Crazy talk. In fact, when I first heard the term, I dipped my head closer and asked him to repeat it again. “Energy Generation business unit” is what he said. We were in the offices of Grays Harbor Paper (GHP), talking to the new CEO, John Begley. 17 years ago, visionary Bill Quigg rescued this abandoned mill situated along the beautiful Olympic Peninsula and turned it into a manufacturing leader in sustainability. Using100% biomass to power the plant, Quigg’s leadership style elevated the conversation of environmental impact and profitability among the resource heavy pulp and paper industry.

Since Quigg’s retirement, John Begley’s keen foresight echoes Bill's legacy. “We recently divided the company into two business units –a traditional Paper Production unit and a new Energy Generation business unit”. With the pulp and paper industry ranked as the second most energy intensive industry group in the manufacturing sector, GHP’s decision to elevate energy as a business practice equal to paper production may be the next evolution for the industry as a whole. “There’s so many opportunities in energy. They are very diverse and they are not all in one place,” Begley points out.

Since installing its last of three turbines powered by biomass in 2007 and creating effective energy management strategies, the mill produces enough excess energy to spark the formation of a business unit designed to manage and capitalize on energy generation. “In our morning meetings, we devote a section to energy generation and energy savings. We also have energy a part of people’s performance standards. We want people to know how energy impacts the bottom line,” states Begley.

Grays Harbor Paper may be part of a growing trend of energy pioneers, blazing trails towards new energy business models and practices. Google, the leader in information distribution, has begun to redefine its role with energy. Recently, the company was awarded a FERC license for purchasing and selling energy. Although the company maintains this a strategic approach designed to battle the impact a volatile energy market has on its data centers, its not a far jump to see how Google can go from being the biggest distributor of knowledge to an energy distributor contender.

Even last month’s issue of Fast Company touched on the growing $171 billion energy management market. Experiencing first hand the role technology, forward thinking business leaders and business restructuring will play in the next three years, we suspect that leaders like Grays Harbor Paper and Google will not only be the vanguards to turning industry on its head, but will be well on their way to the next cycle of innovative thinking, keeping those wagon trails fresh for the rest of us.