1. 24 Cape & Plymouth Business | December 2014 | capeplymouthbusiness.com
FEATURESTORY
Falmouth Energy:
Always kinetic
By Alex Johnson
Falmouth Energy has a long history, begin-
ning as Falmouth Coal Company in the late
1800s. Originally owned by Dr. T. Lawrence
Swift, the company was bought by Wilbur Dyer
around the year 1918. That acquisition marked
the beginning of what is now a fourth-gener-
ation-owned family business that has grown
through reinvention.
The current owner, Chris LeBoeuf, recounts
Falmouth Coal Company’s early days, well
before it became known as Falmouth Energy.
“It was the early 1900s when Wilbur Dyer
came to Falmouth on the railroad from Maine
and I think he was the station master here in
Falmouth," says LeBoeuf. "He found an oppor-
tunity to get into the wood and coal business
andpurchased Falmouth Coal around 1918.”
Ten years on, in 1928, the company made its
first trend adjustment and purchased a fuel
truck. Dyer expanded the company by opening
several gas stations on the Upper Cape, which
were operated until the last station was sold in
the early 1990s.
Arnold Dyer took over in the 1960s and ran
the company into the 1980s. Following that, the
next Wilbur Dyer, LeBoeuf’s father-in-law, took
the helm, running Falmouth Coal Company
until 2008. “I came to work here with him
about 12 years ago,” says LeBoeuf. “"I previously
worked for 10 years in the food business. My
family owned a food brokerage called LeBouef
& Associates in Needham that specialized in
seafood products. So, I was in a completely dif-
ferent line of business, but business is business;
it’s still dealing with customers and employees
and numbers and marketing and all the other
stuff that goes into it.”
In the early 2000s, Wilbur Dyer was looking
for a succession plan to keep the business in the
family, but with none of his three daughters
looking to get into the business, Dyer needed
to look beyond his own children for someone to
continue the Falmouth Coal Company legacy.
“He discussed the business with me; it was inter-
esting, to say the least. I came down and spent a
good six months here before I decided to leave
LeBoeuf & Associates and come to Falmouth
Coal full time.” In 2008, Chris and his wife,
Kimberly, purchased Falmouth Coal Company
from Wilbur Dyer. The company stayed in the
family with Chris and Kimberly as owners,
although Kimberly maintains a focus on her
work as a teacher while Chris runs the company.
A change in name and substance
The surname of the owner isn’t the only name
that’s changed in the transition process. Until
about two years ago, Falmouth Coal Company
had been operating under the same brand
for the better part of a century. Although the
company’s corporate name remains Falmouth
Coal Company Inc., it’s now doing business as
Falmouth Energy. “That was about two years
ago that we decided to transition our brand
from Falmouth Coal to Falmouth Energy,”
LeBoeuf says.
“[Falmouth Coal Company] had good name
recognition in the marketplace, a lot of history
to it, but I didn’t feel like it presented who we
were going forward, especially moving into the
solar market. Customers always got a kick out
of a company called Falmouth Coal Company
installing solar panels on their roof.” Ultimately,
it was solar that all but demanded a change of
name.
“Solar was something I’ve always been inter-
ested in doing,” LeBoeuf says. “It was very inter-
esting to me, I can see it as a growing market
and something that we wanted to participate
in.” The challenge was taking a fuel delivery
and HVAC business and getting it into the
solar power market. “I met a fellow out of New
York from a company called Earthsponse, and
Earthsponse was partnering with companies
like ours to get them into the solar business, so
they provided a lot of the back end support that
we needed, the training, the product expertise,
the initial marketing, all that sort of stuff to get
our business up and running.” With the help of
the Earthsponse consultants, Falmouth Energy’s
Chris and Kimberly leBoeuf are the current owners of falmouth Energy, the company originally owned by Kimberly's great-great-grandfather.

2. capeplymouthbusiness.com | December 2014 | Cape & Plymouth Business 25
solar division was up and running.
Today, Falmouth Energy’s solar division is
led by Geoff Wheeler, who studied renewable
energy at the University of Montana and has a
background in roofing and home construction.
That’s something else that LeBoeuf has learned
since taking over Falmouth Energy: the value of
having employees dedicated to their specialized
roles and lines of business. “Having that dedi-
cated person, whether it is air conditioning or
generators or fuel delivery, we have one person
that that’s their sole responsibility. They might
have other people working under them, but one
person is responsible at the end of the day for
that line of business.”
It’s all about the training
Now, with several lines of business including
solar, fuel delivery, HVAC and generators, and
the rapid pace of technology, this compart-
mentalization strategy is as important as ever.
However, there is still room for valuable, poly-
mathic employees. “A lot of the technicians will
work on gas systems, oil systems, they’ll do air
conditioning … so the service technicians, right
now there’s seven of them, they trained on a lot
of different systems – they’re pretty versatile,”
says LeBoeuf. With the right training, the same
service personnel can read a wiring diagram and
repair a generator just as well as a gas system.
For Falmouth Energy, ongoing training is key to
keeping up with advances in technology. “That’s
something here that we do with our employees
– we believe strongly in training. Our employees
are always going to different courses and train-
ings. The systems that even 10 years ago that we
were seeing are somewhat basic to the 98 percent
efficient furnaces that are going in today.”
The advances include technology like Internet-
based thermostats that allow customers to con-
trol the climate in their homes while they’re still
out; solar arrays that can provide electricity for
homes and businesses; HVAC systems that have
transitioned from older oil systems to natural
gas; advanced generators that are piped directly
in to natural gas systems, avoiding the need for
manual refills. LeBoeuf sees trends continuing in
the direction of natural gas over oil, and hopes to
see solar continuing its growth so that, once gov-
ernment incentives are removed, solar can stand
on its own as an attractive option for homeown-
ers looking to save money and generate their
own power just as electric costs continue to
increase. One thing is for sure: companies that
can stay nimble and grow with the trends – like
Falmouth Energy – will always have a place
with customers old and new.
Acella Construction finalizes renovations at
Thayer Academy
Acella Construction Corporation recently completed renovation work for Thayer Academy, a
private, co-educational, college preparatory day school located in Braintree. This was the second
time Thayer Academy selected Acella Construction for a summer renovation project. The project
focused on the Cahall Locker Rooms and Glover Lecture Hall. In the Cahall Locker Rooms, work
revolved around updating the existing boys’ and girls’ locker rooms with better and more efficient
showers and bathrooms. in Glover Hall, new acoustic panels, lighting, flooring and seating were
installed in the existing lecture hall. The engineering rooms were remodeled with new millwork,
ceilings, lights, and flooring. new office space for the staff was also created.
BIZNOTE