Global Crossing Founder Goes Green in Concrete

By: Michael Kanellos

Gary Winnick, the investor who founded the once-mighty telecommunications giant Global Crossing (GLBC), has gone green.

Winnick is the chairman and founder of iCrete, which says it can reduce the carbon content in concrete by 40 percent. Manufacturing concrete and cement are two of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Winnick also continues to be the CEO of Pacific Capital Group.

The company has developed algorithms that let engineers and contractors optimize the concrete going into a particular site for strength and durability, while at the same time maximizing LEED points. The secret sauce is that iCrete can reduce the amount of cement paste in the aggregate concrete mix by increasing the voids. Additionally, iCrete-fashioned concrete dries quicker than regular concrete, thereby shortening construction time. The company claims that the technology also allows builders to reduce the amount of steel that goes into a structure.

And the company has friends in high places. The co-chairman is John Cushman, who is chairman of the real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield. The company is helping design the 240,000 cubic yards of cement that will go into the Freedom Tower in New York.

Green buildings and building products are emerging as two of the more promising segments in the cleantech industry. Stand out companies to date include Serious Materials (drywall), Hycrete (waterproof concrete) and Integrity Block (earthen building products). All of these companies have devised complex formulas and processes to reduce the energy required to make their products and/or the carbon content in their products.

One of the attractions of building products is that many of the products haven’t changed in years, giving startups room to improve them. The challenge, however, lay in getting contractors – who are notoriously conservative when it comes to new products – to buy them. With Cushman, iCrete has a fairly strong calling card.

Also, profits often aren’t easy to come by because of price competition.

Winnick is one of many execs from the IT world to enter into the green market. Some have done well. Others have resigned from their prestigious jobs. In many ways, VCs seem to be split on the trend. Many say they like to bring in Silicon Valley veterans to run green companies because they have experience in running startups. Others say they prefer execs with oil or energy experience.

Global Crossing was one of the more interesting melodramas back in the go-go days of the Internet. The company began as a developer of undersea fiber optic cable systems, the first of which was a transatlantic cable called Atlantic Crossing. But it was also known for lavish pay packages and publicity stunts. After much corporate chair shifting and the meltdown in telecommunications, Global Crossing (under Winnick) filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. A substantial portion of its assets were sold to Asian companies.

Winnick also used to work for Michael Milken at Drexel Burnham Lambert, a name from the last major U.S. financial crisis.

I learned about Winick’s new venture at iCrete while hanging out this week at the West Coast Green trade show.

Comments

[Urbane Gori...:]

Yeah, but my last read was that he hasn't released the process, nor has he produced a sample.... I'm sure that I'm being a little over-cautious, but gee whiz! Whatever happened to 'cold fusion'.. ??

jegan

2008 Sep 28 04:31 PM

[Tom Goff:]

Thanks, Michael, for your column on iCrete. I do corporate communications for iCrete and your readers might like to know that iCrete concrete mixes are now pouring at the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero in Manhattan, the Beekman Tower that Frank Gehry designed for New York City, and the Revel Casino in Atlantic City — less than a year after the company started. I also worked at Global Crossing, which still exists, by the way. From its current website, “Its core network connects approximately 400 cities in more than 45 countries worldwide, and delivers services to approximately 690 cities in more than 60 countries and six continents around the globe.” Global Crossing provided the first fiber optic connections across both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. My understanding is that those cables are full to capacity today. /Tom Goff, www.icrete.com

2008 Oct 01 07:30 PM

[Plastering:]

240,000 Cubic yards of cement?
Thats a nice Project!

Jan 02 05:51 PM