From the time he was 16 years old, Washington University track and field alum Deko Becker-Ricketts Devins knew he wanted to pursue a career in solar energy, even if he wasn’t sure what that entailed. “I discovered solar energy existed and saw the needs it could address. I had an engineering mindset and I wanted to tackle this field of energy even before I went to WashU,” he recalled.
In addition to his engineering interest, Deko always had an entrepreneurial spirit. That combination led him to choose to attend WashU. “Other schools I looked at focused on the engineering side without the business aspect. WashU had a concept that paired engineering and business. That blend and exposure to both sides was unbeatable for me,” he stated.
Just seven years after graduation, Deko is the chief executive officer and president of Azimuth Energy, an engineering and construction management company focused on the implementation of commercial and utility scale solar energy projects. The company received Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) certification this month, making Azimuth one of the few solar Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) companies in the country with that designation.
Triangular Focus
Deko’s college experience was an equal mix of his three strong interests: engineering, entrepreneurship, and track.
His entrepreneurial spirit led him to start multiple engineering projects, including one that turned into a small company with friends which lasted a couple of years. Featured projects he worked on included wireless charging, an endotracheal tube redesign, rooftop residential solar like Tesla’s Solar Roof, and the See3 LLC 3-D hologram engineering project.
It was the hologram idea that nearly thwarted what turned out to be one of the most prolific careers in WashU men’s track and field history. Deko worked closely with WashU Head Cross Country and Track & Field Coach Jeff Stiles. “In my sophomore year, I told Coach Stiles that I thought I needed to quit track because of the hologram project, that I just couldn’t do it all,” recollected Deko, whose mindset was changed forever by his coach’s response. “He told me ‘Don’t convince yourself you can’t strive for greatness. You are telling yourself that you can’t do it and telling others behind you that it can’t be done.’ Having such a competitive mindset, that resonated with me.”
“He was incredibly talented, brilliant, high-achieving, and a fierce competitor,” Stiles recalled. “But hands down my favorite attribute of his was how coachable he was, how thirsty he was to learn in every area of his life. First and foremost, I appreciated how much the team meant to him. That spilled over into every action of his walk as a Bear.”
Homing in on Solar Energy
“No matter what classes I took or what I did, I always circled back to solar energy. I came in with a focus on materials science because I thought that was what the world needed. By the time I graduated, I realized there was a 50-year backlog in research and that the technology commercialized today was from research from 20 years ago,” he explained. “There were plenty of people doing solar research. It was time for solar deployment.”
He spent his sophomore and junior years working for Assistant Vice Chancellor for Sustainability Phil Valko in the Office of Sustainability at WashU., which oversees campus-wide sustainability for waste, water, food, energy, and transportation. He worked on the renewable energy team that focused on implementing clean energy projects across campus with an emphasis on installing rooftop solar systems. “I wanted to put the pencils down and use what we already know to get to work. Toward the end of my time there, Phil Valko introduced me to the founder of Azimuth, Marc Lopata, who was looking for an intern,” explained Deko, who could not foresee the meteoric rise in his career that meeting would bring about.
“Deko was a remarkable undergraduate who simultaneously thrived academically, as an elite athlete, as co-captain of the track team, as a student intern on my team in the Office of Sustainability, and then eventually working 20 hours a week for a solar company,” Valko stated. “In perfect alignment with his journey, soon after graduating Deko led solar array design for over two megawatts of solar on university buildings, including the athletic complex where he spent so much time as a student scholar-athlete. Fast forward a few years and he is now president and majority owner of the solar company he interned at while completing his senior year. Deko continues to be an inspiration for many of my students who are charting their pathways beyond college.”
Lopata recalls his search for an intern vividly. “I agonized over hirings, one of the most important things I ever did in a company. I interviewed 44 people for that position and didn’t find anyone who met my qualifications,” he recollected. “I had lunch with Phil and was telling him about my trials and tribulations. He said, ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you should talk to my intern.’ I talked to Deko and hired him.”
“I had been thinking about exiting the company for a while and Deko came to me one day and said he wanted to buy the company. We talked about it for six months before we came up with a plan,” added Lopata, who still works with Deko on projects in the Caribbean.
“Deko is way smarter and way more ambitious than I ever was. I admire him greatly and want to be like him when I grow up,” he quipped.
An electrical engineering major, he invented a remotely operated uncoupling system during a senior design project and received the Professional Achievement Award from the WashU Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering in 2017. In his senior year, he earned first team College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America honors and was named United States Track & Field and Cross Country Collegiate Association (USTFCCCA) Scholar Athlete of the Year for indoor and outdoor track.
“Deko is the epitome of a WashU Scholar-Champion,” remarked Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs & The John M. Schael Director of Athletics Anthony J. Azama. “His focus, passion, and leadership coupled with his compassion for others are the perfect combination for his role as a CEO.”
He had a memorable experience early on during his internship with Azimuth. “One of the first projects I designed as an intern was a rooftop solar array on the Jamaican prime minister’s house,” which he acknowledged was a great way to start, particularly for someone who is half Jamaican. “Too bad I missed the on-site commissioning trip.”
Track Career
His storied track career was capped by being named a 2018 NCAA Top 10 Award honoree, an award that recognizes former student-athletes for their successes on the field, in the classroom, and in the community. Deko was a five-time All-America runner, winning individual NCAA titles in the 800-meter run in both the indoor and outdoor NCAA championships in 2017. He also teamed with Michael Sullivan, Alex Bastian, and Josh Clark to win the distance medley relay (DMR) at the 2017 indoor meet.
He was named the 2016 UAA Outdoor Track & Field Most Outstanding Performer for Running Events and swept the 800-meter run titles at both the 2016 and 2017 UAA indoor and outdoor championships. He still holds the UAA outdoor record in the 800 meters and as part of the 3,200-meter relay with Sullivan, Clark, and Conor Cashner.
“I think about my track career a lot. I ask myself if I am reminiscing more about wins and championships or the path it took to get there, about everything that happened in those four years, not just at the end. There are ‘Stiles-isms’ (Coach Stiles’ sayings) that I still say to this day. Those four years specifically shaped me in so many ways,” he remarked. “The relationships were great and long-lasting. The best man at my wedding was my track captain Alex Bastian, who I won the NCAA medley relay with. I don’t think I could think or feel the way I do or with the passion I have if it had not been for those four years. It changes your perspective to be a college athlete. That applies to every athlete, not just WashU athletes.”
He credits the tandem of Stiles and assistant coach and middle-distance specialist Gordon Reiter for bringing out the best in him. “Coach Stiles prepared me for the mental part of the race and built character in me that I can never forget. Coach Reiter drilled into me this raw competitive edge that I very much still have,” described Deko, who has the word “compete” tattooed on his shoulder. “One of my favorite things is to compete. A lot of people don’t naturally get that competition is fun. It’s not about tearing anyone else down. It doesn’t need to be a hostile word. People often see being competitive as being a negative, but I am competitive against myself, which is 100 percent what track is. I always want to be pushing the limit. If that’s not fun, what else is?”
Stiles’ reminiscence of Deko are also beyond what he accomplished on the track. “My favorite day with him was not the day he was admitted to WashU, it was not the day he won the DMR, the indoor 800, or the outdoor 800. It was having the privilege of attending his wedding with my family and seeing the wave of teammates who he had impacted and the way he gazed at his bride, Sky. I knew he was taking every lesson he learned and applying it to his marriage, which made me burst with joy” he articulated. “I miss him dearly. He was so good to my children, who idolized him. My son would run imaginary races in our backyard pretending to be Deko Ricketts and I couldn’t ask for a better memory. One word describes him: incredible!”
Azimuth Journey
“From the time I started, I jumped two feet in. I wanted to know everything about what we did and how we did things,” said Deko, further supporting Stiles’ assessment that he always wanted to learn as much as he could about everything. “I wanted to run this company one day if I could,” he explained.
He served as a project engineer for three years, and by the summer of 2020, he became a senior engineer and project manager. “Usually, there is one engineer and one manager on a project, but eventually I ran my own projects as the engineer and PM. I took on a couple of microgrids, and some of our largest projects,” stated Deko, who was far from done picking up additional skills. “I learned the estimating side of things and how to price point projects. Engineers need to know how their design decisions affect the cost of a project, so I also worked as our lead estimator and sales engineer.”
Deko held those multiple roles for two years until he stepped in as Vice President of Operations in August 2022. At that time, the company was going through a transition, and Deko began succession conversations with Lopata. “All the cards fell into place. Oakland Capital Partners had bought in several years ago as an investor. This was the inflection point of the company to go from a smaller boutique-style engineering consultant and EPC focused on local commercial and Caribbean projects, to a national commercial and utility scale company,” he discussed. “We have a great model that we can expand all over the country. At this inflection point, it made sense to change up the leadership of the company and move into growth mode. Marc handed over the keys, and now I am the president, CEO, and largest shareholder.” Once Deko took over in March 2023, Azimuth qualified as a minority owned business. The MBE certification process took nearly a year before officially coming through on February 8th.
“There is a big push for diversification in construction and renewable energy. There are not a lot of experienced diverse contractors available, particularly in the solar sector. The industry is craving what we are doing,” said Deko, who is optimistic that the combination of Azimuth’s relatively long history and national capabilities position it for an even greater future. “We are a 15-year-old company with a national reach, NABCEP certified PV Installation Professionals, licensed engineers on staff, and over 600 solar, battery and microgrid projects in 12 states and six Caribbean countries. We partner with installation contractors around the country, providing a national reach with a local presence. Solar energy was just starting to take off around the time we were founded in 2009. There was around one gigawatt (GW) total in the U.S. at that point. The industry installed 30 GW this past year for a total capacity over 170 GW. Azimuth Energy is a veteran in this industry, dedicated to the development of solar engineering experts and the deployment of sustainable solutions. We are two feet in.”