Green Jobs: BrightSource, SolarBridge, EnerVault, TASC, Amyris, Tollgrade

Personnel moves in greentech

Eric Wesoff May 20, 2013

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, 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. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His 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.

BrightSource Energy, the concentrated solar power plant firm, named Steven Goers as SVP of operations. Goers was most recently GM of IPP development and power plant O&M for ITOCHU, where he helped develop a 330-megawatt geothermal project.

SolarBridge, a provider of PV microinverters, named Bill Mulligan as executive chairman. Mulligan was VP of R&D for SunPower from 1998 until 2010. Prior to SunPower, Mulligan held roles at JX Crystals, NREL, and AstroPower. Greg Vance, formerly of Dell, joins SolarBridge as VP of Engineering.

The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) named Anne Smart as its Executive Director. TASC was formed by rooftop solar firms in the U.S. to advocate for consumers' ability to choose to switch from utility power to distributed power. Founding members include SolarCity, Sungevity, Sunrun and Verengo. Prior to TASC, Smart was the Director of Energy for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

EnerVault, a flow battery firm, appointed Jim Pape as Chairman and CEO. Pape was previously CFO at View Glass and President of Residential and Commercial Business at SunPower. Former EnerVault CEO Craig Horne shifts to CSO.

Amyris (AMRS), a renewable chemicals and fuels firm, named R. Neil Williams, CFO of Intuit, as a member of its Board of Directors.

EnerNOC hired Matthew Maloney as the firm’s new VP of Enterprise Sales.

Tollgrade Communications, providing service assurance to utilities via line sensors and software, named James F. Andrus as VP of Global Smart Grid Sales. Before joining Tollgrade, Andrus was VP of the Americas at Echelon and also held executive sales positions at ABB, Itron, Elster and Aclara.

Smart grid networking company Ambient Corp. plans to lay off about a quarter of its staff and has lost its CFO, as it scrambles to shore up flagging financial performance in the midst of uncertainty over the future of its work with marquee customer Duke Energy. CFO Mark Fidler has left the company, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.