Ailing solar firm’s CEO resigns

Published 5:00 am Friday, October 14, 2011

DOVER, Del. — The chairman and CEO of a California solar energy company that sought bankruptcy protection after receiving a half-billion-dollar loan guarantee from the Obama administration has resigned.

Solyndra Inc. said in papers filed in Delaware bankruptcy court Wednesday that Brian Harrison resigned last Friday.

Attorneys for Fremont, Calif.-based Solyndra said Harrison’s resignation was contemplated even before the bankruptcy filing and was “consistent with the company’s budget and status of its wind-down effort.”

Solyndra provided few other details in its court filing. A company spokesman did not immediately return a telephone request for comment Thursday.

Solyndra said Harrison’s position superseded by the appointment of a chief restructuring officer. Solyndra’s choice for CRO is R. Todd Neilson, a director of Los-Angeles-based Berkeley Research Group LLC.

The U.S. bankruptcy trustee requested the appointment of a Chapter 11 trustee after Harrison and Solyndra chief financial officer W.G. Stover, citing an ongoing FBI investigation, refused to testify before a House subcommittee investigating the loan guarantee Solyndra received in 2009 from the Department of Energy.