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Just so happens to be from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke home town, and his son worked for them one summer.
At the time Maria hit landfall over PR, Whitefish Electric Energy had two employees and no office space. Previous largest contract was 4.8 miles of lines.
http://mtpr.org/post/whitefish-company-wins-power-restoration-contract-puerto-rico
A small company in Whitefish has won a major contract to restore power to Puerto Rico following widespread outages from Hurricane Maria. Nicky Ouellet reports there’s some confusion over why the Montana company was chosen.
Whitefish Energy Holdings is relatively new to the Flathead Valley. The company was established in 2015. It doesn’t have an office and only lists two employees. Yet it won a bid with the Puerto Rico Power Electric Authority, or PREPA, to rebuild more than 100 miles of downed transmission lines following a near system failure after two hurricanes hit the island in September. The contract is garnering national attention.
What it didn't have in terms of employees, office space or experience it has in political connections -
Puerto Rico has agreed to pay a reported $300 million for the restoration of its power grid to a tiny utility company that is primarily financed by a private-equity firm founded and run by a man who contributed large sums of money to President Trump, an investigation conducted by The Daily Beast has found.PE Firms that finances Whitefish Energy General Partner is a BIG TIME Trump donor and supporter - $20K to PAC, maxed out to Trump in Primary and GE, gave $20K to RNC in 2016. His wife maxed out to RNC as well.
Whitefish Energy Holdings, which had a reported staff of only two full-time employees when Hurricane Maria touched down, appears ill-equipped to handle the daunting task of restoring electricity to Puerto Rico’s more than 3 million residents.
Much larger utilities are more commonly used following natural disasters on the scale of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island last month.
The private-equity firm that finances Whitefish, HBC Investments, was founded by Joe Colonnetta, who serves as its general partner.
Federal Elections Commission data compiled by The Daily Beast shows Colonnetta contributed $20,000 to the Trump Victory PAC during the general election, $2,700 to Trump’s primary election campaign (then the maximum amount permitted), $2,700 to Trump’s general election campaign (also the maximum), and a total of $30,700 to the Republican National Committee in 2016 alone.
Colonnetta’s wife, Kimberly, is no stranger to Republican politics either; shortly after Trump’s victory, she gave $33,400 to the Republican National Committee, the maximum contribution permitted for party committees in 2016.
Joe Colonnetta is not the only Republican connection to the controversial Whitefish contract. On Monday, The Washington Post reported that Whitefish Chief Executive Officer Andy Techmanski is friends with Trump administration Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Moreover, Whitefish is located in Zinke’s hometown of Whitefish, Monatana.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/dolla...y-utility-company-linked-to-major-trump-donor
Hmmm.
Whitefish CEO is friends with Ryan Zinke, from his hometown, and Zinke's kid worked for him one summer on one of his construction sites.
Say it with me folks -
Maybe the CEO is like Doctor Doom level genius.
Okay just kidding, but perhaps this company is just an ESCO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_service_company
Basically they are just middle men. They purchase energy, and the right to resell it, at whatever price.
