Caledonia firm helps support local Olympic hopeful

At age 34, local Olympic star Diann Roffe, winner of silver and gold medals in Olympic skiing, has a new goal - to compete in an equestrian event at the Olympic Summer Games in 2004.

She has become a leading contender in the three-day event, the triathlon of equestrian sports. Like most Olympic athletes, Roffe has had and continues to need enormous support from corporate America in order to pursue her Olympic goals.

This time, it's a local manufacturing firm that has agreed to help her. Roffe has signed on as a spokesperson for Applied Energy Solutions which makes industrial battery chargers in Caledonia.

The alliance was formed shortly after Roffe turned in a star performance at the Stuart Horse Trails in Victor last July. She was talking with Vern Fleming, CEO of Applied Energy Solutions when the idea surfaced for Roffe to become a spokesperson for the company.

I asked her to become a company spokesperson in part because she is a great person, Fleming said. We can grow together and have some fun while we're doing it.

Roffe shares the feeling.

Vern and Tammy (Mrs. Fleming) are spectacular people, she said. They don't demand that I always be a winner. They're just rooting for me and that means a lot. Without the support of Applied Energy it would be almost impossible for me to pursue another Olympic medal.

For 52 years, Applied Energy was a sleepy little firm known by few outside Caledonia. Since Fleming became owner and CEO in October 2000, it has picked up market share, and received attention with new products.

My goal for the company over the next five years is to double sales to $30 million and to grow the work force from 90 to 150 people, Fleming said.

As a competitive skier, Roffe won seven national championships, a world championship, two Olympic medals - a silver at Albertville, France, in 1992, and a gold in Lillehammer, Norway in 1994.

As of September, she was the top-ranked amateur horse rider in the U.S. and in the top ten of all riders, including full-time professionals. She is looking forward to competing in the World Equestrian Games in Spain next year and in the Pan American Games in 2003. Her ultimate goal, of course, is to make the U.S. Olympic equestrian team and compete in Athens, Greece in 2004.

Few athletes ever compete in both the Summer and Winter Olympics and fewer still are successful. She also spends at least four or five hours a day working with her three horses to polish her skills and their teamwork for the competition ahead.

You might say, thanks to Applied Energy, she's getting all charged up for the 2004 Olympics.

If you have a candidate for Going The Extra Mile, please contact Scott Perkins at 394-3343. His e-mail is sperkins@frontiernet.net. Perkins is CEO of Agility Advertising Agency, 80 North Union St., Rochester, NY 14607.

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