About Us
The Start
This is Olen Geselle and Lillian Pfettscher-Geselle in 1913. The photograph was taken in Olivia, MN sometime around their wedding day. Both were 2nd generation immigrants who went to german speaking schools as did their first 3 children.
Farmers and tradesmen. The Pfettschers and Geselles were people who lived in times much like our own. There were major societal changes happening and new challenges to face every day. Olen and Lillian Geselle believed in family, community, country, faith, and working hard to serve those around them. Through his construction business, Olen was able to share his talents with people of all races, faiths and backgrounds and built many buildings that serve the community to this day.
Olen had a grandson, Jim Geselle, and developed a deep bond with him. Olen taught Jim quality craftsmanship and the value of hard work. But equally important, Olen taught Jim how to build relationships in the community you serve and how to treat people with kindness and respect. These values and principles are what guide Olen Creative Group today and motivate us to create technology that serves the globe and not just individual bank accounts, doing business in a way that is mutually beneficial to all.
The Middle
After attending Olivet Nazarene University, Jim worked as an industrial engineer for several large companies such as Ford Motor Company, Dayco Corp, Milton Bradley and Nibco Inc. While at Nibco Jim was an integral part of the largest expansion of their automated manufacturing process to date and directly oversaw the planning and construction of their flagship manufacturing facility in Greensboro, Georgia. Jim then started his own successful manufacturing, distribution and retail business in renewable energy called Nordi. This company was at the forefront of the green energy marketplace during the oil crisis in America in the late 70’s and 80’s, designing and manufacturing wood stoves, boilers, fireplaces, and other alternative energy products.
It was around this time that Jim and his wife, Julie, took in Julie’s little brother, Chip, who was only a young lad of 11 at the time. Within 6 months of Chip becoming part of the household, they had begun the adoption process with their son, Scott, and a family came together.
Both Chip and Scott worked at Nordi in the summers at an early age. They learned from Jim the same lessons that Jim had learned from grandpa Olen. Chip then attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and worked at an international aid organization for several years before coming back to work with Jim again, helping with the transition from Nordi to Olen Creative Group. Scott is a gifted musician and entrepreneur who relocated to Nashville, TN several years before Jim and Chip followed him down south to set up shop in Middle Tennessee.
Today
Olen Creative Group is working hard on solutions to solve problems that are quickly becoming crisis across the globe. The issue of waste and the state of recycling are a set of problems that the world is only beginning to address in significant ways.
Waste cannot be uncreated. Every time anything is created, it is simply the act of taking raw material and transforming it into something that has purpose. Conversely, every time something is thrown away, it is because it is no longer useful for its intended, or adapted, purpose. It is now waste, without purpose, use or value. However, t
hat object doesn’t cease to exist. Being out of sight does not reduce its volume, weight or substance. It simply transforms into something else: waste that has no purpose and that few give a second thought to. Even the terminology is flawed when we say “throw away” because there is no such thing as away. Everything goes somewhere. It is thrown into the trash to become another object piled up on a literal toxic mountain of other unneeded objects.
But what if everything that is created also has a purpose when it becomes waste? What if there was a machine that gave waste value? What if this machine could transform most of what is thrown away into usable energy? Watogy does just that.
Watogy is:
• A revolution in onsite energy generation: microgrids where companies and communities create their own energy from a renewable resource they produce every day.
• A revolution in waste management: waste is no longer an expensive problem that one pays to have thrown into a landfill to become someone else’s problem.
Olen Creative Group invites you make a difference in the world by becoming part of the Watogy story. This isn’t just about Olen Creative Group- it is about all of us.
