Flower Turbines Inc., makes Lubbock home

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Flower Turbines Inc. is a small vertical axis wind turbine company. They held a grand opening of their Lubbock location Monday, which will also be the headquarters for all of their North America locations. Lubbock, however, is the first location in North America.

CEO and Founder of Flower Turbines, Mark Farb, said the company chose Lubbock as the operational headquarters location for three reasons.

“And now we’ve decided to set up our operations and manufacturing for North America, in Lubbock,” Farb said. “And people always ask me why Lubbock. So I’ll say, number one there’s lots of wind.”

The second reason is that Lubbock has a good manufacturing base. The third reason they chose Lubbock is because of Texas Tech.

“They have, I believe, the only Ph.D. wind program around, they have a lot of other expertise in other areas,” Farb said.

Texas Tech is the only school in the country offering doctoral degrees in wind energy. Flower Turbines signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the school’s Global Laboratory for Energy Asset Management and Manufacturing (GLEAMM) program to research the benefits of using wind energy in collaboration with other renewable energies.

The CEO also said many places in the United States have fallen out of the manufacturing business.

“The Lubbock area is one of those areas of the United States where you still have factories, and people who were used to doing things with their hands,” Farb said.

Almost all Lubbock Flower Turbines staff are Texas Tech alumni, including Chief Mechanical Engineer, Madison Atwood. He has been working for the company for six months.

“I’ve been wanting to be in something green or climate change type of career for a long time. So this fits well,” Atwood said.

Atwood has a passion for manufacturing. He said getting to work with fellow Red Raiders just makes the job better.

“So we come into work, guns up every day. And it’s fantastic being able to work with all these people,” Atwood said.

The partnership with Tech and Flower Turbines has and will create many opportunities for the community.

“So we have the partnership of being able to bounce ideas off of Texas Tech, you know, it’s not just the individuals at Texas Tech that make it great,” Atwood said. “It’s the institution itself so.”

Atwood and Farb said the company has big plans for Lubbock. Plans that will include career opportunities and internships for Red Raiders.

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