Christopher Castillo recognized for leading company to achieve record growth despite unprecedented challenges
Castillo Engineering announced that its CEO, Christopher Castillo, recently won the competitive Rising Star Cleanie Award as well as made the Orlando Business Journal’s (OBJ) 40 Under 40 List. The Cleanie Awards is the clean energy industry’s premier award program and is focused on highlighting innovators and those making an impact in the industry. The program witnessed a 56% increase in the number of submissions compared to the prior year, making it one of the most competitive years to date. The OBJ 40 Under 40 List is focused on spotlighting Central Florida’s outstanding young professionals. Christopher was recognized by both programs due to his ability not only to overcome unprecedented challenges but to lead the company to expand to new regions and revenue levels in the process.
“I’m honored to have been recognized by both of these prestigious award programs,” said Christopher Castillo, CEO of Castillo Engineering. “I’m extremely proud of what the company has been able to accomplish in a short period of time and look forward to building on this momentum. I also am very fortunate to be able to work with our intelligent, hardworking and passionate team members every day, and would not have been able to accomplish these record results without them.”
In just 5 years, Christopher grew the firm’s revenue by 2,000%, expanded its footprint from one to all U.S. states and enabled it to complete 30,000 residential solar projects in Florida. In fact, under Christopher’s leadership, the firm achieved Inc. 5000’s ranking in 2022 as the 9th fastest growing engineering firm in the U.S. Christopher accomplished this through an optimized design and engineering philosophy that has unlocked solar projects deemed too expensive. One example is a 38 MW portfolio of large-scale community solar projects in which the firm was able to reduce costs by $1.2M, resulting in 8,700 homes receiving clean energy that were previously deemed ineligible for solar. From increasing staff by 183%, of which 87% are diverse, to maximizing the number of impactful community solar projects that are able to be built, Christopher’s exceptional leadership has significantly accelerated the growth of solar power and stimulated economic development - in Florida and throughout the country.
In recognizing Christopher with these awards, both programs also acknowledged that Christopher was able to achieve this significant growth and community impact despite the Founder & President’s newfound disability. When Rick Castillo suddenly lost his hearing overnight, it posed a large challenge for Christopher, and his family personally as well as for the business. Since he founded Castillo Engineering back in 1998, Rick was virtually a one man show until he lost his hearing. Rick’s speech started to become increasingly difficult to understand because of his inability to hear his own voice. It became a challenge for Rick to perform the day-to-day tasks, such as speaking with customers that he has been handling all of his life. Christopher, whose expertise and background are in business development and operations, stepped in to help his father not only keep his business on track, but achieve record growth. Despite the emotional turmoil and business challenges that Rick’s sudden hearing loss brought, this new father-son team resulted in the company expanding revenue over 5000% since 2018.
The Rising Star Cleanie Award and OBJ’s 40 Under 40 award build upon the momentum of Castillo Engineering’s additional recent awards, including OBJ’s Diversity in Business Award and the Don Quijote Award for the Hispanic Business of the Year. Castillo Engineering was also named to Inc 5000’s national list of the fastest growing companies for a second consecutive year. Prior to these awards, the company’s leadership also recently received two other prestigious recognitions: Orlando Business Journal 2022 Power Player and Florida Trend’s Florida 500 list of most influential business leaders.
Learn more about the Cleanie Awards and OBJ’s 40 Under 40 List, and follow Castillo Engineering on LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up to date with the company’s achievements and announcements throughout 2023.
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