Clean Green Annual
Conference: Past Successes, New Opportunities
FountainBlue's Clean
Energy Entrepreneurs' Forum was launched in February 2007 and provides
networking and program benefits for 40-150 clean energy entrepreneurs,
intrapreneurs and investors across Silicon Valley and beyond. Our events are
generally held on the first or second Mondays of the month, depending on
holiday schedules, from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. with the exception of our January
Clean Green Trends event, which is generally held on the last Fridays from 8:30
- 11:30 a.m. Our annual event features corporate and intrapreneurial panelists
and presenters speaking on trends, challenges and opportunities for six clean
tech sub-industries, and the industry overall. Our monthly topics drill down
more into individual clean energy sub-industries, as well as business
innovations and challenges. Each event will feature a panel of entrepreneurs,
intrapreneurs and investors speaking on challenges and opportunities, providing
advice for information to all.
Sign up to become a
member by clicking on the link to the left, and sign up for our free mailing
list by filling out the form on the right. Please note that this series is not
for service providers.
Members can register for this event by visiting http://fountainblue.shuttlepod.org. Partners and Non-Members can register for this event, or sign up for ongoing membership plus event admission using the PayPal payment option below.
Date & Time: Friday, January 28 from 8:30 until 11:30 a.m.
with networking until noon
FountainBlue's Fourth
Annual Clean Green Conference: Past Successes, New Opportunities
Location: EMC Corporation,
2831 Mission College Blvd, San Francisco Conference Room, Santa Clara
Audience: Entrepreneurs,
Intrapreneurs and Investors only. No service providers please.
FountainBlue's Fourth Annual Clean Green Conference: Past
Successes, New Opportunities
FountainBlue's Fourth Annual Clean Green Conference updates entrepreneurs,
intrapreneurs and investors on the successes, challenges and trends of the
industry overall. We will begin with a panel of industry experts sharing the
growth and trends of the industry from the legal, finance, venture, and
research perspectives. We will next showcase corporate and entrepreneurial
innovations in six key clean energy areas. Each presenter will then join the
overall panel for more discussion on trends and opportunities, and to respond
to questions from the audience, and culminate in networking.
Agenda
8:30 Registration and Networking
9:00 Welcomes and Thank Yous
9:10 The State of the Industry: Past Successes,
New Opportunities
Facilitator Craig Lobdell, Director CFO Advisory
Services, KPMG
Don Bray, Co-Founder and CEO, Altaterra Research
Robert Horstmeyer, Managing Director, GrowthPoint
Technology Partners
Eric Wesoff, Greentech Media, Publisher of the
Venture Power newsletter
10:15 Corporate and Entrepreneurial Innovations In
Six Clean Energy Sub-Industries
1.
Air,
Water and Waste: improving resource availability, conservation and pollution
control
Gary Kremen, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor
Fatemeh Shirazi, Ph.D, Chief Executive Officer, Microvi Biotech Inc.
Energy Efficiency: significantly reduce
wasted energy
Jonathan Livingston, President, Livingston Energy Innovations LLC
Thomas Price, Director, North American Utilities, EMC
Green Building: reducing the
environmental impact of building construction or operation
Chuck Berghoff, President and CEO, OptoElectronix
Matthew Denesuk, PhD, Partner, IBM Venture Capital Group
Renewable Energy: leveraging waste
streams to directly produce energy
Jim DiSanto, President and General Manager, Earthrise Technologies
Inc., Executive Director of BBE BioEnergy
Robert Walsh, Independent Energy Consultant, former CEO and Director, Aurora Biofuels
Smart Power, Green Grid and Energy
Storage: technologies to enable electricity delivery management to
industrial, commercial and residential consumers
Craig Horne, President and CEO, Enervault
Jit Bhattacharya, CEO, Mission Motors
Transportation: transportation and
mobile technology applications for transportation systems or vehicles
Matt Lecar, Principal, Smart Grid Center of Excellence, Energy
Consulting, General Electric
John Suh, GM Advanced Technology Group in Silicon Valley
OptoElectronix designs, sells, and
manufactures innovative, high quality and cost effective solid state lighting
solutions for OEM customers and the high-output, area lighting market. Mr.
Berghoff has over 30 years of experience in the semiconductor industry.
He built the Siemens Optoelectronic Division into one of the world's
leading broad-line optoelectronic products suppliers. Products ranged
from commodity optocouplers for the telecom industry to application-specific
displays for leading cell phone manufacturers as well as custom products for
major automotive, medical, industrial, and telecom customers.
Over a 13-year period Berghoff held positions as VP of marketing, Custom
Product Business Unit manager, Intelligent Display Business Unit manager, and
later led the division as VP and general manager. Berghoff also served on the
board of Siemens Malaysia. Berghoff's prior semiconductor experience includes
Intel, Summit Microelectronics, Supertex, and Ladcor
Jit Bhattacharya,
CEO, Mission Motors
Jit Bhattacharya
currently serves as Mission Motors' CEO. Jit has been with Mission Motors as
COO since 2008 and has an engineering background including experience from the
product design firm IDEO. He also holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business
at UC Berkeley. Bhattacharya has been involved in energy and cleantech for over
five years, most recently as co-President of the Berkeley Energy and Resources
Collaborative where he helped lead the launch of UC Berkeley's new Center for
Energy and Environmental Innovation. Bhattacharya is taking on the leadership
role at Mission Motors at a pivotal moment in the company's history as it
prepares to bring the Mission One to market, and looks to announce new products
in its pipeline.
Don Bray, co-founder
and President, AltaTerra Research
Don Bray is
co-founder and President of AltaTerra Research, a market research and services
firm focused on sustainable business and clean technology solutions in the
corporate marketplace. At AltaTerra, Don has led a broad variety of market
research and consulting projects on corporate sustainability, building and IT
energy efficiency, and commercial solar.
He recently authored 'Carbon Management Solutions: Business Value
through a New Lens', an independent market research report on the emerging
field of enterprise carbon and resource management.
Prior to AltaTerra,
Mr. Bray served as a managing partner for Accenture. Over 22 years, Don played a key role in
building and leading Accenture's High Technology industry practice in Silicon
Valley, architecting and delivering large-scale business transformation and
technology integration programs. He is
actively involved with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, helping to launch
the Bay Area Climate Collaborative, a region-wide public-private partnership,
and SolarTech, an industry consortium focused on streamlining implementation
and reducing costs in the solar value chain.
Don earned his
Masters in Engineering Management from Stanford University, and a Bachelor's
Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California
at Davis.
Matthew Denesuk,
Ph.D., STSM, Partner, IBM Venture Capital Group, Scientist, IBM Research
Matt Denesuk is currently a
Partner with the IBM Venture Capital Group, where he focuses on new businesses
and technologies related to business services and cleantech. He was previously
the leader for services productivity and measurements in IBM's Global Technology
Services business, and for global strategy for IBM's assets-based services
transformation. Prior to that, he held various positions in IBM Research
focused on building new businesses upon emerging technologies, such as text
analytics, medical diagnostics, and advanced sensors. He is also currently
co-chair of the Services Engineering community of TPSA, the leading technology
professional services trade group. Before joining IBM, Matt co-founded and
managed several companies, including a global consumer products company with
manufacturing and design locations in Asia and across North America, and a
biodegradable plastics company. He also served for many years as a consultant
specializing in IP strategy & litigation and product liability. Matthew received
a B.S. from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees from the University of Arizona in Materials Science and
Engineering.
Jim
DiSanto, President and General Manager, Earthrise Technologies Inc.
Jim DiSanto has
experience in creating, developing, and introducing new business concepts,
models and products; raising capital - over $70M raised in three early stage
technology businesses, both equity and debt; building and leading teams,
selling to strategic customers and partners, and building distribution channels
through acquisitions. The majority of his experience is in enterprise software,
mobile/wireless communications and applications, e-commerce, fleet and consumer
automotive and telematics industries, and location based services.
Jim is currently
serving as Executive Director and General Manager US, Earthrise Technologies, a
business unit of Digisec Group. Digisec
is a leading Chinese developer and manufacturer of electronic platforms and
devices for automotive telematics services, vehicle emissions monitoring and
reduction, and fuel-saving technologies. He is also Executive Director of BBE
BioEnergy which is constructing a biofuel processing facility and renewable
power generation plant in Colusa County, CA. Jim also serves on FountainBlue's Clean Energy Program Advisory Board. Jim has BSE degrees in
Aerospace
and Computer Engineering and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of
Business.
Craig Horne is a renewable energy
technology and start-up veteran in the areas of renewable energy, fuel cells,
batteries, telecom, and nanotechnology and is currently Chairman and CEO
at EnerVault Corporation, a developer of advanced energy storage solutions he
co-founded in 2008. Craig is also an Advisor at Amprius. Craig
spent the majority of career spent in ground-level projects (synchrotron
radiation spectroscopy of Li-ion materials, nanoscale material based Li-ion
components, nanoscale material and processes for telecom components, disruptive
manufacturing of fuel cell stacks, new system designs for flow batteries)
resulting in 18 US patents awarded, over 14 US applications pending, and
numerous international patents. Craig has lectured on energy storage and flow
battery technologies at Stanford, UC Berkeley, national laboratories, and utilities.
He was previously Vice President, Technology at World Energy Labs, Director,
Electrochemical Applications at NanoGram Corporation. Craig earned his PhD from
the University of California, Berkeley, MS from the University of California,
Los Angeles and BS from the University of Florida.
Robert Horstmeyer, Managing Partner,
GrowthPoint Technology Partners
For the past 13 years, Bob Horstmeyer has
been involved in over 100 transactions, working with both large and small technology
companies worldwide, from the sale of a year-old company to the sale of Peter
Wolters GmbH, a 200 year-old German firm that migrated to the high-technology
sector and was acquired by Novellus, Inc.
Prior to his investment banking career, Mr.
Horstmeyer was a manger and engineer at several technology businesses,
including a defense-electro-optics company (night vision goggles, thermal
imagers, laser range finders, etc.) and an energy capital equipment company.
Mr. Horstmeyer holds patents in clean HVAC, horizontal drilling technology, and
solar concentrators. He also performed the preliminary economic-engineering
analysis for Stanford's 50 Megawatt cogeneration facility. He has personally
been an active investor in technology start-ups in a variety of sectors from
semiconductor capital equipment to optical telecom.
Mr. Horstmeyer's career began after
graduation from the US Naval Academy where he received a BS in Physics. He was
an engineering officer on surface ships, qualified as a deep-sea diver and
spent several years in Italy managing a five hundred person organization that
repaired and overhauled US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea. Before
gravitating to the technology sector, Mr. Horstmeyer ran a marine shipping
business in the Caribbean and became an expert in the use of motivational
management tools.
Mr. Horstmeyer has a Masters degree in
Engineering from Stanford University in Engineering Economic Systems, a
discipline in modeling intractable problems using dynamic system theory,
optimization and decision analysis techniques. In his spare time, he enjoys
sports that begin with the letter "s" (skiing, squash, sailing and swimming)
and developing equity option trading models.
Gary Kremen, Founder,
Clean Power Finance
As an
entrepreneur, inventor, executive and investor, Gary Kremen has over
twenty-five years experience with emerging growth companies and developing
information technology. He was founder and CEO of Match.com, the leading
on-line classifieds advertising technology outsourcing company which was
eventually sold to Ticketmaster / Citysearch, President of NetAngels.Com, Inc.,
which focused on Internet profiling and personalization, which merged with
Firefly Network, Inc. and then merged with Microsoft, and formerly President
and CEO of Grant Media, LLC., a highly profitable internet traffic distributor
owning numerous websites, including GalaxySearch.Com and successfully sold to
its employees in 2006.
Gary has invested
in over 50 private companies (individually or thru venture capital funds), including
companies in the clean energy space: AE Biofuels Inc., which together with its
subsidiaries, develops, constructs and operates biodiesel and ethanol plants
primarily in the Midwestern US and India, ReadySolar, which offers beautiful,
easy-to-install and cost-effective solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, Sustainable
spaces, a licensed contractor specializing in home testing and building
performance remediation, and working on a few water initiatives.
Gary also has
several patents, including one for inventing dynamically created web pages,
which are used by over 99% of all web sites in the world.
Panelist Matt Lecar, Principal, Smart Grid Center of Excellence, GE
Matt Lecar recently joined GE Energy as a Principal in the new Smart
Grid Center of Excellence. During a long
career in the energy utility industry, Matt spearheaded new product development
for Pacific Gas & Electric Company and developed and managed partnerships
between US energy technology startups and the Electricit de France Group. More
recently, he held investment positions with two venture capital funds, focused
exclusively on clean energy investing.
He is a regular contributor to Greentech Media, Energy Priorities, Smart
Grid News, and Metering International magazine, and wrote a chapter of "Inside
the Minds: Energy Venture Capital Best Practices". Matt serves on Advisory Boards for Smart
Energy International, FountainBlue, and two environmental non-profits. He holds a Master of Public Policy degree from
Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a Bachelor's degree with high honors
in physics and political science from UC Berkeley. As a FountainBlue clean energy program
adviser, Matt is a program adviser for FountainBlue's clean energy and
Tech2Green series, providing with program, outreach and strategic input and
advice.
Mr. Lobdell is a Director in the KPMG San Francisco CFO Advisory
Services practice with over eighteen years of Cleantech, Power and Utility, and
Energy industry experience. Craig has served many segments of these
industries including Cleantech companies, regulated and unregulated electric
and gas utilities, independent power producers (IPP), engineering and
construction firms, energy marketing & trading, solar power service
providers and integrators, independent system operators (ISO), and
electric, gas and water municipal utilities.
Specifically, Craig has experience assisting clients with strategic
business and systems architectural planning, IPO roadmap development and
readiness assessments, finance and accounting infrastructure development,
finance process transformation, process improvement / reengineering, chart of
accounts, vendor selection, operational risk assessments and contingency planning
development, data integrity reviews, revenue assurance / enhancement,
controls integration, energy trading and risk management systems assessments,
organizational design and change management, and has provided program and
project management.
Dr. Fatemeh Shirazi,
President/CEO & Chairperson
Prior to founding Microvi Biotech, Dr. Shirazi served for 10 years in a
variety of research & development and management positions with A&E
firms. She has over 20 years of experience as an environmental and chemical
engineer and is an expert in biotechnology and cleantech. Her research
has led to a ground-breaking portfolio of intellectual property, including
patents, materials, and process trade secrets. Dr. Shirazi has been the
principal investigator of several federally-backed research projects and has served
multiple times as a technical committee reviewer at the National Institute of
Health and Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Shirazi leads the company to
capitalize on novel solutions for unmet needs in the cleantech industry.
John Suh, GM
Advanced Technology
John Suh is a
member of staff at General Motors' Advanced Technology Silicon Valley Office in
Palo Alto. GM ATSVO is a strategic arm of the GM R&D ECI lab with the
mission to learn about and quickly evaluate technologies, concepts, companies,
and people, primarily in Silicon Valley, and to bring them into GM's global
vehicle development process as technology exploration or product development
projects. John's current areas of interest include semiconductors, wireless
communication, wireless power, energy harvesting, lithium-based batteries,
ultracapacitors, sensors, MEMS, and Web technologies for collaboration. In
addition he's interested in the overall value-chain and ecosystem for EVs,
EREVs and PHEVs.
Previous to
working at General Motors, John has worked at an RFID, wireless sensor
networks, and optical switching system companies. John has also worked at PARC
where he worked on the Modular Robotics Project in the Systems & Practices
Lab.
John has a PhD in
Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and a BS in Electrical Engineering from
Kettering University (formerly known as GMI Engineering & Management
Institute).
Robert Walsh,Independent Energy Consultant, former CEO and Director, Aurora Biofuels
Robert Walsh has over 30 years of global petroleum industry experience,
including 26 years at Royal Dutch Shell. His Shell experience included senior
manufacturing, supply, distribution and strategic planning executive positions
in North America and Europe. Most recently he was the CEO and a director
of Aurora Biofuels, an algae based renewable fuels start-up.
Previously he served as the President and director of LS9, a sugar based
industrial biotechnology start-up producing drop-in renewable fuels.
Mr. Walsh received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Purdue
University.
Eric Wesoff, Senior
Analyst, Greentech Media, Author, Greentech Innovations Report
Eric Wesoff is a Senior Analyst at Greentech Media and Author of the Greentech
Innovations Report. Prior to joining Greentech Media, Eric Wesoff founded Sage
Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services
to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative
energy and telecommunications sectors. Eric Wesoff has become a well-known, respected
authority and speaker in these fields. He also was the publisher of the Venture
Power newsletter, a subscription-only newsletter covering venture-capital
investment in renewable energy.
Eric Wesoff's expertise covers solar power,
fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market
research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He
frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture
capitalists. From 1988 to 1996, Eric Wesoff served as product marketing manager
for Siemens Optoelectronics, where he oversaw complex product lines and managed
relationships with global customers. He then became the U.S. marketing and
sales manger for Akzo Nobel Photonics, which was acquired by JDS Uniphase. Eric
Wesoff later served as the sales director for Dicon Fiber Optics, where he was
responsible for selling millions of dollars of fiber-optic telecom-equipment.
He has consulted for Merck, JDSU, Coherent, IBM and scores of other firms,
governments and organizations.
FountainBlue
Third Annual Clean Green Annual Conference: Past Successes, New Opportunities
Date & Time: Friday, January 29, 2010 from 8:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.
Location: EMC
Corporation, 2831 Mission College Blvd, San Francisco Conference Room, Santa
Clara
Audience:
Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and Investors only. No service providers please.
FountainBlue Clean Green Annual Conference: Past
Successes, New Opportunities
The FountainBlue Annual Clean Green Conference updates entrepreneurs,
intrapreneurs and investors on the successes, challenges and trends of the
industry overall, and showcases corporate and entrepreneurial demos. Beginning
with a panel sharing the growth and trends of the industry from the legal,
finance, venture, and research perspectives, the program will next highlight
how leading corporations are leveraging clean energy solutions to better serve
their constituents. The conference will culminate in a MashUp of entrepreneurs,
intrapreneurs, researchers and others to identify and promote new clean energy
technologies and solutions in six sub-industries.
Agenda
8:30Registration and
Networking
9:00Welcomes and Thank Yous
9:10The State of the
Industry: Past Successes, New Opportunities
Moderator Eric Wesoff, Greentech Media, Publisher
of the Venture Power newsletter
Panelist Dan Adler, President, California
Clean Energy Fund
Panelist Matt Maloney, Head of
Relationship Management, Silicon Valley Bank
Panelist Tim Woodward, Managing Director,
Nth Power
Speaking on employee engagement and the role of information technology in sustainability
11:20Morning Break with light
lunch served
11:50Clean Green MashUp
Air, Water and
Waste: improving resource availability, conservation and pollution control
Energy
Efficiency: significantly reduce wasted energy
Green
Building: reducing the environmental impact of building construction or
operation
Renewable
Energy: leveraging waste streams to directly produce energy
Smart Power,
Green Grid and Energy Storage: technologies to enable electricity delivery
management to industrial, commercial and residential consumers
Transportation:
transportation and mobile technology applications for transportation
systems or vehicles
12:50Each Group to Highlight Opportunities and
Challenges for each sub-industry
1:00Adjourn and Further Networking until 2:00
FountainBlue's
January 29 Clean Green Annual Conference was on the topic of Past Successes,
New Opportunities and feature two panels and an audience-participation MashUp.
Our the State of the Industry: Past Successes, New Opportunities panel
consisted of:
Moderator Eric Wesoff, Greentech Media, Publisher of the Venture Power
newsletter
Panelist Dan Adler, President, California Clean Energy Fund
Panelist Matt Maloney, Head of Relationship Management, Silicon Valley
Bank
Panelist Tim Woodward, Managing Director, Nth Power
Below are notes from the panel discussions,
as well as input from all attendees from the MashUps.
The program began speaking on clean energy
trends, covering how the industry is involving and opportunities ahead. The
industry as a whole has developed a veneer of more respectability and more
attention, due to the recent wins of BrightSource and Soliant and Solyndra and
other companies, and the attention of investors, corporations, government, etc.
and the leadership of tech execs transferring into the industry.
A great part of the initial conversation
centered around policy changes that need to happen, and the role of government
necessary to support this emerging industry. The panelists concurred that
investors and entrepreneurs are reticent to join the clean energy industry with
its current policy and infrastructure challenges. It is difficult to start a
company when policies are unclear or downright unsupportive and infrastructure
is non-existent or not well positioned to growth. The silos between the
stakeholders are an additional hurdle to growth. Specific examples of
challenges raised are listed below:
·Developing
alternative energy, storage, distribution and other solutions which work within
the current grid.
·Partnering
with utilities to upgrade standards for energy storage, distribution and
management.
·Legacy
processes, ownership and protocol are at least 100 years old – they are owned
by few people, and don’t encourage the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship
needed to offer viable solutions for customers.
·Standardization
for alternative fuels, and having an infrastructure for fueling alternative
transportation options are another hurdle.
·Confusing
and inconsistent incentives for consumers and corporations to adopt clean
energy solutions – indeed the European governments have much more consistently
supported clean energy solutions for decades through policies and incentives
and the US is falling behind.
What’s more, lobbying from powerful entities
from farmers to unions to oil and gas is making it difficult to embrace more
clean-energy friendly policies, and silos of powerful stakeholders are
entrenched in what’s-in-it-for-them thinking, rather than more open and
collaborative options for moving the industry forward.
Our corporate panel chimed in with specific
ideas on how industry is leveraging clean energy opportunities, throughout the
value chain, improving both the bottom line and impacting the environment and
also providing positive social impact. Alignment of business objectives from
the top, and accountability of all stakeholders throughout the system help
corporate leaders make progress on their sustainability goals. There were
colorful and specific stories of how measuring results is driving progress, but
also the warning that measurement is not enough – actions need to follow
measurements, and behaviors need to change to positive impact sustainability
measures. Indeed, the likelihood of action decreases with time, so be timely
with your measurements and in taking action based on those results.
Each corporate panelist remarked on the
groundswell of young employees motivated to adopt and even drive corporate
sustainability efforts. It’s up to the leaders to engage these employees, yet
ensure that their efforts are aligned with corporate goals. In addition, there
is little tolerance for the hypocrisy of saying one thing, and doing another
thing, especially when it comes to making sustainable choices for the company.
The most forward-thinking, sustainable organizations integrate sustainability
into their governance and into their charter, and have cross-department
committees to ensure execution of sustainability practice across the company,
and involving and communicating with all stakeholders, particularly grassroots
employee groups, throughout the company, and into individual households of
employees.
Both panels shared interesting ideas for
advancing the industry, despite the challenges. They advocated a focus on
engineering and innovation rather than on creating short-term jobs by doing
everything from offering loan guarantee programs, to creating additional ARPAe,
the DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program, and other grants and programs, and
continuing public/private partnerships to bring technologies out of the labs.
Specific advice for clean energy
entrepreneurs are itemized below:
·Be
resourceful and drive momentum despite challenges.
·Be
creative about alliances, partners, collaboration, etc. and be open to
serendipitous opportunities.
·Focus on
the market over the technology.
·Partner
with universities and research institutions to innovate and bring technologies
to market.
·Look for
adjacent markets for current successful solutions.
·Look for
seasoned tech executives who can help you take your company to the next level
with their depth of experience and connections.
·Don’t be
afraid of the incumbencies inherent in clean energy right now – from policy to
utility to brown companies. The winners to manage through these hurdles and be
the new industry leaders.
·Consider
the role of social media in driving clean energy markets and solutions.
·Always
be accountable to your stakeholders.
Below are specific challenges and
opportunities for life science sub-industries:
Air
Water and Waste
Technologies available to the Flintstones can
be the hot technologies of today. But whether you’re leveraging water, air or
waste to generate energy, or whether you’re looking at filtering, metering,
monitoring storing, or otherwise managing and treating water, you must focus on
the market need and the business model for the solution: What is the
technology, how can you efficiently deliver the solution, and who is going to
pay for it?
Clean air, clean water, and waste management
challenges are a direct result of globalization and population growth. But with
advanced technology at our disposal, there are opportunities to collaborate and
do everything from identify areas of water stress, efficiently deliver
drinkable water, develop and manage win-win waste-management strategies, and
otherwise utilize plentiful resources as sea water and CO2 to cost-effectively
address real and immediately needs.
Water Project Challenges include the need for
project financing as wary investors are shying away from this area (Efficiency
projects are not successful because price of water is too low). In addition,
policy and infrastructure challenges are discouraging investments. Getting clarity
on the following will help progress the industry:
-Differentiated
policy needs to discriminate between water for public use vs industrial use vs
agricultural use, which would impact pricing
-Fed
controls water on hills and mountains
-Not
clear who controls headwaters vs Ground water
-Wells
are controlled by meters (and yet places like Fresno does not yet have water
meters)
-People
need to be educated about the importance of water and its tie to energy
generation and potential
Energy Efficiency
Lack of intelligent
measurement & control and standardization provides both opportunities and
challenges for energy efficiency solutions. Electricity is relatively cheap,
but consumers and corporations shy away from the up-front costs of adopting
more energy efficiency solutions, even though much energy efficiency is
economical now, without subsidies. However, with that said, corporations
are highly incented to invest in energy efficient solutions – as it 1) reduces
there operating costs, making them more competitive, 2) can lead to
fundamental changes in processes that may yield overwhelming market advantages,
3) meets the clean/green/sustainability requests and interests of current
staff and partners.
There are
advancements in building efficiencies from HVAC and lighting to materials and
energy metering and distributed generation. Financing and management of energy
efficient solutions are additional opportunities. The challenges include the
policy/infrastructure challenges mentioned earlier, the relative low cost of
energy, which does not incentivize customers to adopt energy efficient
solutions, and the up-front cost for converting to energy efficient solutions.
Renewables
Solar, one of
the first clean energy sub-industry, has had its ups and downs, and investors
are wary that it might be one of those ‘over-cooked’ sectors. However, as one
of the largest and fastest-growing sectors, there are huge opportunities ahead.
However, be wary about the wind market as there is little room for innovation,
and innovation in biofuels may not be the type of capital-efficient investments
sought by VCs today.
Smart Grid
Smart Grid
segments include storage, supply reliability, energy security, capacity and
management of capacity, intermittent renewables, and other solutions that help
people to participate in energy movement. One challenge is that policies might
support energy generation, but ‘storage’ is still not accounted for, yet just
as necessary, and energy distribution is also a challenge, particularly given
existing infrastructure.
Challenges
include education, lack of coordination and lack of funding, as well as lack of
incentive to adopt new solutions due to infrastructure challenges and high cost
of adoption.
Transportation
In
transportation, there is an opportunity in power electronics to increase
efficiency, such as internal combustion engine, battery innovations and engine
retrofitting. However, costs, weight and efficiency are limiting progress in
this area. There is also plenty of opportunity for development of low grade
fuel and cleaner burn assisted driving, but technologies need to be
commercialized and the infrastructure must support innovations in these
areas.
Policy changes
which might support transportation innovations might include:
Cap and Trade –
or similar legislation to boost renewables to fuel electric vehicles
Carbon tax on
automotive fuels to stimulate plug-in demand
Supporting mass
transit
Resources:
·Green
Tech Media, 2009 year-end Greentech Venture Capital Totals: VC investment in
green technologies totaled $4.85 billion in 356 deals in 2009. Although the
dollar total is down from 2008’s $7.6 billion, the number of deals total
actually exceeded last year’s total. http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-light/post/greentech-venture-capital-summary-20091/
·Case
Study: Dynamic Power Management: Adjusting Data Center Capacity in Real-Time
posted, Tuesday,
January 12, 2010; Source: Power Assure at Silicon Valley Leadership Group's
Data Center Energy Efficiency Summit (Review, editing and finalization by
AltaTerra Research), October 2009 http://www.altaterra.net/members/blog_view.asp?id=272897&post=88645
The bottom line is that we should all partner
to create an ecosystem ripe for innovation in all clean energy sub-industries,
encouraging the cross-section of markets, policy and technology, driving policy
and infrastructure changes necessary to embrace the industry, forging
innovation and job creation alike. We need more collaboration, more leadership,
more success stories to address the huge market opportunities ahead.
Speaker Bios
Dan Adler, President, California Clean Energy Fund
Dan Adler is President of CalCEF. Prior to joining CalCEF,
Mr. Adler was a senior analyst in the Division of Strategic Planning at the
California Public Utilities Commission, where he was responsible for the design
and implementation of California's Renewables Portfolio Standard and was senior
staff for climate change policy. In addition to energy issues, Mr. Adler has
professional experience in international trade policy and socially responsible
investment. He has a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California
at Berkeley and an M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Raymond K. Homan, Vice President, Sustainability
Solutions, SAP A.G.
Raymond Homan is
Vice President of Sustainability Strategy at SAP A.G. the world's leading
provider of business software. As a member of the Sustainability Strategy
team, Ray is responsible for supporting the corporate sustainability objectives
in North America and the SAP Sustainability Solution Strategy globally.
Raymond's focus is on energy and carbon management which dictates a broad range
of engagements with multiple stakeholders.
Raymond recently
rejoined SAP after serving as President & CEO of BDNA Corporation, the
leading provider of IT discovery, content, and mapping solutions.
Previously at SAP, Raymond was Vice President of the SAP High Technology Industry
Business Unit where he led the industry business strategy and execution
across the global high tech industry.
Raymond lives in
Pleasanton, California with his wife and three children.
Matt Maloney, Head
of Relationship Management, Silicon Valley Bank
Matt is current head
of relationship management at Silicon Valley Bank, where he leads the clean
tech practice strategy, which he considers a natural extension of SVB's
emerging technology expertise.
Mr. Maloney was
previously Senior Vice President at Enflexion Capital Corporation and Managing
Director at GATX Capital Corporation. He graduated from Northwestern University
- Kellogg School of Management and Guilford College.
Dr. Peter Williams, Chief Technology Officer, IBM Big Green Innovation
Dr Peter Williams is the Chief Technology
Officer for IBM's Big Green Innovations unit, whose role is to identify
environmentally focused businesses for IBM to either develop or participate in
- he is personally responsible for assembling, maintaining and developing the
portfolio of businesses included. His particular focus areas have been
developing green house gas reduction solutions and services for all types of
organization, public and private; and water management solutions, covering
entire water resources (for example entire rivers or aquifers), utility
infrastructures responsible for water supply, water quality and waste water
management, and enterprise water management.
By background, Dr Williams is a management
consultant with well over 20 years experience of bringing technology and
business issues together to develop novel solutions and business models. He has
extensive experience of the public sector, including defense, as well as the
high technology, retail and CPG sectors. A native of the UK, he has lived in
California since 1999, and is married with three children. His PhD was awarded
by the School of Management at the University of Bath, England, in 1986,
Kathrin Winkler, Vice President and Chief Sustainability Office, EMC
As
Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, Kathrin is charged with
providing vision and leadership in the development and implementation of EMC’s
strategy for environmental and social sustainability. Kathrin teams with
functional leaders in EMC’s Green Business Leadership, a cross-functional
virtual team that champions company-wide environmental initiatives and works to
ensure integration of sustainability principles both in strategy and in
day-to-day operations. In her previous role as Sr. Director for EMC’s hardware
engineering group, Kathrin founded the company’s Engineering Green Team and its
Design for Environment program, which are driving leadership designs in
environmental stewardship and energy efficiency throughout EMC’s product
portfolio.
Kathrin
joined EMC in 2003 as Director, NAS Product Management. Her past positions
included Principal Consultant/Analyst specializing in enterprise management
systems and service level architectures at Renaissance Worldwide, Vice
President Technical Marketing in a Web services security startup, and
Consultant Software Engineer in Network Systems Engineering at Digital
Equipment Corporation. In addition to her work at EMC, Kathrin serves as a
Director of EcoLogic Development Fund, a non-profit organization dedicated to
community-based conservation in Central America.
Tim Woodward, Managing
Director, Nth Power
Mr.
Woodward has led investments in companies involved in renewable energy, demand
side management, advanced metering and outsourced utility customer management.
He was the lead investment partner for the firm’s successful investments in
Evergreen Solar (ESLR), Comverge (COMV) and Proton Energy Systems (DESC). Mr.
Woodward currently serves on the boards of AllConnect, H2Gen, Li*On Cells,
Soliant Energy, Tioga Energy and OptoElectronix, and is a board observer for
Rive Technology.
Prior to joining Nth Power, Mr. Woodward spent eight years managing venture
capital investments for Liberty Environmental Partners, a firm that focused on
energy, industrial and environmental technologies. During that time, he served
as full-time Chairman of Monitoring Technology Corporation, a company that
provides on-line condition monitoring of power and industrial equipment.
Prior to entering the venture capital business, Mr. Woodward was involved in
the launch of First Source, a company providing industrial solvent recycling
services. He also spent more than six years in international marketing for an
industrial filtration equipment manufacturer.
Mr. Woodward received his MBA with honors from The Anderson Graduate School of
Management at UCLA where he focused on entrepreneurial studies and strategic
planning. He received his BS in Resource Economics from UC Berkeley in 1982.
Laurie Yoler is a Managing Director at GrowthPoint Technology
Partners, an investment bank that helps innovative
technology and clean technology companies to raise capital, build strategic
alliances and complete M&A transactions. She has been helping
emerging technology companies grow for over twenty years as an executive, advisor,
investor and board member. She has served on the boards of public companies,
private companies, and non-profit organizations. Ms. Yoler currently
serves on the board of advisors of Tesla Motors, the board of directors of the
Washington State University Research Foundation, the advisory board of DNA
Direct, and the TIEClean Tech Advisory Board.
Previously,
Yoler was chief development officer at Intellectual Ventures,vice president of marketing and business
development for Packet Design LLC, as well as a director at Sun Microsystems
and director of product development and management at Visa.
Yoler
graduated summa cum laude from Washington State University with a B.A. in
management information systems. She also completed a year abroad in the international
business program at the University of Copenhagen. She completed executive
management programs at both Kellogg and INSEAD.
Elise Zoli, Chair, Energy Practice, Goodwin Procter, LLP
Elise Zoli chairs Goodwin Procter Energy Practice, is
a leader in its Cleantech and Climate Change initiatives, and focuses on the
clean energy, Cleantech, innovative nuclear sectors. Ms. Zoli specializes in
developing the strategic direction, including venture capital investment,
private equity, project finance and alternative funding, for Cleantech
companies and projects. Her work includes substantial depth in energy storage
(batteries and beyond), ground source and geothermal, innovative nuclear,
biofuels, clean water and water treatment, industrial processes, carbon
conversion, wind and solar, automotive, ocean wave technologies and wireless
electricity, as well as carbon markets. Recent examples of her work include
efforts on behalf of recognized leaders in the innovative nuclear, carbon
conversion, advanced biofuels and electroplating space, with funding of these
initiatives under various Department of Energy programs. Ms. Zoli works on
behalf of the Cleantech sector primarily from the Boston and Silicon Valley
offices. She is also a lecturer on Cleantech and Climate Change at MIT's Sloan
School, and regularly speaks on Cleantech issues nationwide.
FountainBlue and SDForum conducted our Second Annual State of the Clean Green Industry event on
Friday, January 30, 2009, from 8:30 a.m. � 3:00 p.m. at
Sun
Microsystems, 4030 George Sellon Circle in Santa Clara.
This second-annual event will feature policy-makers,
entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and investors, updating the larger Silicon Valley
community on the opportunities and challenges in the clean green space. Opening remarks were presented by City of San
Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and featured comments on �How Policymakers Are Supporting Clean Green Entrepreneurship�.
Following the opening remarks, our Financing Panel entitled �Where'�s the
Green in Clean?� featured:
Facilitator Quentin Falconer, Silicon Valley
Bank
Kjerstin Barley, Sr VP, Industry Leader,
Technology & Electronics, GE Commercial Finance
Steve Eichenlaub, Managing Director, Hardware,
Intel Capital
Nancy Pfund, Managing Director, DBL Investors
and Board Member, CalCEF
Following the financing panel, and a morning
break, we showcased a corporate panel, on
�Doing Well While Doing Good�which featured:
Facilitator Deborah Gage, SF Chronicle
Subodh Bapat, Sun Microsystems
Peter Graf, SAP
Rich Lechner, VP, IBM
John Skinner, Director of Marketing,
Eco-Technology, Intel Corporation
Ann Marie Feldhursen, HP
Following lunch, we conducted our third and final panel
featuring entrepreneurs profiling �Clean
Green Success Stories�:
Facilitator Dan Lankford, Partner, WavePoint
Ventures
Tom Balkum, Balkrete Inc.
Donnie Foster, Power Assure
Matt Golden, President, Sustainable Spaces
Jason Wolf, Business Development, North America,
A Better Place
PR Yu, CEO, Optony
We would like to thank each of our sponsors, our speakers, our attendees and our partners for their support of our very successful second annual State of the Clean Green Industry event!
SDForum
and FountainBlue produced our second annual State of the Clean Green Conference
on January 30, 2009, to a packed room of entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs,
investors, and other key stakeholders. Below are notes from the conversation.
City of San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed made comments on ‘How Policymakers Are Supporting Clean Green
Entrepreneurship’. Below are takeaways from his talk.
The clean green industry is
charged with a lot of responsibility: from eliminating dependence on foreign oil,
to mitigating global climate change, to create money and jobs, to pulling Silicon
Valley out of the depression. But Silicon Valley and its entrepreneurial
culture and infrastructure has a proven track record for delivering on
technology challenges and business innovations, particularly during challenging
economic times, such as the S&L crisis and the dot com bust. The clean
green opportunities are there, with markets in the trillions of dollars for
companies who can deliver solutions. Government’s role is to clear the path,
and ensure policies that support the creation of the technologies and business
that will lead us out of this recession, and to help demonstrate technologies,
to facilitate its commercialization.
The City of San Jose, under
Mayor Reed’s leadership, has 150 initiatives in support of the Green Vision.
The Green Vision Goals are: within 15 years, the City of San José in tandem
with its residents and businesses will:
1.Create
25,000 Clean Tech jobs as the World Center of Clean Tech Innovation
2.Reduce
per capita energy use by 50 percent
3.Receive
100 percent of our electrical power from clean renewable sources
4.Build
or retrofit 50 million square feet of green buildings
5.Divert
100 percent of the waste from our landfill and convert waste to energy
6.Recycle
or beneficially reuse 100 percent of our wastewater (100 million gallons per
day)
7.Adopt
a General Plan with measurable standards for sustainable development
8.Ensure
that 100 percent of public fleet vehicles run on alternative fuels
9.Plant
100,000 new trees and replace 100 percent of our streetlights with smart,
zero-emission lighting
The experienced panel of
investors had varying and interesting perspectives on the path to
cash/viability for clean green businesses. Below are some thoughts on what
entrepreneurs can do to build that path to profitability:
It is inherently more expensive
to create and manufacture products and services for any new industry or new
technology. So with this new clean energy industry, we are not quite at parity,
where clean/green solutions cost almost the same as standard products and
services, but with factors such as loaded costs to consider, the mood and
mind-set of the customers, parity will accelerate faster than we think.
Adoption will be very rapid and pervasive once we get there.
Current stats are as follows:
In an IBM study of 1900 consumers worldwide, 33%
wouldn’t pay more for clean green services, 40% would pay 5% more and 20% would
pay 10% more.
In the City of Palo Alto, 60% of the citizens
willingly signed up for a 15% premium for electricity with is more sustainable.
Below are some ideas for helping accelerate
parity:
Help your partners, customers, colleagues and
others change the way they think about what they staff, measure and buy.
Help others consider the total cost of ownership
– not just the up-front cost, but the amount of savings and other benefits of
ownership.
Policy will impact the
profitability and time to profitability for clean energy companies. Incentives
will help consumers to better accept risk for early adoption of technologies
for example. However, incentives must have a predictable time period and
payback so that customers can understand the benefits and companies can plan
based on these incentives. In addition, incentives should not be provided to
oil companies, for example, who are making record profits.
When thinking about a
profitable exit strategy for clean energy companies, consider who are the big
buyers (from utilities to corporations to construction or transportation
companies) and what would make them interested in your solution, and when and
how to get them engaged in your solution. Manage the risks incumbent with any
early stage company – lack of technology, lack of customers, undeveloped team,
etc., - and your company would be a more attractive, de-risked M&A option
for these buyers. Consider also The clean green landscape of 8.4 billion in
2008 is comprised of:
40% solar
11% biofuels
10% transportation
6% wind
4% energy efficiency
2% agriculture
2% water
With that said, the panel is in
agreement that there is tremendous opportunity, particularly for smart
grid/energy efficiency solutions, such as software and IT companies and
services companies which are less capital-intensive. But even in the energy
efficiency companies, exits are on average around 14 years, rather than the 6-8
year average for software firms. There will be no quick dot-com-like exits
here.
In the end, factors such as
global warming, AB32, Al Gore, and the economic stimulus package will impact
and hopefully accelerate exit times and margins. Investors, like entrepreneurs,
will be very creative to help this promising industry make forward progress.
Involvement from other players such as utilities may also impact an
entrepreneurs’ options, and the current needs for infrastructure upgrade and
technology standardization may provide opportunities as well.
Our corporate panel was on the topic of ‘Doing Well While Doing Good’ and
featured:
Facilitator Deborah Gage, SF Chronicle
Subodh Bapat, Sun Microsystems
Ann Marie Feldhursen, HP
Peter Graf, SAP
Rich Lechner, VP, IBM
John Skinner, Director of Marketing,
Eco-Technology, Intel Corporation
Below are notes from the conversation:
Corporate leaders are actively
doing well while doing good by:
Managing their own internal energy usage, from
better managing on-site usage of energy to facilitating virtual work stations,
to facilities and systems automation, to better measuring and managing manufacturing
practices, to finding business opportunities in providing cleaner, greener
options, and to proactively managing water usage at work and at home;
Spearheading bottom-up sustainability drives,
while also promoting top-down clean-green policies;
Working with different groups and partners and
others to ensure coordinated and integrated sustainability practices with
measurable targets on specific goals on carbon footprint, on energy usage,
etc.,
Negotiating with and supporting federal and state
government to establish corporate policies and energy standards, and
Making sustainability a priority and a challenge
within and outside the organization.
These corporate leaders agree
that the economic downturn is impacting everyone, and that what was true before
the downturn is even truer today. Know what you are spending, what the payback
time period and investments are. The economy is pushing everyone to be better
consumers and better vendors. The internet changed our culture with the boom
and with the bust. The clean green industry may help us adopt better
sustainability practices, practices which just might impact cultures
post-downturn, and may even help pull us out of the downturn.
Our entrepreneurs’ panel was on the topic of ‘Clean Green Success Stories’ and
featured:
Facilitator Dan Lankford, Partner, WavePoint
Ventures
Tom Balkum, Balkrete Inc.
Donnie Foster, Power Assure
Matt Golden, President, Sustainable Spaces
Jason Wolf, Business Development, North America,
A Better Place
PR Yu, CEO, Optony
Below are notes from the
conversation.
Other panels today alluded to
that fact that ‘a recession is a terrible thing to waste’ and that it is up to
the entrepreneurs who are clever enough to see the opportunities, nimble enough
to execute on a good business ideas, and an understanding of markets to lead
the way. This panel spoke about what they have done with their varying companies
and business models and what it will take for them and others in their clean
green sub-industries to succeed.
Each panelist spoke eloquently
about how providing a clean green service/solution was attractive at the
individual level for personal reasons (everyone wants to do their part) and at
the corporate level for business reasons (it’s a good business practice to
choose the clean/green option). Below are some ideas for what we need to do to
support clean/green entrepreneurship:
Create a standard infrastructure for storing and
distributing energy;
Work together to build an understanding of the
total cost of ownership;
Create policies that support R&D, not just
consumer purchasing;
Encourage accurate ongoing measurement of energy
usage in the home, in businesses, and incentivize people and companies to make
more sustainable energy choices on usage and purchases;
Leverage technology to automate energy
management, where appropriate, and
Use practical solutions to manage energy usage –
like opening a door rather than using air conditioning.
The panelists also agree that
it’s a great time to be a clean energy entrepreneur. There’s concrete evidence
of the need to focus on sustainable solutions, from the recent energy price
volatility to the water access and shortage problems to the extreme storms to
the melting of the polar ice caps. In addition, there are tremendous
opportunities with the change in administration, and there already proven
dedication to take specific measures in support of the clean energy industry.
In addition, the clean energy
industry to beginning to mature, expanding beyond the supply-only side to the
demand side solutions, providing solutions. One up-side of this trying economic
climate is that there is less noise out there, and the ‘real’ entrepreneurs and
investors are actively committed to creating value, especially during a down
cycle when there’s less corporate investment in R&D.
Policy makers can support this
entrepreneurial talent in Silicon Valley by:
Providing performance-based rather than
prescriptive incentives.
Not subsidizing dirty energy, but R&D for
alternative energy sources instead.
Impose taxes to encourage more thoughtful usage
of coal and petroleum.
Encourage a fact-driven society, with clear
measurable and obtainable goals for sustainability, without the hype and
politics.
Encourage innovation.
As one panelist put it, these
are ‘anxious and giddy times of change’, and we are challenged to leverage it
to our advantage.
2009
State of the Clean Green Industry Speaker Bios:
Tom
Balkum, Founder and CEO, Balkrete, Inc. Mr. Balkum invented
Balkrete Custom Aggregates™, lightweight high-strength concrete aggregates
produced from non-recycled waste plastics. He later
received patents for them, presented the same at the Research in Progress
session at the American Concrete Institute 2006 Fall convention, and has more
than 35 years of design, engineering and operational experience. Mr.
Balkum leads the technical development of Balkrete, as well as corporate
strategy.
Prior to
Mr. Balkum’s development of Balkrete Aggregates, he served start-ups and high
growth enterprises as a manufacturing and operations management specialist with
direct profit and loss responsibility. In these positions, Mr.
Balkum applied his extensive knowledge in product and process development and
re-engineering, modular demand flow manufacturing and distribution systems,
production planning, inventory control, quality assurance and contract administration.
Later, Mr. Balkum managed small to mid-size companies, providing
products and services for consumer, industrial and government markets.
Working
in the recycling industry from 1995-1996 to create new markets for scrap tire
by-products, Mr. Balkum gained valuable insight into the difficult task of
separating, cleaning, processing, and reselling recovered materials
profitably. Plastic recycling efforts proved even more difficult,
given the unique characteristics inherent in plastic polymers.
Nevertheless, Mr. Balkum reasoned and later proved that if concrete aggregates
could be produced with plastic recovered from the waste stream, it would be
possible to reduce the weight of concrete (30 – 40%), outperform existent
concrete technology (improving insulation values by 300%), sequester CO2 inside
plastic aggregates (diverting plastic from being incinerated, where every ton
of plastic emits 3 tons of greenhouse gas) and create a profitable construction
supply product which uses as it principal ingredient, millions of tons of
non-biodegradable plastic waste - annually.
Subodh
Bapat, Vice President and Distinguished Engineer, Sun Microsystems Inc. Mr. Bapat
is a vice president and distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems, responsible
for driving Sun's systems level energy strategy. This includes energy
management architectures, specifications, tools and standards for the entire
stack, from the microprocessor and system level up through the system software,
including the virtualization and operating system layers. Mr. Bapat has served
as CTO for Sun's volume systems division, in which role he drove the expansion
of Sun's product portfolio to include Opteron-based systems. He was responsible
for the overall technology direction for Sun's blade servers, rack-mount
servers, telecom-optimized servers, technical compute servers and workstations.
In that role, he drove architectures and strategies for next-generation system
architectures, interconnects, and networking standards. Most recently, he also
served in Sun's software division as CTO for Sun's systems management and
connected services product line.
Kjerstin
Barley, Senior Vice-President and Industry Leader, Technology and Business
Services, GE Capital. Kjerstin E. Barley is Industry Leader, Technology
and Business Services and a Senior Vice President at GE Capital. With a global
portfolio of over $7B in assets, GE is a significant provider of capital to
companies across technology sectors.
Kjerstin has more than 18 years of experience in technology and financial
services. She joined GE Commercial Finance's Media, Communications &
Entertainment business in 2005, responsible for debt and equity investments in
venture-backed, privately held technology companies. Prior to GE, Kjerstin held
progressively senior roles in the Technology, Media & Telecommunications
investment banking practices at Bear Stearns & Co. and JP Morgan.
Earlier in her career, Kjerstin held a variety of operating roles at Brown
Venture Associates, Silicon Graphics, Inc. and Franz Inc.
Kjerstin received her MBA from New York University Stern School of Business and
her BA in political economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Stephen
Eichenlaub, Managing Director, Emerging Platform Technologies and Cleantech
Sector, Intel Capital. Stephen Eichenlaub joined Intel Capital in
1998, and is a voting member of Intel Capital’s investment committee. As
managing director of strategic investments aligned with Intel Corp's central
research laboratories and head of the Cleantech investment focus, Steve leads a
team of investment managers driving equity and technology licensing
relationships with external companies. The objectives of his team’s efforts are
to expand, align and accelerate the frontiers of technology via strategic
relationships with early and mid-stage start-ups in the context of driving
significantly positive financial returns for Intel. Prior to Intel, Steve
worked at leading software and solutions companies such as Adobe Systems,
Mentor Graphics, Silicon Compiler Systems, and GammaMetrics, across a variety
of roles including venture investing, mergers & acquisitions, business
development, strategic marketing, product management, sales management, and
investor relations. He holds a BS in Electrical and Nuclear Engineering from UC
Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Quentin
Falconer, National Cleantech Coordinator, Silicon Valley Bank. As
National Cleantech Coordinator, Quentin Falconer leads the business
development efforts for the cleantech industry at SVB Silicon
Valley Bank. SVB is the premier commercial bank for technology and life
science companies of all sizes. SVB currently banks half of all
venture-backed companies nationwide. Founded in 1983 and headquartered in
Santa Clara, Calif., the company serves clients around the world through 27
U.S. offices and international operations in China, India, Israel and the U.K.
Formerly
an engineer with Bechtel Corporation, Quentin began his commercial banking
career in 1990 and has been with Silicon Valley Bank since 1999 working with
emerging and mid-stage technology companies. He provides and oversees
commercial and merchant banking, investment management and global treasury
services for his portfolio of clients. Quentin sits on the Advisory Council
for the Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum and is a member of Financial Executives
International. He earned Bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and music
from Tufts University and a master’s of business administration from UC
Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst
(CFA).
Anne
Marie Feldhusen, Marketing Manager, Green Business Technology Initiative,
Hewlett Packard. Anne Feldhusen is the Marketing Manager for HP's Green Business
Technology Initiative. The initiative supports enterprise clients in achieving
business outcomes while at the same time reducing environmental impact. Anne
has held leadership roles in HP Services Marketing and Australia's field sales
organization. In 2007, Anne launched HP’s first large-scale solar installation.
Anne
joined HP from Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Business.
Prior to HP, Anne worked in financial services and holds a Bachelor of Science
degree in industrial management and industrial engineering from Purdue University.
Donnie
Foster, Founder, President & CEO, Power Assure, Inc. - Holistic Power
Management. With over 30 years in the High Tech, Pharmaceutical, and Biotech
industries, he is experienced in providing executive, business, people and
information technology management. Prior to Power Assure, Donnie held numerous
executive positions most notable as the General Manager (P&L
responsibility) at Hewlett-Packard for America’s Region for custom software
solutions, and set-up business development, R&D and delivery capabilities
using local and offshore resources. Over his distinguished career at HP, he
served in many roles including Software R&D Manager, E-Services Business
Organization, Division Professional Services and Support Manager - India
Support Organization, Facilities, IT Systems and Programming Manager.
Donnie
stepped into his first data center more than 30 years ago and felt the cold air
on the hot IBM and Amdahl mainframes… and has watched over the years as
minicomputers and then servers have multiplied in numbers, power and cooling
requirements and believes that he and his team have found a more sustainable
model.
Donnie’s
specialties include Green Power Management, Executive Program and Project
Management, Business Transformation, Executive Transition Management and
International IT, Data Center, R&D, and Outsourcing Expertise. Donnie is an
experienced CEO and business executive who collaborates and challenges
colleagues, board members, and staff to excel in dynamic, high-pressure
situations using results-oriented leadership, financial analysis, and proven
project management techniques. He creates a catalyst for improved bottom-line
results with a team-oriented approach and problem-solving demeanor.
Donnie is
active with the DOE, EPA, and Silicon Valley Leadership Group, among others
promoting energy efficiency and improved sustainability techniques for high
tech companies. Donnie lives with his wife and daughter in Mountain View,
California and is active in community affairs.
Deborah
Gage, Senior Technology Reporter, San Francisco Chronicle. Deborah
is a senior technology reporter covering green technology, security, privacy,
venture capitalists and Silicon Valley startups. She is also a technology
blogger for The Tech Chronicles. Deborah joined the San Francisco Chronicle as
a senior technology reporter in December 2007. She previously was a senior
writer for Baseline magazine in New York. She has covered the high technology
industry since 1994 and has won over a dozen national and regional editorial awards,
including the Grand Neal and Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards
in 2005 for a story on how American-made software contributed to the deaths of
cancer patients in Panama.
Matt
Golden, Co-Founder and President, Sustainable Spaces. Matt Golden
is the co-founder and president of Sustainable Spaces. Prior to founding the
company in 2004, Matt worked as an Energy Consultant, helping homeowners and
businesses develop solar power systems. He soon realized that he was offering
only a point solution and was not truly addressing most homeowners' desires to
make their homes and lives more sustainable. Matt developed the concept for
Sustainable Spaces to meet this market demand by providing a single,
full-service resource and a brand homeowners can trust to help them improve the
comfort, health, and efficiency of their home. Matt speaks extensively on building science and integrated green design to
groups such as the AIA (American Institute of Architects), West Coast Green,
Build it Green and others. Matt has authored a number of articles for Home
Energy Magazine and has been featured in the SF Chronicle, USA Today, KQED
Radio, and the Ellen Degeneres Show. He currently resides on the following
boards: Department of Energy (DOE) Home Performance Council, California
Building Performance Contractors Association (CBPCA), Build It Green, and Fine
Home Building Magazine Green Building Advisory Board.
Peter Graf, Executive Vice President, SAP. Peter Graf, executive vice
president, is head of sustainability at SAP. Reporting to board member Jim
Hagemann Snabe, he leads SAP's overall sustainability solutions and ensures
sustainable operations at SAP itself. Based out of SAP Labs Offices in
Palo Alto, CA, Peter holds a Masters degree in computer science and economics
as well as a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence.
Dan
Lankford, Managing Director, Wavepoint Ventures. Dan
brings more than 30 years of experience in the telecommunications equipment,
software, semiconductor, and energy technology industries to Wavepoint,
including senior leadership roles at AT&T/Bell Labs/Agere Systems and
several early-stage companies.
Prior to
Wavepoint, Dan was Chairman and CEO of BOLDER Technologies, where he took the
company from early-stage through IPO and raised more than $100
million in the private and public markets. BOLDER was an energy technology
company that, among other things, supplied the batteries for the original
Chrysler hybrid electric vehicle project. Before joining BOLDER he was the CEO
of AT&T Microelectronics (Agere Systems) Europe, where he increased
revenues from $15 million to $250 million in five years and
established the company as one of the leading chip, opto-electronic,
and power systems suppliers to the European electronics industry.
Prior to moving to Europe, Dan served as vice president of marketing for
AT&T's $2.5 billion worldwide microelectronics business. He was also part
of the team that commercialized the UNIX business at Bell Labs. He has been
involved with early-stage technology ventures for more than 20 years as an
investor, board member, executive, and consultant.
Dan has a
Master’s degree in management from Stanford Business School where he was a
Sloan Fellow; he also has a Bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering (with
honors) from Johns Hopkins University and has attended the Senior European
Executive Program at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. Dan is a former
Commissioner on the Colorado Governor's Commission on Science and Technology
and has presented at the White House Conference on Alternative Energy.
Rich
Lechner, Vice President, Energy & Environment, IBM. Mr.
Lechner was named vice president, Energy & Environment in September 2008.
In this role, he leads IBM’s efforts in helping clients address the issues and
opportunities around energy, the environment, and sustainability. He is
responsible for defining strategy and managing the broad portfolio of
capabilities and offerings that leverage IBM’s technology innovation, deep
industry insight, and business process strategy.
Mr.
Lechner has a strong track record for driving key cross IBM initiatives that
deliver value to clients of all sizes including virtualization, Project Big
Green, and IBM’s New Enterprise Data Center Strategy. Previously, he was vice
president for Enterprise Systems addressing IBM’s large enterprise customer
base and market opportunity by bringing to market a unified set of systems,
software and services designed to optimize large-scale IT infrastructures. He
has held a number of other senior leadership positions at IBM across the
hardware, software, and services organizations including: IT Optimization,
Storage Systems, Mainframes, Software Strategy, and Systems Management. Mr.
Lechner spent ten years as a programmer for IBM and began his career as a
micro-code programmer in the Financial Services Industry.
Nancy E.
Pfund, Managing Partner, DBL Investors and CalCEF Board Member. Ms. Pfund
is a Managing Partner of DBL Investors, an investment firm focused on
delivering strong financial returns together with positive social,
environmental, and economic impact. DBL Investors drives sustainability through
a combination of investing in cleantech companies as well as in companies from
more diversified sectors and then helping these companies realize the economic
benefits of environmental stewardship and branding. DBL Investors’ first fund,
the Bay Area Equity Fund, implements this strategy with top-tier returns in a
portfolio of investments in emerging growth companies located in lower-income
neighborhoods of the San Francisco Bay Area. Ms. Pfund currently sponsors or
sits on the board of directors of a number of private companies, including
Tesla Motors, Pandora Corporation, Brightsource Energy, SolarCity, and eMeter.
Originally
a regional venture capital group within JPMorgan, DBL Investors spun out as an
independent firm in January 2008. Ms. Pfund joined JPMorgan (then Hambrecht
& Quist) in 1984 as a securities analyst and later joined its venture
capital department as Principal and then Managing Director. In addition to her
private equity responsibilities, Ms. Pfund also built and directed H&Q's
external affairs and philanthropic programs from 1996 to 2001.
In 1988,
President Bush appointed Ms. Pfund as a charter member of the National Advisory
Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. In 1999, Ms. Pfund was
appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Congressional Web-Based
Education Commission. Currently, Ms. Pfund is a member of the board of
directors of the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), a not-for-profit fund
mandated by the California PUC to invest in companies pursuing alternatives to
a fossil-fuel dominated economy, and is an Advisor to its newly-created CalCEF
Angel Fund. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the UC Davis Center
for Energy Efficiency, and is a founding officer and director of ABC 2, a
foundation aimed at accelerating a cure for brain cancer. Most recently, Ms.
Pfund has been appointed as a member of the Task Force on California’s Energy
and Environmental Challenges, an initiative of the Pacific Council on
International Policy. Ms. Pfund speaks frequently on subjects relating to
environmental investing, environmental policy, and mission-related investing.
Prior to
joining JPMorgan, Ms. Pfund worked at Intel Corporation, Stanford University,
the State of California, and the Sierra Club. Ms. Pfund received her BA and MA
in anthropology from Stanford University, and her MBA from the Yale School of
Management.
Chuck
Reed, Mayor, City of San Jose. Chuck Reed is the 64th
Mayor of San José. Elected on November 7, 2006, Chuck was sworn into office the
following January by his daughter, Air Force Major Kim Campbell. Chuck was born
on August 16, 1948 and was raised in the small farming town of Garden City,
Kansas. His family lived in a public housing project, teaching him from an
early age the importance of government aide for working families. A strong work
ethic was evident during childhood as he took jobs sweeping floors while still
in elementary school. Chuck dug ditches, shoveled gravel, and worked in the
fields before becoming a teenager. While in high school, Chuck worked part time
operating a bull dozer and driving an 18 wheeler semi truck. Chuck left Kansas
to attend the United States Air Force Academy and went on to serve in Thailand
during the Vietnam War. He received a Master’s Degree in Public Affairs from
Princeton University and graduated from Stanford Law School. After passing the
bar, Chuck began working as an attorney in San José handling environmental,
employment, land use and real estate law, and commercial litigation. Chuck’s
success as an attorney gave him the opportunity to devote time to serving the
community. He began offering free legal advice to tenants in housing disputes
and helping local non-profit organizations. Chuck has served on more than 20
boards, commissions, committees, and task forces. After two decades of civic
participation, Chuck ran for City Council in 2000. Winning the seat, Chuck
represented District 4 including Berryessa, North San José, and Alviso. As a councilmember,
Chuck openly opposed issues that he believed were not in the best interest of
San José’s long term future. He became the independent voice on the City
Council and gained a reputation for his commitment to fiscal responsibility. As
Mayor of San José, Chuck is committed to improving the quality of life in the
City, boosting the public’s trust in local government, and fixing the City’s
structural budget deficit. The Reed Reforms, a comprehensive strategy to
return honesty, fiscal responsibility, and open government to City Hall, are
part of Chuck’s vision to make the political process more accessible to the
general public. The reforms require further disclosure from elected officials,
add restrictions on lobbyists, and increase the role of citizens in San José
government. Chuck and his wife, Paula, have been married for over 35 years.
Paula manages a medical clinic specializing in the care of cancer patients.
They have two children, Kim and Alex, who both attended public schools in San
José. Kim is a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force with more than 100 combat
missions. Alex works in Washington D.C. to help prevent the spread of weapons
of mass destruction.
John
Skinner, Director of Marketing, Eco-Technology, Intel Corporation. John
Skinner is the Director of Marketing for Eco-Technology at Intel Corporation,
where he is responsible for managing alliances and communications related to
Intel’s “Eco Technology” thrusts: Energy Efficient Performance, Sustainable
Manufacturing, Design for the Environment, and Policy and Industry Leadership.
In this capacity, John is co-chair of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative
marketing council, and supports Intel’s activities within The Green Grid
consortium. John is a 24 year veteran of the computing industry, with
significant experience in business development, marketing, and technology
program management. As a district manager at Intel, John was responsible for
growing sales within his group to $1B in annual revenue. John was later the
worldwide manager of Intel Enterprise Marketing, and established Intel's first
Enterprise Co-Marketing alliance with Microsoft. For four years, John was
managing director of Intel’s Global Software Alliances group, overseeing all
joint engineering and business development activities with Oracle, SAP, Adobe,
and others. Most recently, John was Director of Software and Enterprise
Programs for Intel’s relationship with Apple Inc. John is a passionate advocate
for the potential of technology to help address the challenge of climate change,
and enable a more sustainable world. John is an active leader within the Intel
Employee Sustainability Network, Sustainable Silicon Valley, and the California
Clean Tech Open communities. John received a Bachelor of Science in electrical
engineering from Cornell University, and a Master’s degree in business
administration from Rutgers University.
Jason
Wolf, Business Development , North America, Better Place. Jason
Wolf is responsible for business development in North America for Better Place.
In this role, he strives to form strategic partnerships with energy companies,
automobile manufacturers, investors, governments and other key parties in an
effort to create infrastructure for the mass adoption of electric vehicles.
Jason
brings more than 11 years of management experience in the IT industry, having
held various positions in strategic planning, product rollouts, sales and
professional services. In his last role, Jason served as president of Sterna
Technologies USA, the pioneer of Business Positioning Systems software. Prior
to joining Sterna, he held a number of positions during a 10-year career at SAP
AG, including senior vice president of Strategic Initiatives and senior vice
president of New Product Introductions.
Jason
holds a B.A. in Economics and Psychology from the University of Tel-Aviv, and
an MBA from San Jose State University. From 1986 to 1993, he served as an
officer in the Israeli military.
Laurie
Yoler, Managing Director, GrowthPoint Technology Partners. Laurie
Yoler is a Managing Director at GrowthPoint Technology Partners, an investment
bank that helps innovative technology and clean technology companies to raise
capital, build strategic alliances and complete M&A transactions. She has
been helping emerging technology companies grow for over twenty years as an
executive, advisor, investor and board member. She has served on the boards of
public companies, private companies, and non-profit organizations. Ms.
Yoler currently serves on the board of advisors of Tesla Motors, the board of
directors of the Washington State University Research Foundation, the advisory
board of DNA Direct, and the TIEClean Tech Advisory Board.
Previously,
Yoler was chief development officer at Intellectual Ventures, working with
Nathan Myhrvold exploring invention and investment opportunities in a wide
variety of technology areas ranging from software, user interface design,
semiconductors, electronic devices, consumer products, lasers, biotechnology
and medical devices.
Before
joining Intellectual Ventures, Yoler was vice president of marketing and
business development for Packet Design LLC, a networking R&D firm started
by Judy Estrin, Bill Carrico and Van Jacobson. She was instrumental in
helping Packet Design spin out three networking companies: Vernier Networks,
Packet Design Inc., and Precision I/O.
Yoler was
previously a director at Sun Microsystems for seven years where she held a
number of corporate development, business development, marketing and sales
management positions, including three years based in Geneva, Switzerland as the
sales director for financial markets for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Prior to
Sun, Yoler was the director of product development and management at Visa,
where she designed and implemented new banking products, like the Visa Check
Card. Before joining Visa, she was a manager in the advanced technology
practices of Accenture and PwC.
Yoler
previously served on the board of directors of Tesla Motors since its founding,
the public company Interactive Investor (acquired by AMP) and the technical
advisory board of Index Ventures.
Yoler
graduated summa cum laude from Washington State University with a B.A. in
management information systems. She also completed a year abroad in the
international business program at the University of Copenhagen. She completed
executive management programs at both Kellogg and INSEAD.
PR Yu,
CEO and Co-Founder, Optony. Dr. PR Yu is the CEO and
co-founder of Optony Inc., a solar startup that is pioneering the
commercialization of proprietary TFC Solar TM technology. With financial
support from the U.S. Department of Energy and angel investors, and technical
support from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Optony has
demonstrated certified world-record performance solar prototypes which it
continues to refine in preparation for high-volume manufacturing.
Dr. Yu is
a serial entrepreneur with a history of innovation in the solar industry.
Prior to Optony, Dr. Yu was with Innovalight where he developed the
company’s first prototype solar cells as well as several key patent
applications which laid the foundation for the company’s growth. Before
that, Dr. Yu worked at NREL where he was part of a team that made major solar
breakthroughs that received Eni Award, touted as the Nobel Prize of energy
research. While in graduate school, Dr. Yu co-founded international
education service company Ansipen Co., and took it to profit. Dr. Yu is
an invited cleantech speaker in the US and China. He received his Ph.D.
from University of Colorado at Boulder, and B.S. from Peking University.
Details about our 2008 Events
FountainBlue is pleased to partner with SDForum and dozens of organizations across the valley to produce an annual event on 'Policy and Its Implications for the Clean Energy Entrepreneur' scheduled for January 25, 2008. This annual event is designed to:
Build connections between clean energy entrepreneurs, investors, policy-makers and other stakeholders,
Educate key stakeholders about local, state and national policies which impact clean energy entrepreneurs and find out how entrepreneurs can best work with policy-makers,
Facilitate conversation on the implications of policies for clean energy entrepreneurs and their partners,
Better understand this burgeoning market and the current successes and challenges from the perspectives key players in the market, and to
Launch SDForum's new clean energy SIG
This year, the event is scheduled for Friday, January 25, 2008, from 8:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. at AMD Commons Building, 991 Steward Drive in Sunnyvale.
Entrepreneurs, tech executives, investors, policy-makers, and other stakeholders have been analyzing the burgeoning clean energy industry, both from the technology side and from the business opportunity side. From the technology side, we are leveraging learnings and successes from many industries, from the semi-conductor and automobile industry to the nanotechnology and life science industries, to the chemistry and geology industries. From the business side, we are seeing the potential global impact of clean energy solutions, identifying the need for partnerships locally and globally, and examining the implications of policy on clean energy entrepreneurs. This annual event will bring together policy-makers, corporate executives, entrepreneurs and investors, presenting differing perspectives on policy and its implications for the clean energy entrepreneurs.
AGENDA: 8:30 Networking and Registration
9:00 Welcomes and Thank Yous
9:15 The Honorable Bill Lockyer, State Treasurer, Keynote Speaker, "California's Investment in the Clean Revolution", with Introduction by Craig Tighe, Partner, DLA Piper
Our State Treasurer will highlight how and why California has taken a leadership role in supporting sustainable energy practices partnering with corporations, energy companies, entrepreneurs. We will highlight how current and upcoming California policies will impact entrepreneurs and businesses and how stakeholders can collaborate with policymakers to benefit all.
10:15 "A Corporate Perspective: Doing Well While Doing Good"
For this panel, executives will highlight how clean solutions support their employees, their shareholders and their communities, and also support the strategic goals of the organization. The panel will also cover how policies are impacting their programs and solutions and how they are working local, state and national policy-makers on clean energy efforts.
Panelist Janice Berman, Sr. Director of Customer Generation and Emerging Products, PG&E
Panelist Reed Content, AMD Fellow, Global Environmental Health and Safety, AMD
Panelist Annette Finsterbusch, Director, Corporate Business Development, Applied Ventures, LLC
Panelist Christina Page, Director of Energy and Climate, Yahoo Inc.!
11:30 Lunch Break
12:15 "Clean Energy Lessons Learned"
Clean energy solutions are hot entrepreneurs' and here to stay. This panel will feature entrepreneurs from around the world with energy generation, energy management, and transportation solutions. Our esteemed panel will include:
Facilitator Ted Samson, Senior Analyst & Blogger, Sustainable IT InfoWorld Media Group, InfoWorld
Panelist Dan Lankford, Managing Director, Wavepoint Ventures, former Chairman and CEO, Bolder Technologies
Panelist Paul McGrath, RideSpring and California Clean Tech Open Finalist
Panelist John Melby, President and CEO of APX Inc.
Panelist Gregory Pal, Sr. Director, Corporate Development, LS9, Inc.
1:15 Keynote Speaker, Scott Sandell, NEA, “Clean Energy Opportunities and Challenges: the Venture Perspective”
Investors and policy-makers are only beginning to partner together in support of the growing opportunities around clean energy, positioned to benefit entrepreneurs, companies, the state, the country, the earth. Our speaker will highlight successes and opportunities for clean energy solutions.
2:15 Closing Remarks by Brad Rock, Senior Partner, DLA Piper
2:30Thanks, Adjourn and Networking
Below are notes from the conversation:
Thoughts on How the State of California is Supporting Clean Energy Entrepreneurs:
•The economy needs to create an engine of new jobs every 7-8 years as a stimulus to the economy. The clean energy industry to well positioned to be the next job-making engine for the state.
•Local governments, educational organizations, state government, and the business all have a part in ensuring that the clean energy opportunity produces jobs and stimulates the economy.
•The world demand for energy is ever-increasing, as is our carbon footprint. We must create solutions to address the demand side and off-set/manage our impact on the earth.
•The state is managing half a trillion dollars in CALPERS and STRS retirement funds and is facilitating smart, effective, environmentally sound investments. Clean energy entrepreneurs should investigate funding opportunities in these areas.
•The state has 260 million square feet of space in buildings and is working on an ambitious plan which would retrofit these buildings, $500 investment for $865 savings with an anticipated payoff of 5-6 years, and savings thereafter. Clean energy opportunities should also investigate how their technologies or services could assist the state in retrofitting its buildings.
Thoughts on What Corporations Are Doing, and How That Is an Opportunity for Entrepreneurs:
•Consider PG&E’s California Solar Initiative Program.
•Measure your company’s impact on the environment, create and implement tools to manage the impact, communicate your successes, and share your success stories with other organizations.
•Consider the value of education and motivate/incentivize staff/customers to meet measurable milestones.
•Measure the performance of your manufacturing plant and identify processes/tools which may be performing badly, costing the company money, and negatively impacting the environment. Take measures to correct it and motivate others to keep fixing broken processes/tools.
•Work with customers, investors, technologies, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, etc., to make clean energy options available to the masses.
•Help everyone make the right small decisions (e.g. wash your mug vs. use a styrofoam mug) every day.
•Create a volunteer green team within your organization and encourage them to be creative, passionate, and solution-centric. Give them resources. Adopt their ideas company-wide.
•Use common sense, natural solutions (e.g. ambient air cooling) when considering operational challenges.
•As entrepreneurs looking to work with corporations, consider the demand side as well as the energy management side.
•Consider the company’s pain point and the overall market opportunity before approaching a corporate venture fund.
•Leverage technologies used in creating carbon-neutral energy-efficient servers to the desktop and then to the notebook.
•Encourage original, creative brainstorming like at Yahoo!’s Green Hack day, and see if solutions created at these events presents opportunities for the company as a whole.
•Consider the needs of your customers and your customers’ customers.
•Encourage universal metrics, for example in data standards.
•Forward-thinking corporations like the ones highlighted on our panel are integrating clean energy solutions into their business model – by managing their carbon footprint, by creating products and solutions more efficiently, by fostering a culture passionate about clean solutions, by funding clean energy companies, etc.,
Thoughts on What Entrepreneurs Can Do to Support More Favorable Legislation for Clean Energy Entrepreneurs:
•It is difficult for entrepreneurs to dedicate the time and money to track and impact policy, but it must be done so that policy-makers understand the needs of the entrepreneur and so sustainable policies can be created which support clean energy businesses.
•With that said, it’s important for entrepreneurs to be heard by policy-makers.
•Powerful factions from oil companies and automotive industry, for example, invest a lot of money on legislation which supports their interests, but not necessarily that of the clean energy entrepreneur or the earth.
•Perhaps it would make sense to lobby for subsidies for other cleaner energy solutions. There are currently huge, existing subsidies for oil, coal, gas and nuclear.
•Policy-makers in general don’t have the technology background to understand what clean energy companies are doing and how to support them in their growth.
•Participate in associations representing your industry.
Speaker Bios:
Keynote: Bill Lockyer, Treasurer of CA Californians on November 7, 2006 elected Bill Lockyer as the 32nd State Treasurer. As State Treasurer, Lockyer is committed to using the tools of the Office to help provide residents what they need to create a stronger California – more jobs, superior education, improved transportation, quality health care, more affordable housing and a cleaner environment.
From 1999-2006, Lockyer served as California Attorney General and left a lasting legacy at the Department of Justice. In his eight years, he helped revolutionize crime fighting in California by creating and maintaining the nation’s most sophisticated DNA forensic crime laboratory. He also cracked down on Medi-Cal fraud, established the Megan’s Law website, and recovered billions of dollars for defrauded energy ratepayers, consumers and taxpayers.
Prior to his election as Attorney General in 1998, Lockyer served for 25 years in the California Legislature, culminating his Capitol career with a stint as Senate President pro Tempore. In that leadership position, Lockyer crafted agreements to balance the state budget and reform government programs to make them run more efficiently and effectively for taxpayers.
Afternoon Keynote: Scott Sandell, General Partner, NEA joined NEA in 1996 as an Associate, became a Partner in 1999 and a General Partner in 2000. Scott focuses on investments in information technology and alternative energy, and is responsible for NEA’s activities in China.
He also serves as Co-Chairman of the board of the Software Development Forum. He has sponsored investments in 3ware (acquired by Applied Micro Circuits Corporation), Amplitude Software (acquired by Critical Path), Fineground Networks (acquired by Cisco), Neoteris (acquired by Juniper Networks, (NASDAQ: JNPR), NetIQ (NASDAQ: NTIQ), Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and WebEx (NASDAQ: WEBX). Scott started his career at the Boston Consulting Group and later joined C-ATS Software as the company's first salesman. He founded and ran the European Subsidiary before attending Stanford Business School. During and after business school, Scott was a Product Manager at Microsoft, where he worked on Windows 95. In addition to an MBA from Stanford, Scott holds an AB in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College.
Janice Berman, Senior Director, PG&E. She is responsible for four departments at PG&E:Customer Generation, Sustainable Communities, Pricing and Emerging Products, and New Revenue Development.
Prior to her current position, Ms. Berman has held numerous regulatory, financial and operational positions at PG&E, including Director of Rates and Tariffs, Director of Revenue Requirements, Director of Business Development, and Director of Gas System Operations.
Reed Content, AMD Fellow, has more than twenty years of environmental management experience in the semiconductor industry. Reed joined AMD in 1989 and is an AMD Fellow in the Global Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) organization. His responsibilities include managing AMD’s Extended Producer Responsibility and EHS/Technology Integration programs, directing AMD’s efforts to address EHS considerations in product design and advanced process technology development. Reed leads development of AMD’s annual Global Climate Protection Plan, first published in 2001. AMD’s climate protection plan details the company’s strategic approach to achieving energy efficiency and emissions reduction through product design, industry initiatives, and sustainable manufacturing operations.
Annette Finsterbusch, Director, Applied Ventures in the Corporate Business Development group of Applied Materials since 2004, responsible for identifying, recommending and managing venture capital investments. She is also a Kauffman Fellow.
Prior to joining Applied Materials, Ms. Finsterbusch was the CEO at MindShadow.com, an investment manager for DaimlerChrysler Venture Capital , and lead the business development efforts in Russia at Applied Materials.
Dan Lankford, Managing Director, Wavepoint brings more than 30 years of experience in the telecommunications equipment, software, semiconductor, and energy technology industries to Wavepoint, including senior leadership roles at AT&T/Bell Labs/Agere Systems and several early-stage companies.
Prior to Wavepoint, Dan was Chairman and CEO of BOLDER Technologies, CEO of AT&T Microelectronics (Agere Systems) Europe, where he increased revenues from $15 million to $250 million in five years and established the company as one of the leading chip, opto-electronic, and power systems suppliers to the European electronics industry.
Paul McGrath, CEO of RideSpring. Paul is on a mission to make using an alternative commute as easy and as rewarding as possible. Driven by the idea that a company-focused web service could provide the most rapid and environmentally sound way to address the monstrous problems of traffic congestion, Paul gave up a career as an analog IC design engineer in 2005 to develop the RideSpring service. Clients nationwide are now using RideSpring.
Selected as a finalist in the California Clean Tech Open and as community hero by the United Way for his work in reducing single passenger auto use, Paul is enjoying the many challenges and rewards of starting a clean tech business. BSc. Engineering, Lancaster University, England
John Melby, President &CEO of APX, Inc. Under his leadership APX has become North America's leading infrastructure provider to create, track, manage, and retire environmental commodities in renewable energy, energy efficiency and greenhouse gases including carbon. APX is the system of choice for all major renewable energy markets in North America and has extended this technology to greenhouse gas markets worldwide including carbon offset credits and emission allowances.
Chris Page, Director, Yahoo! joined the Yahoo! team in July of 2007 and is the director of Climate and Energy at the company. Page is responsible for overseeing the company’s climate-neutral program, efficiency and clean tech initiatives, and providing technical support to Yahoo!’s all-volunteer Green Team, an employee group that harnesses the collective energy of Yahoos around the world to reduce our carbon footprint.
Prior to joining Yahoo!, Page was a senior consultant on the Energy and Resources Team at Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), sShe also provided counsel to business networks on corporate social responsibility practices, and has led regular lectures on sustainable business practices at National Taiwan University, Peking University, and University of Colorado Leeds School of Business. Prior to working at RMI, Page was a field instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School and a writer/editor for National Public Radio's "Living on Earth.”
Gregory Pal, Senior Director, Corporate Development LS9, is responsible for marketing and business development at LS9. Prior to joining LS9, Mr. Pal spent 6 years at Tellme Networks, where he helped grow company revenue to over $100 million per year (a 50x increase). He combines a passion for building sustainable businesses with a pragmatic approach to problem solving. At Tellme Networks, Mr. Pal held various positions, including Director, Vertical & Corporate Marketing and Director, Financial Planning & Analysis, and was involved in all aspects of the business - from strategic planning, market selection, and product management through pre-sales activity, contract negotiation, and post-sales account management and P&L optimization.
Ted Samson, Senior Analyst & Blogger, InfoWorld Ted is Media Passionate, about both environmental issues and technology, InfoWorld Senior Analyst Ted Samson tracks green-tech trends in his Sustainable IT blog . Ted works out of his home office in Sacramento, Calif. His kitchen appliances are all Energy Star-compliant -- but he does not currently own a hybrid.
Partnerships:
This annual workshop is part of of FountainBlue's monthly series designed for clean energy entrepreneurs in order to build connections,share best practices and upcoming trends, connect on policy questions and issues. This event is also the launch event for SDForum's new clean energy SIG, which will meet quarterly.
We would also like to acknowledge co-marketing partners who have assisted with the outreach, marketing and programming for this event:
Co-Marketing Partners:
AAMA
ASTIA
ASVC
Berkeley Chinese Alumni Association
City of Menlo Park
City of San Jose
California Clean Tech OPEN
Financing Partners
GABA
Invest in Germany
KITECH
MIT/VLAB
Plug and Play
San Jose Environmental Business Cluster
San Jose Software Business Cluster
Santa Clara University
SDForum
SF Bay Ventures
SRI International
Stanford University
Sustainable Silicon Valley
TEN
US Department of Commerce
Investor Partners:
Angels' Forum
Bessemer Venture Partners
Keiretsu Forum
Nth Power
We are grateful to our sponsors for our clean energy entrepreneurs' forums and proudly recognize them below.
