Updated on Jan. 30, 2020.

For decades, Dusty Baker’s daily office has been some of the most storied major league baseball parks in the country as a player and later, as a successful manager.

These days, the new manager of the Houston Astros is also working through business plans, pitching and drumming up new business for his Sacramento, Calif.-based startup renewable energy company, Baker Energy Team. It seems quite a change from two years ago when Baker was well on his way to managing the Washington Nationals to a National League East championship and playoff berth.

Good luck trying to convince Baker that the two arenas are all that much different.

“I see a lot of parallels, that’s why I named it the Baker Energy Team,” said Baker, who still scouts for the San Francisco Giants, the club he managed from 1993 to 2002. “Just like a team, everybody don’t always get along. When you have employees, you are demanding excellence and you are demanding honesty.

“I sort of demand the same thing, plus I give orders better than I take them. I have to be the boss without being a tyrant.”

Baker, 69, started the Baker Energy Team nearly five years ago while still making a living as a baseball manager. He had learned from experience—having been dismissed on the heels of successful seasons at his last two stops with the Cincinnati Reds and Nationals—that sustained employment as a manager could be fleeting.

But Baker, who has dabbled in other ventures and currently also has a winery in northern California, had started down the renewables path on a personal level. When Baker and his best friend/project manager designed his 4.75-acre home just outside of Sacramento, they did so with a solar plan in mind. He put up panels behind his vineyard and on his barn. Then they designed a thermal water system that produced instant hot water.

“One thing led to another, and I said, ‘Hey man, I’m pretty good at this, designing my own systems,’” said Baker, who has a .532 winning percentage as a manager and has made the postseason nine times with four different clubs. “I can’t really build anything. I’m more of a farmer.”

But the epiphany for what has become Baker Energy Team came from a chance meeting with an investment banker at a Chicago hotel bar in which Baker was convinced to attend a clean tech conference in Newport Beach, Calif. It was there he saw the opportunities in the renewable sector, particularly in solar.

“I met a bunch of other energy people down there from all over the world,” Baker said. “Then I noticed that there were no minorities there, there were probably five out of 5,000 and there were very few women there.

“This is the field that I’m interested in, this is a field that needs it. I’m into clean water, leaving a cleaner carbon footprint than we have now. I do believe in global warming. That’s what kind of started this.”

Baker Energy Team focuses on higher-end projects and to date has completed a little over 2 megawatts of solar projects. In the last eight months, the Baker Energy Team has issued term sheets for $250 million worth of business with four energy service projects currently under review and one has been signed.

In addition to turning to his list of contacts, Baker and his partners have targeted historically black colleges, Native American reservations and casinos, cannabis-growing businesses and commercial businesses as potential clients. Baker Energy Team is also currently in talks with California City, Calif., to install a microgrid that will help the city with its energy distribution.

Baker Energy Team, which also offers services in battery and electric-vehicle charging stations and energy management systems, says it will customize its projects to the customers’ needs.

Baker, who has been able to put a lot more focus into his company since his contract wasn’t picked up with the Nationals following the 2017 season, has built the business is putting together his team.

“Everybody knows what Dusty has done with the first 50 years of his life,” said John Ryan, who is Baker Energy Team’s strategic adviser. “You can figure out exactly where he was 10 years ago, but what he is really good at is putting a team together. He has been putting this team together for the right time and the time is now.

“We are doing these custom microgrids, a lot of people call the power purchase agreements but we call them an energy service agreement because they are better than a power-purchase agreement because we can customize this.”

Baker is excited about the direction of his company and the potential to keep building it. Baker Energy Team has given him a new focus away from baseball. In addition to building his business in the U.S., Baker wants to bring solar-powered electricity to parts of Africa through a partnership called Kool-Baker. 

“We’re growing big time,” he said. “It’s a good thing that I’m home. Things really stalled while I was in Washington trying to win a World Series but right after I got back home I jumped right back into it.

“I was hurt by it but fortunately for me I had something to turn my interest to.”