Delaware County pair hope to take their start-up energy company Signature Solar national

Serial entrepreneur Steve Buerkle is the first to acknowledge that the name of his new company doesn't cut it.

Signature Solar suggests exactly what Buerkle and partner Bob Gress insist they are not: just another business in the increasingly crowded field of solar-systems installation.

What they have put together, they contend, is a first in this region: a company that can serve all the energy needs of a home or business, from a conventional furnace in the basement to the evolving technology of photovoltaics on the rooftop; from a standard water heater to a geothermal system.

The business plan is built around a premise they hope has consumer appeal: that dealing with one vendor versed in a multitude of energy systems is preferable to lining up three or four, each with a single area of expertise.

"Signature Energy . . . would have been a better name," Buerkle said in an interview Thursday.

But that name was already taken in another heavily populated corner of the business world - the Internet. And another option, Signature Energy Partners, sounded too much like a venture capital fund, they concluded.

Thus Signature Solar it is, having made its debut July 15.

It is the collaboration of two Delaware County residents whose resumés differ as much as their transportation tastes. Gress, 39, of Newtown Square, drives a silver Toyota 4Runner; Buerkle, 58, of Berwyn, prefers a red BMW R1100RSL motorcycle. He is also a Navy-trained pilot - fitting, it seems, for a guy who says life as an entrepreneur has "a lot of ups and downs."

For Buerkle, Signature Solar is his sixth start-up in 29 years. A graduate of Friends' Central High School (Class of '70) and Temple University (bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology; master's in business administration) he sees no point in working for companies in which he holds no equity, he said.

He said his previous ventures made him "millions" over the years and involved a number of firsts. They included creating software for the portfolio management of large investment firms; developing consumer-focused digital-mapping products (Axxis Software); figuring out how to stream audio and video on the Internet (RealNetworks); starting up and running the Internet division of Suburban Cable; and helping launch a private-equity company, Brooks Capital Group.

Signature Solar is a second start-up for Gress. A graduate of Cardinal O'Hara ('89) and Villanova University (bachelor's degree in finance), he joined his father's business, Wesley Wood Heating & Air Conditioning in West Chester, after college and stayed through an acquisition and a merger until "I got tired of dealing with . . . all the corporate e-mails."

He launched Signature Heating, Cooling & Indoor Air Quality in August 2008 and soon noticed a trend: customers inquiring about solar and other alternative-energy sources.

"It was pretty evident to me pretty quickly that renewable energy was going to be a big part of what we did," Gress said.

That is when, in the vernacular of the energy business, the lightbulb went on: Why not a one-stop shopping approach to meeting the region's energy needs?

After all, homes and businesses have a variety of energy systems, Gress figured. And though photovoltaic might be the ideal choice for one, geothermal might make better sense for another, he said. Yet if the contractor at your house is versed only in photovoltaics, "do you think they are going to try to talk you out of it?" Gress asked.

But Gress lacked experience with solar. So in February, he made a call to Buerkle, who had seen the light, so to speak, on the business potential of solar energy while doing consulting work in 2007.

As a stockbroker out of college, Buerkle had followed thin-film technology, the underpinnings of photovoltaics - aside from the sun, that is. By 2007, he had "started noticing every electrician I met seemed to now be involved in solar. The market got real crowded real fast."

So Buerkle had put his entrepreneurial acumen - enhanced by extensive research into alternative energy - into raising money for large-scale solar projects. But soon the recession was in full bloom and the capital markets had collapsed.

"There were no investors," he said.

Then he got the call from Gress, which led to their single-vendor business - and aspirations of growing it into a national company. They are still looking for their first commercial or residential deal.

"There's no reason this has to be a small local firm," Buerkle said. "We have tremendous expansion plans."

In large part, that is to help Buerkle and Gress achieve an even larger goal: to sell Signature Solar within five years.

But for that to happen, "you have to be credible enough and big enough," Buerkle said. "We want to be the No. 2 or No. 1 provider in multiple markets in the United States."

The company's "bread and butter," at least initially, will be Signature's existing heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning business.

Buerkle and Gress contend Signature Solar will be ideally positioned to capture alternative-energy business with their one-company-serves-many design.

"What we have is a Trojan-horse marketing approach," Buerkle said, whereby Signature's relationship with customers on conventional heating and air-conditioning systems, for instance, will give it a foot in the door with those customers for other energy options.

Compared with his varied entrepreneurial endeavors, Buerkle says, "this one has the greatest potential economically" because when it comes to energy, "everybody needs it."