels was pretty much the same as buying energy from the grid, we call that grid parity,” he said.
“At that point, it became no more expensive to buy energy from renewables that people started to really get on board and then businesses and schools and hospitals in the local region started to install solar.
“(It) became cheaper than electricity (and) that’s when we went gangbusters.”
As staff and business opportunities ballooned, Mr McCarthy said he’s proud that he’s seen wonderful individual success stories within the space.
“When I think about my own success, I probably look at it through the lens of the people we’ve found along the way and nurtured and identified,” he said.
“There’s guys like Mitch who was jackhammering concrete at Hazelwood when I met him… for minimum wage, and there was something about him that I just really believed in, I thought ‘there’s something I can really unlock in this guy’ and I just invested (in) him so heavily.
“And then to see him grow through the business and become a Head of Health, Safety and Wellbeing five years later, making a really good salary, reporting to the board and not having to leave Mirboo North and raising his family in Mirboo North, buying a house, doing all those things and financial security, I think that, for me, is how I judge the success we’ve had.”
An attention disorder can leave one feeling incredibly anxious and full of self-scepticism, Mr McCarthy wants to continue to make an impact on people and ensure that anyone can find their calling, niche or not, in life.
“I want them (readers) to understand that no matter your background, your education, (if) the deck’s stacked against you, anything’s possible if you put your mind to it and you can achieve anything if you believe in yourself,” he said.
“Particularly people with ADHD, I feel like there’s a fierce energy that burns inside people that they can’t find a way to direct it sometimes, especially when they’re younger.
“But, I keep saying, whether it’s ADHD or neurodivergent, it is a super power, you’ve just got to find that thing that you can channel and harness that energy towards.”
Here Comes the Sun released on July 30, published by Affirm Press and available to purchase online and in select bookstores.
