In 1983 I began work on CIS thin films. At that time it was our group at Boeing and another group at ARCO who were developing the technology.

All the other thin-film approaches have inherent instabilities, but CIS, like silicon, has no inherent degradation mechanism that has been identified.

There are several levels of advantages that you get out of this. On the first level, the films do not use very much material. That is significant because over half the cost of silicon solar cells is in the silicon itself. At the next level, you have a shorter value chain. The silicon cells have to be wired together and many additional packaging costs occur. With CIGS films, we eliminate most of that.

As I studied CIGS systems, I began to realize that it had big advantages for manufacturing. Silicon solar cells are essentially printed-circuit boards. You build the solar cells on silicon wafers and then solder and wire them together in panels. As a thin-film technology, CIGS can use the type of lithography and deposition processes used in integrated circuits.

Every job that I have taken, my goal has not been to see where I was going, but to work as hard as I could and let the chips fall where they may. And that is what will probably happen in this case ... I am assuming if I do a good job, I will get an opportunity (to remain head coach).

The colleges are so close to each other, and the alumni all work with each other so closely. So if one guy gets too strong, they demand that the other one get moving. The competition level is tremendous. Wake Forest, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Duke are all within 35 miles of each other.