What would have been Colorado Springs’ first wind company now apparently won’t be.
A day after the Colorado Springs Regional Economic Development Corp. released a statement raising questions about the business practices and technology of his employer, Rocky Wind Power chief financial officer Steve Stultz said the deal to bring the company to the area was on hold.
“It would be a very big struggle to try to do it at this point,” he said.
Rocky Wind leased 14,000 square feet of space for a manufacturing and sales facility, where it planned to employ 25 people making small wind turbines for rooftops and streetlights. At a news conference announcing the company’s arrival last week, Stultz said he hoped Rocky Wind would grow to employ as many as 140 people.
After that conference, Springs EDC president Mike Kazmierski said he had received reports of complaints against Prevailing Power, an Iowa wind-power company owned by Stultz and his wife, Pam, and questions about the viability of the rooftop turbines they planned to build here. A spokesman for the Iowa attorney general’s office said four consumer complaints have been made against Prevailing Power and that the office is looking into them.
Steve Stultz blamed media coverage of the issue for his decision. He said he had not decided what to do with the leased space.
