Archive for December, 2008

By Amanda Lester Trevelino for The Atlantan

Mike McQuary steps out of his car, and bystanders do a double take. Not because he’s a striking guy(which he is), but because this six-foot-tall former college wrestler travels most everywhere in a tiny prototype electric vehicle that he says “looks like a Smart Car that’s been to the .gym.” McQuary, or “McQ” as he’s better known, has been the CEO of Wheego Electric Cars, an Atlanta-based, environmentally conscious manufacturer of electric vehicles, since January 2007. And he’s a man on a mission. “My vision is to bring street legal electric cars back to the forefront,” he says.

Although some might say that’s an uphill haul, McQuary, 49, knows something about turning vision into reality. He became a driving force on the Atlanta business scene in 1995 when he joined his friend Charles Brewer in developing the fledgling Internet Service Provider Mindspring with its signature “Core Values and Beliefs.” The company grew to become the second largest ISP in the world before merging with Earthlink, and when McQuary resigned (after his wife Sheryl had triplets) as President and COO of Earthlink in 2002, it was a $1.5 billion company with five million subscribers.

Free to pursue other interests, McQuary became CEO of an independent record label, Brash Music, that empowers artists by using the same values-based culture that was successful at Mindspring. Artists have included Jump Little Children and American Idol’s Chris Sligh. “It’s a combination of music we love and people we love,” says McQuary. “Our concept is to have acts that are doing well and funding the
company, so we can find other acts we love and give them a platform.”

Because Brash Music has an open submission policy, McQuary is forever listening to new talent. On his own iPod: Mike Farris, Elbow (from the UK), Wilco and Lucinda Williams. “Run, don’t walk, and get her music,” he says of the latter artist.

McQuary is on the Board of Governors for the Atlanta chapter of the Recording Academy (NARAS) that hands out The Grammys, but music is just one of his areas of interest. You might call him a serial entrepreneur. He’s a partner in Ellis, McQuary & Stanley, a merchant bank which acquires and invests in media, technology and service companies, with two of the businessmen he admires most: Bert Ellis, who started the web design firm iXL, and Bahnson Stanley, who launched the Weather Channel. His ventures have included an Internet billboard company, real estate, a restaurant, a California television station, and now, an electric vehicle (EV) company.

Inspired by the movie Who Killed the Electric Car?, the 2006 documentary that chronicled the rise and fall of General Motors’ EV1 electric car, McQuary bought a stake in a small South Carolina comp, any that manufactured golf carts. Under his leadership, the company has become a leader in the integration of advanced technology components that distinguishes the brand from other EVs. McQuary believes there is “a perfect storm” of events going on now that make the market for electric cars viable: “We’ve seen the price of oil and gas go up dramatically,” he says. “We’ve seen a groundswell movement of people more concerned about the environment, in particular about global warming. And our foreign policy is dictated by dependence on foreign oil.”With this in mind, Wheego will launch its first street-ready, low-speed vehicles (traveling 35 mph) in April 2009, and it plans to come to introduce fullspeed electric cars priced around $25,000 by 2010.

Meanwhile, McQuary continues to commute from his home in Sandy Springs to his headquarters in West Midtown in his prototype .”Wheego,” where he’s likely to have a copy of a music magazine or a book by David Halberstam flung onto the passenger seat. In his downtime, he works out in his home gym, or plans his next of many visits to Asia where Wheego’s component parts are manufactured. He thinks of Atlanta not only as a place with a vibrant music scene and leaders in green technology, but also a place with a highly educated population that will welcome EVs. “I think we’re going to see more and more ‘green’ businesses,” he says. “It’s not a fad; it’s not a cycle. We’re going to have to look for an alternative to oil.”