Pioneer of Solar Tracking
Ron Corio was born and raised in Nutley, New Jersey. He attended Radcliffe elementary school, Franklin Middle School, and then graduated from Nutley High School (NHS) in 1979. During high school, Ron played sports with a large group of friends that called themselves the Clement Street Bombers. At the age of seventeen, after NHS graduation, Ron moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend the University of New Mexico (UNM). His brother Phil was already there, and the west was a perfect place to go to fulfill his wanderer spirit. He attended UNM, studied architecture, physics, and mechanical engineering all congruently, but was not able to choose which he liked best.
At the beginning of his sophomore year of college he found a job as a research assistant at an automotive technology startup. The technology was a spin off from nuclear fusion research at Los Alamos National Labs. It was multifaceted in engineering and science disciplines. It was a perfect place for Ron to get a fully engaged, well-rounded education. At the age of twenty-four he became Chief Engineer at Hard Discharge Ignition (HDI), authored patents and became the company’s technology representative to all the major car companies. The work was so intriguing that he left college for good with only a semester and a half to go.
Ron strongly believes in renewable energy and environmental stewardship, so it was serendipitous that he was offered a consulting job with a solar energy startup company while working at HDI. Soon he became Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the company. At Wattsun Corporation, Ron drove the development of a concentrator solar module and developed a high accuracy dual axis solar tracking system to work with the solar module. Tracking the sun’s position through the sky increases the power production from solar modules. As time went on, commercialization of the Wattsun Solar Module proved to be difficult, so eventually Ron was offered the opportunity to buy the solar tracker business that he developed from the Wattsun Corporation. He raised $55,000 from three angel investors, paid off $39,000 of company debt, and with the remaining $16,000 of working capital, Array Technologies (Array) was born in June of 1992. No new capital was ever raised in the company. It was purely boot strapped from that point forward.
Ron designed, built and marketed solar tracking systems, initially to the small remote home and water pumping markets. Eventually when utility scale solar began to take traction, Ron had a product ready for that market. He was a pioneer of solar tracking for utility scale solar power plants. In 2016, when Array reached over a half of a billion dollars in yearly sales, he sold part of the company to Oaktree Capital, a private equity group. Array had about five-hundred employees, multiple manufacturing facilities, and international sales offices. Ron remained Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Array for another two years. Array then hired a new CEO at Ron’s request. Ron filled in as CTO for six months after stepping down as CEO, before leaving the day-to-day operations of the company. The company went public on the NASDAQ exchange in October of 2020. Ron stayed on the Board of Directors until the fourth quarter of 2022.
Ron Corio was named the richest person in New Mexico by Forbes Magazine in 2021.