Green Jobs: Edison Electric Institute, ESA, CLEAResult, Elevance, Broadscale Group

New CEOs, executives and directors in utilities, cleantech, venture and alternative energy

Eric Wesoff June 16, 2014

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.

The board of the Edison Electric Institute elected Ted Craver Jr., CEO of California-based Edison International, as chairman of EEI, the national association of investor-owned electric utilities. Also elected were three vice chairmen: Nick Akins, CEO of Ohio-based American Electric Power; Tom Fanning, CEO of Georgia-based Southern Company; and Chris Crane, CEO of Illinois-based Exelon Corporation. EEI also promoted Brian L. Wolff from SVP to EVP of Public Policy and External Affairs.

The Energy Storage Association, the trade association for the energy storage industry, named newly elected board members: Craig Horne, co-founder and CSO of EnerVault; Praveen Kathpal, VP of AES Energy Storage; John Holmes, Senior Technology Development Advisor for San Diego Gas & Electric; and Hisham Othman, Leader of Grid Integration at SunEdison. Richard Baxter, President of Mustang Prairie, and Troy Miller, Business Development and Project Manager for S&C Electric Company, were also elected for an additional term on the Board.

CLEAResult, a firm with more than 1,250 employees that designs and executes energy efficiency programs for utilities, governments, schools and businesses, just appointed Michael Chesser to its board of directors. Chesser is currently a senior fellow with the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution and the retired CEO of Great Plains Energy.

Elevance Renewable Sciences added Steven Mills, former CFO at Amyris, to its board of directors. Elevance is a specialty chemicals firm that makes chemicals from renewable feedstock via olefin metathesis. Applications include personal care products, detergents and cleaners, engineered polymers and lubricants.

Broadscale Group, an investment firm working with energy corporations to bring promising innovations to market, announced that James Rogers, former chairman and CEO of Duke Energy, has become a senior advisor at the firm. Broadscale works with a network of firms, including Duke Energy, GE, Johnson Controls, and National Grid.

Dr. Ernest Moniz, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, named TJ Glauthier as co-chair of a new commission conducting a strategic review of the DOE's seventeen national labs. Prior to this appointment, Glauthier was Deputy Secretary and COO of the DOE and served on a congressional advisory panel reviewing the nation's nuclear weapons program. (Science reports more on the subject of reviewing national labs here.)

Hawaiian Electric Company announced that CEO Richard Rosenblum "plans to retire within a year," according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Rosenblum has been HECO's CEO and a member of the utility's board since 2009. He joined HECO after 32 years at Southern California Edison.