Aaron Luque and his new bride, Stephanie, had become friends, then more, at Georgia Tech during his undergraduate and her master’s studies. Aaron had co-launched his own business, Remetco, in 2007, a recycling company focused in the health care sector, after a stint at Georgia-Pacific. Stephanie had served with the U.S. Department of Commerce and at the U.S. Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica.
By the time they married in 2014, the couple had saved up enough Delta SkyMiles and Hilton Honors Points to finance a nearly four-month, nine-country honeymoon, starting and ending in Atlanta.
They bonded, too — but not in the way you’d expect.
“We sat on a beach in Bali and drew up a business plan,” Luque says with a laugh, “like all couples do on their honeymoon.”
The business plan was electric.
“We workshopped ideas for something entrepreneurial and good for the planet, looking at solar and energy storage and retrofitting LEDs,” Luque says. “Then Stephanie turned me on to electric vehicles (EVs). She brought up what was happening with Tesla and Elon Musk, who few people had heard of just 10 years ago.”
Aaron grew intrigued.
“The more we looked into EVs, the more it seemed clear that a transition to an all-electric future in the auto industry would be a good thing,” he says. “No matter your political leanings, there are so many benefits we could all share if cars on the road were electric.”
Their niche?
Electric vehicles needed charging stations. Lots of them. Wherever cars could drive or park.
In 2014, with just $5,000, the Luques jump-started EnviroSpark Energy Solutions, an EV charging station venture. Aaron went customer to customer offering to install, by hand, their first charging stations.
A decade later, EnviroSpark oversees more than 8,500 chargers across North America. The company boasts nearly 150 employees and holds more than 50 operating licenses in 20-plus states. Luque has locked down $65 million in investment funding and has contracts with Tesla, Georgia Power Co., Starwood Capital, Rivian, IHG, Waffle House, RaceTrac, Shell, the federal government and many others.
In short, EnviroSpark has put a charge into the nascent EV industry.
“There was a time when the fate of EVs was in question,” he reflects, “but that time has passed. At this point, the future of the auto industry is EV.”
Mission: Make a difference
Luque’s grandfather immigrated to the United States and launched a taxi business after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba.
“I remember as a kid traveling to Florida to visit my relatives,” Luque says. “My grandfather, dressed in a driver’s uniform, would drive me around in his limousine.”
Luque’s father wore a uniform too. Aaron was born in 1983 during his dad’s U.S. Army assignment in Anniston, Alabama. A subsequent tour took the family to South Korea before his father left the service to settle in Atlanta.
Luque seems to have simultaneously absorbed his grandfather’s taste for the entrepreneurial and his father’s military discipline.
“Also,” he adds, “the military life exposed me to different languages and cultures. That really has kept me from ever being comfortable in a bubble. I always try to look at multiple sides of things and see different cultural perspectives and mindsets.”
An inquisitive child, Luque loved science-fiction movies and books. A favorite theme surfaced early.
“I was always inspired,” Luque says, “by the stories of people without a pedigree who made something of themselves despite the hand fate dealt them.”
That underdog impulse carried over to sports, where Luque showed a special talent for games played with rackets. In his undergraduate years, he discovered an unlikely one: squash. Always seeking matches with better players, Luque made himself good enough to rank 26th in the world in squash doubles play.
Family experiences, schooling and athletics blended to form a strong worldview.
“When I was really young, we stayed with relatives in a cabin in the North Carolina mountains,” Luque recalls. “We went out to look at the stars in the night sky.
“I remember it as overwhelming, almost incomprehensible, a scale nearly too huge for the human mind to grasp. That memory stuck. We have all this beauty in the universe… and we’re all stuck here on this little rock.
“I feel almost sheepish saying this — it sounds so cheesy — but it’s true. I decided at that early age to find something to do with my life that would make a difference here in the world. I wanted to be a good link in the chain of human progress by helping make things better for my kids and for future generations.”
Terry training
Luque already had EnviroSpark taking baby steps when he enrolled at Terry to pursue his Executive MBA. He also had hands-on business experience as a 50/50 partner in Remetco.
“I knew I had a knack for strategic planning and business development,” Luque says, “but my partner handled finances and the administrative side of things. I was passionate about what I did, but when it came to general financial understanding — doing P&L, reading a balance sheet, managing bank reconciliations and cash flows — I really didn’t know so much.”
A Terry MBA would fill in the blanks.
“I didn’t go after my MBA to move up any corporate ladder,” Luque explains. “I just needed a deeper and more holistic understanding of basically everything to do with starting a business, so I didn’t have to rely on other people or end up being a dispensable cog in a wheel somewhere.”
In his favorite Terry course, Luque and classmates launched imaginary enterprises.
“We ran simulations that showed how things worked when we set up different pricing structures or redesigned the supply chain or spent more on automation,” he explains. “It was really fun to compete in those scenarios, to play with the different levers, to see what other people did, their good — or bad — ideas. What happened if you turned this knob over here? You saw the impact it had over there if you did it right.
“Three rounds of fundraising for EnviroSpark and $65 million later,” Luque says, “what I learned at Terry really came in handy.”
First wins with Tesla
As the Luques set out to create their EV charger business, they found two major roadblocks.
“We made raising awareness and increasing charging accessibility the core foundation of our mission,” Aaron says. “That hasn’t changed to this day.
“We do whatever we can to get the word out about the benefits of EVs, and we’ve built our business around deploying stations wherever we could so people have easier access to charging. The idea is that every time somebody sees one of our stations, that person grows a little more comfortable with the idea of getting an EV.”
Luque planted his $5,000 seed money in exactly the right places.
“We first identified the big players trying to do big things that aligned with our mission, and then we figured out how to support them as a small, nimble startup,” he says. “We owe a lot to our two earliest major partners, Tesla and Georgia Power.”
Luque taught himself how to install a Tesla charging station, then went to their newly opened showroom in Atlanta.
“I begged them to let me install the charger at people’s houses when they bought a Tesla,” he recalls. “They finally gave me a chance, and we’ve been working with Tesla ever since.”
The home installations turned into commercial installations, first locally, then regionally, then nationally, then internationally. (EnviroSpark has several hundred installations in Canada.)
“Wherever Tesla needed to find locations for their network, we helped find site hosts for their chargers,” Luque says. “We designed the construction projects to build them, and then we installed and maintained the charging setups.”
EnviroSpark soon became one of the largest installers (by number of stations) for Tesla in the United States. “That experience put us in position to help deploy national charging networks for many other groups,” Luque says.
A surge from Georgia Power
Within a month of starting EnviroSpark, Luque by chance linked up with GPC’s newly created EV charging program team.
“I would help GPC find projects to fund its incentive programs, then design, construct and maintain those locations,” Luque says. “GPC has since been through multiple EV-focused incentive programs, and EnviroSpark has been a key partner in each rollout.”
Todd Allums coordinated energy transportation projects for GPC when Luque first came calling. Allums became a true believer in the young entrepreneur — so much so that he joined EnviroSpark in 2023 as director of utility relations and programs.
“Aaron’s sincere drive and commitment to improving EV charging infrastructure cannot be denied,” Allums says. “He stands out due to his focus on educating and addressing the key barriers to EV adoption. His well-planned approach not only ensures accessibility and reliability of EV chargers for all drivers but also demonstrates the dedication he has to environmental sustainability and technological progress in this space.”
Another big break for EnviroSpark came in 2020 when Luque decided to raise funding to pilot a new offering and business model. He was able to convene “a few high-net-worth Atlanta business leaders,” as he puts it, to hear his team pitch the idea.
“It was straight-up ‘Shark Tank,’” Luque says. “They were gracious enough to hear us out, which led to us closing a small seed round of about $500,000. That let us prove the business case for a new business model, which led to subsequent funding rounds.
“It all started with those first clients and this small initial group that was willing to give us a chance,” Luque says. “For that, we will be forever grateful.”
EVs are here to stay
A Fast Company article speculated that by 2030 EVs in the U.S. could make up 60 percent of cars on the nation’s highways — as many as 26 million vehicles. The Biden administration pledged $5 billion in federal money to create a public network of 500,000 EV chargers by the end of the decade.
States have seized on this opportunity. Gov. Brian Kemp declared an intention to make Georgia “the electric mobility capital of America.” In 2023, Hyundai and LG Energy Solution joined forces on a massive, multibillion-dollar EV and battery plant near Savannah.
Companies such as Ford and even Tesla readjusted production as reality shapes demand, but it appears EVs — and the charging stations they need — are here to stay.
So is EnviroSpark.
Just one day after EnviroSpark completed its round of investment funding, Tesla’s mercurial founder Musk announced the closing of its Supercharger network. Luque immediately began hiring former members of the experienced Tesla team — a windfall of talent.
“This is the single greatest talent acquisition opportunity since I founded EnviroSpark,” Luque wrote. “Tesla had been able to scale their charging infrastructure due in no small part to the talented employees on the Supercharger team. We’re looking to bring on as many of these highly skilled individuals as possible to achieve our ambitious growth objectives.”
Luque especially sought people with deep skills in targeted growth areas, like residential mixed-use housing and condo complexes where millions of Americans could plug in at the end of a workday, then charge out into the world the next morning in an EV with a full battery. The EnviroSpark team also searches for ways to support customers through a growing number of tax incentives, rebates and subsidy plans offered by governments and businesses.
Stephanie Luque credits part of EnviroSpark’s success to her husband’s intangibles.
“I think Aaron’s unwavering confidence in himself, along with his quick-witted and creative problem-solving skills, give him an edge as an entrepreneur,” she says. “I have watched Aaron time and time again navigate complex circumstances in a room full of people, honing in on a specific problem, then workshopping a solution on the spot.
“I think that’s key to being a successful entrepreneur. It’s not just the creative ways one approaches business ideas and markets, but also how you deal with unexpected problems and find creative solutions.”
Clearly, Luque has a high-voltage bias for action. His advice to budding Terry entrepreneurs?
“Just go to work,” he says. “I’ve seen a lot of smart people with great ideas, but what prevented them from being superstars was that they didn’t get busy.
“Perfection is the enemy of progress. If you meet an entrepreneur whose startup went straight to the moon without making any changes along the way, I’d love to hear about that. I always take action with confidence that it’s going to work… and if it doesn’t, I learn from the experience and keep trying different approaches until I figure it out.”