Valley native returns home to run energy company division

McALLEN — Earlier this week, 25-year-old Vanessa Montelongo locked herself out of the office when she left to grab lunch from the Quiznos a story below.

Montelongo, a Rio Grande Valley native, is running Green Mountain Energy Co.’s McAllen division. For three weeks now, she has played the role of boss, recruiter, event planner and even saleswoman, establishing the company’s first Valley office.

For now, her office is sparse — the only desk being used is Montelongo’s, so when the door clicked behind her as she walked out to grab a sandwich, she was out of luck and had to call and wait for someone from the building to let her back in.

“It’s been a whirlwind — what can I say?” Montelongo said. “The first week I thought I was going to collapse and just die.”

Montelongo was born in the Valley but moved with her family as a child to Baltimore, where her father had a better opportunity to find work, she said. The family eventually moved to Houston, and Montelongo later made Austin her home.

But she missed her family, her friends and especially her grandmother, so when Green Mountain began discussing opening a Valley office, she started lobbying.

“I was very vocal last year that this was going to be a good move for me,” she said.

“I’m always a very vibrant, enthusiastic person just in general when I’m at work,” she said. “Knowing that my personal life was going to be at 100 percent, I was going to be more ecstatic about being here.”

Green Mountain, which buys all its electricity from wind farms in West Texas, has slowly expanded its footprint in the Valley since it began marketing locally in 2007. The company had been using outside salespeople in the Valley until earlier this month, when it opened its first McAllen office.

That’s when Montelongo’s life took off. In the last three weeks, she has set up the office, held a job fair, interviewed dozens of candidates, hired some, planned marketing events and even had time to negotiate a deal with H.E.B. to put a kiosk in one of the grocer’s McAllen locations.

“I think I’ve done more work this week than I had done the entire seven months (with Green Mountain) in Austin,” she said.

Before getting lunch the morning she was briefly locked out, she had interviewed two people for an event planner position. The day before, she had trained two other newly hired salesmen.

She’s trying to assemble her team, and once those people are in place, her life will be a bit calmer. If she accidentally locks the door again, she won’t have to wait to be let back in.

“Every time I can hire one of these important players to come in, I kind of drop that role for a little bit.”

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Sean Gaffney covers business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.