About Pondhawk Solar Aerator
The PondHawk solar pond aerator by LINNE: Designed by science, born of necessity.
When LINNE CEO and founder Sandra Burton acquired a pond with her new property, she inherited a stagnant and noxious mess of decaying organic matter that acted as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and harmful, toxic algae. Combining her engineering background with her husband’s work on photovoltaics, they created the PondHawk Solar Aeration System.
Now that stinky, green, and mosquito-infested water is a thing of the past! Today, the pond water is free from algae overgrowth and serves as a haven for fish, frogs, turtles and at least one blue heron.
The power of the sun and solar aeration.
PondHawk is a fully integrated, patented, solar-powered pond aeration solution that harnesses the power of the sun to deliver oxygen through subsurface diffused aeration. This release of small air bubbles below the surface of the water plays a key role in water circulation. As you can see in this video, the constant movement and flow of water keeps ponds—as well as lakes and lagoons —free of harmful algae, eliminates stratification, and improves water quality.
This state-of-the-art solar aerator was intentionally designed to eliminate the failure points of “pre-PondHawk” aerations systems. PondHawk is engineered to eliminate installation errors. Semi-custom for every pond, the LINNE Industries team will work with you to specify the right components for your needs. The complete PondHawk aeration system includes the mounting structure and enclosure, solar panel, air compressor, microprocessor controls, weighted airline, diffuser platform, and the industrial-grade diffuser, and all the hardware to complete the installation. Your order all arrives in 100% recyclable packaging using Sustainable Forestry Initiative Certified Sourcing.
Craig Burton
Chief Operating Officer
LINNE Industries maker of PondHawk®
Sandra Burton
President and CEO
LINNE Industries maker of PondHawk®
Chief Operating Officer
Craig Burton
Craig Burton has been an innovator of pond aeration solutions since 2009. The most recent result of his engineering efforts is PondHawk® (U.S. Pat. No. 9,290,398), a fully-integrated, solar-powered, subsurface diffused aeration system to improve water quality in ponds, lakes, and lagoons.
Craig developed PondHawk to address a need that arose—quite literally—in his own backyard. The Burton property includes a 30+ year old pond that suffered from a variety of toxic issues and algae blooms, red-tide-like odors, and little evidence of life.
Upon investigation, Craig discovered that most of the pond’s problems were related to stagnation and decomposing organic debris. He also learned that subsurface aeration was the optimal way to resolve the underlying issues. Drawing on his extensive off-grid solar experience, Craig created a solar-powered subsurface aerator that eliminates the expense and complications of batteries.
Since installing a PondHawk, the Burton’s have enjoyed an algae-free pond that hosts fish, frogs, turtles, and a blue heron!
Craig’s career has been singularly focused on solar energy since he first designed and built off-grid photovoltaic systems in southern Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. He subsequently gained experience in manufacturing and product design, working with several technology companies including GE Energy. As GE Energy’s Marketing Product Leader, Craig worked on strategic marketing and product positioning for their on-grid residential solar appliance known as Brilliance.
Born in Brazil of American parents, Craig’s extensive Spanish and Portuguese language skills brought him to the emerging international rural power markets of South America, where he developed solar products for remote off-grid power applications.
Sandra Burton
Sandra Burton is a clean energy business leader with more than 20 years of experience introducing a wide range of innovative electro-technologies to the U.S. and international markets.
After seeing the tangible benefits of subsurface aeration that the PondHawk® delivered on her own property, Sandra recognized the need to deliver a unique, high-quality, solar-powered product to the market. She has in-depth experience working with the electric utility industry and on-grid solar installations, and has drawn on this experience to incorporate features that make PondHawk a truly utility grade product.
Early in her career, she worked with Sandia National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy, Hawaiian Electric Company, and the State of Delaware, where she received the Governor’s leadership award for developing and launching a statewide energy efficiency initiative that saved Delawareans over $10 million per year in energy costs.
In 2007, Sandra joined the start-up team at SunEdison. There she led the Utility Program team that developed and negotiated the 24 megawatt utility solar program—the first of its kind—with Lakeland Electric, the municipal utility for the City of Lakeland, Florida.
Sandra now utilizes her considerable industry experience in leadership, marketing, business development, and solar energy technologies to build and manage LINNE Industries and PondHawk®, global sales.
Sandra has a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the University of Utah and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Delaware. She is a Certified Energy Manager with the Association of Energy Engineers.
Senior Technology Advisor – Dr. Mason Reed
Vice President of Technology, Core Energy Works, Newark, DE
Dr. Mason Reed serves as LINNE Industries’ Senior Technical Advisor, bringing his extensive experience in photovoltaic prototype design, engineering design, and manufacturing to the team.
Most recently, Dr. Reed was the Advanced Product Development Engineer for Motech Americas, where he was responsible for the design and certification of next-generation smart modules that incorporated distributed max power point tracking technology.
In 2006, Dr. Reed joined General Electric Solar after completing his post-doctoral research at the National Research Council. While there, he managed the new facilities design and layout that relocated four laboratories combining a deposition lab, microelectronic processing lab, sample preparation lab and an optoelectronic/laser characterization lab.
Mason also served as Lead Engineer, establishing the complete manufacturing sequence process for a pilot solar cell line designed to improve solar cell efficiency by 15 percent. He was the program lead and designer of the Annual Energy Production Simulation Software that predicted photovoltaic power plant energy output within one percent of actual energy yield, which was later used to create system-level performance guarantees. He was Program Manager for GE Solar’s Crystalline Silicon Rooftop PV System, where he was responsible for the complete design and engineering documentation for a 100 kW photovoltaic power plant for commercial building rooftops. This work required UL certification of design, coordination of fluid dynamic simulations and wind tunnel testing for wind load determination, and it led to a 50% reduction in mounting costs and a 25% decreased in plant assembly time.
Dr. Mason Reed holds a Doctorate in Material Science and Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Senior Advisor – Golf Course Agronomy and Management
Shaun Donahue
Golf Course Superintendent at Tidewater Golf Club, North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Shaun Donahue has served as Superintendent at Tidewater Golf Club for nearly two decades. Designed by Ken Tomlinson and inspired by such legendary venues as Merion and Pine Valley, Tidewater Golf Club opened in 1990 after Hurricane Hugo led to a yearlong delay. The Tidewater Golf Club has play along the Intracoastal Waterway, marshes of Cherry Grove, and breathtaking views in the South Carolina Lowcountry.
Under Shaun’s leadership, Tidewater Golf Club has improved sunlight accessibility by trimming and removing excess trees while increasing teeing surfaces from under two acres to nearly five. Beginning in 2014, Shaun’s team renovated greens to return them to their original size, improved miles of drain lines, and upgraded the irrigation system. Always an industry leader, Mr. Donahue installed Tidewater’s first two PondHawk systems in 2017 on the lake on Hole 14. After seeing the results, hearing positive feedback from the homeowners, and enjoying the reduced maintenance, Shaun added two more PondHawk systems on the irrigation lake on Hole 10 in 2019. Systematically, Shaun plans to add PondHawk aeration throughout the club’s nearly ten acres of water assets.
Mr. Donahue is a Past President of the Palmetto Golf Course Superintendent Association and is proud to serve as a LINNE Industries Senior Advisor.
Thomas R Fisher, Professor Emeritus, Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES)
Fisher has spent much of his professional career at UMCES teaching graduate students and doing research on terrestrial and aquatic systems in basins of Atlantic estuaries and the Amazon River floodplain. His expertise focuses on atmospheric deposition, historical land use changes, stream water quality, nutrient processing in streams and estuaries, and primary productivity. His primary interest is how land use and human activities influence the water quality of streams draining the land and the effects on downstream receiving waters such as Chesapeake Bay.
