INNOVATIONS FROM DENMARK - BIOGRAPHIES

Johnnie Andringa

Studied mechanical engineering in the Netherlands, after his MSc he founded design consultancy Mecal in 1989 and ran the company for 12 years. Mecal specialized in mechanical design of components of large wind turbines and worked for almost all major large wind turbine manufacturers. In 2001 Mecal employed over 50. At that point Johnnie sold the majority of his shares in the company and went travelling.

In 2002-2003 he studied management at London Business School resulting in achieving his MSc in management in the Sloan Masters program. Since then Johnnie Andringa has been working in the small wind industry in Scotland.

At the end of 2007 Johnnie Andringa together with a business school colleague, Hans Ole Loerup from Stavanger in Norway, took over Gaia-Wind from the company Mita-teknik.

Combining their business skills with the well established design of the high performance Gaia-Wind turbine they intend to turn Gaia-Wind into one of the major manufacturers in the quickly expanding arena of the small wind turbine industry. The company continues the operations of the former Gaia-Wind in Denmark and is currently introducing the product to the United Kingdom. Johnnie Andringa is managing director of Gaia-Wind and is running the UK and international side of the business.

Mikael Sloth graduated as business development engineer from Aarhus University Herning. Mikael is co-founder of the H2 Logic company where he is acting as Business Development Manager responsible for funding and start-up of European and international research, development and demonstration projects within hydrogen and fuel cells for transport.