The AEG Story

AEG was borne out of the entrepreneurial spirit of Clifton and Clif Vann, the majority shareholders of Hyde Park Partners (HPP). Father and son - both engineers at heart - are driven to do and invest in interesting things as opposed to many business owners who simply wish to put every last nickel in the bank that’s possible. As such, in 2008, when HPP built the second building on our campus in Charlotte, they dedicated an 8,000 square foot area in the back of the building to research and development efforts. 

 

Livingston & Haven is predominantly a wholesale distributor; while the company adds a lot of value through the construction of engineered systems and other assemblies, it primarily sells other people’s products to our customers around the Southeastern United States. MRO Stop, L&H’s online counterpart, sells these products around the world.

 

The Vanns wanted Hyde Park to also sell proprietary products, so they pulled a handful of talented engineers already employed by the company out of their sales roles and out of the field and asked them to go to the drawing board to come up with some innovative products to solve some of the day’s most pressing problems. Over the course of several years, these engineers came up with off grid solar and portable water filtration products, which eventually became our Firefly Solar Home System and Oasis Water Filtration System products respectively. 

 

Our research led us to believe the most suitable market for these products was Africa, and we subsequently took a leap of faith and founded American Engineering Group Ltd., based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and later established AEG DRC (formerly known as AEG Congo), in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo. After forming Tanzanian and Congolese subsidiaries, HPP formed a U.S.-based North Carolina company called AEG International LLC to oversee and guide the work being performed abroad, develop a U.S. customer base, and more. AEG started with off-grid solar projects and off-grid water purification, and through experience, expanded to mini-grids, microgrids, as well as solar street lights. In Tanzania, we also sell some of the industrial products that L&H sells to industrial clients.

 

In recent years, we have shifted our focus to the American market. AEG now focuses on new solutions using DC (direct current) energy that are tied directly to DC loads such as LED lighting, DC HVAC systems, DC appliances, battery systems, and more. Using a DC microgrid allows a homeowner or business to operate “behind the meter”, producing and consuming their own power without inverting it and placing it back on the electrical grid as is the usual technology with solar or battery deployed in the US.

 

Over the years, we’ve kept the mantra “do well while doing good”, which to us means positively impacting the lives of those we are fortunate enough to serve while still being financially successful.