Door County NewsPixels™ & Wish Books & Brochures MAG. THE DREAMING ISSUE | Page 46
Co-founder JB Straubel found
early inspiration in Door County.
Story - A junk electric golf cart
found at Door County’s Alpine
Resort and the path that
discovery lead a young man down.
Tesla Motors Secret Weapon It’s
Co-Founder and how he found early inspiration in Door County.
Some of the world’s greatest inspirations,
ideas, and inventions have humble beginnings. One of those humble beginnings
occurred when a 14-year-old kid found a
golf cart in a small Wisconsin town, called
Egg Harbor –it turned out that young JB
Straubel’s inspiration would develop and
change the auto industry decades later.
Because of his technological innovation,
we may soon leave gasoline-powered
cars in the past… thanks to an inspiration
that took place right here in beautiful
Door County.
JB Straubel: A Battery-Powered Mind
Bill, the owner of Alpine Golf Course
still remembers when the young, inquisitive kid asked to purchase the
rusty old golf cart. Straubel spent
quite a bit of time, snooping around
the resort’s junkyard, which was conveniently located right near his family’s summer home in Door County’s
Egg Harbor. Since that warm Wisconsin summer day, Straubel has gone
from tinkering with electric-powered
golf cart motors to receiving his masters in energy-engineering from
Stanford University. After that, he
designed hybrid electric propulsion
airplane platforms for Volacom, and
developed a hybrid electric vehicle
drive train for Rosen Motors. He
maintained his association with his
partner and employer, Harold
Rosen, who is also known for being
the “father of the geostationary satellite” and for his work with space
vehicles.