Donna Esteves

Donna majored in English at Russell Sage College and taught grade school in the Louisiana bayou and high school and junior college in the New Orleans suburbs before returning to her native New Jersey and changing careers – first to sales and marketing, and then to energy conservation. Her husband, Rich, had started his own company, SESCO, Inc., retrofitting residential buildings to conserve energy. When his company was offered residential lighting work, he passed, on the grounds that it wasn’t cost effective. Donna disagreed, and started her own company, Free Lighting Corp., to provide energy-efficient lighting for homes. Before she sold her business in 2001, Free Lighting had grown into the largest energy conservation contractor of its kind in the U.S.