A former Sixties radical and mayoral candidate (he ran against Mayor John Belk), Englander, owner of Charlotte Energy Solutions, is on a mission to make homes more environmentally and socially conscious. His products allow homeowners to heat their houses with oil (no pollution, no reliance on Middle East oil and conflict), flush their toilets with less water and heat their homes with less electricity or natural gas. He’s retooled diesel cars so that they run on used cooking oil. Not only that, he’s turned his store, in the Cherry neighborhood, into a center for progressive activity in Charlotte.