12 Annual AESP-NEEC Conference Speaker Biographies

Jessica Bailey joined the Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority as the Director of Commercial and Industrial Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) in August 2012. Prior to joining CEFIA, Jessica worked for the last eight years at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), an $800 million foundation based in New York City. She served as the Fund’s program officer for sustainable development, the foundation’s largest program area. In this role, she co-managed a $7 million portfolio of grants focused on combating climate change and promoting clean energy. This work has involved developing strategies, cultivating proposals, and building partnerships. She sits on the board of the New England Clean Energy Council.

Jessica is recognized as a thought leader in the clean energy community, bringing a creative and entrepreneurial spirit to her work. Jessica is also broadly networked and respected in the larger climate change and clean energy community, where she serves in board and leadership positions with several key groups and maintains deep connections to the field, including NGOs, business leaders, and policymakers. Before becoming the RBF’s program officer, Jessica launched and directed a foundation-wide cross-programmatic initiative on energy at the RBF. In this role, Jessica used a separate budget allocation to promote collaboration among programs with the goal of embedding energy-related grant making into each of the program areas of the RBF. This work was an important precursor to some of the RBF’s current energy and climate-related grant making in China and on global governance and was widely regarded by staff and trustees as a successful experiment at the foundation. Prior to joining the RBF, Jessica spent time working at the United Nations, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and on a research project in Ecuador. She received her graduate degree from Yale University and undergraduate from the University of Notre Dame.

Eric Graham’s passion for developing and bringing transformative sustainable energy technologies to market has led him to start and manage businesses that have touched on every continent. He has engaged in cross-border trade in more than 30 countries, founding and/or growing many early and growth stage businesses. As Director of Residential Energy Efficiency Financing for Next Step Living, Eric develops NSL’s new privately-funded financial products to enable homeowners to take advantage of the benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy systems.

Prior to NSL, Eric co-founded and directed the TechBridge program for the Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems (CSE) and established a federally and privately funded grant award initiative for early-stage clean energy companies, U-Launch. Eric also led the development of the Building Technology Showcase at the Fraunhofer CSE, a first-of-its-kind project representing the future of sustainable design and construction, in which leading manufacturers contribute cutting-edge technologies for building-integrated research, development, and demonstration. Eric holds a Finance & Insurance degree from Northeastern University, and received his MBA from Babson’s Franklin W Olin Graduate School of Business. He also holds two globally issued patents covering ultra low temperature refrigeration and transportation methods, using recycled CO2 gas as a refrigerant.

Laura S. Humphrey is an Associate in the Northeast region Energy Efficiency Division at ICF International. Located in New York City, Laura has worked on citywide energy efficiency and environmental initiatives for utility and municipal clients including Con Edison and The City of New York. Currently, Laura is on the program management team for NYC Clean Heat, a PlaNYC air quality initiative that aims to eliminate 50% of PM 2.5 emissions from buildings burning heavy heating oil before 2014. Laura has developed diverse experience in energy efficiency markets during her time with ICF, working both with end-users and trade partners in residential and commercial settings. Laura brings a unique perspective to her work at ICFI from her prior experience as an independent project manager and data developer for private clients. She also led outreach and content development for an internet start-up company that sought to strengthen local food networks feeding urban areas. Laura received her undergraduate degree from Carleton College and expects to receive her M.S. degree in Sustainability Management from Columbia University in 2013.

Richard Huntley leads sales at Retroficiency and is responsible for developing the company’s key customer relationships. Richard joined Retroficiency with the acquisition of the energy efficiency division (known as Clean Energy Solutions or CES) of Nexamp, where he was responsible for all aspects of sales. During his career Richard has worked with energy companies on four continents covering energy efficiency, utility operations, and demand response. Prior to joining Nexamp, Richard was Vice President and Practice Leader for Energy Conservation and Demand Response at Vertex. Earlier in his career, Richard held multiple executive positions with Nexus Energy Software (Aclara), a pioneer in software based energy efficiency; and SPL WorldGroup (Oracle), a leader in utility customer management. Both companies grew significantly from small early stage companies through to subsequent acquisition.

Christopher Kearns joined the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources in August 2012, and is involved in the state’s energy programs, including the 40 Megawatt Distributed Generation Standard Contracts Program that was launched in December 2011. Chris had previously worked as a Policy Analyst on energy, transportation, and environmental policy matters for Governor Lincoln Chafee. Prior to joining state government, Chris worked as the Government Relations Manager for Alteris Renewables on wind and solar project development, and monitored the Northeast States energy programs and legislative activities. Chris has also worked for the non-profit advocacy group Environment Rhode Island, and promoted state and federal energy efficiency/renewable energy legislation. Chris graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 2008, with a degree in Environmental Economics and Management.

Brian McCowan is a principal with Energy & Resource Solutions (ERS) in North Andover, Massachusetts. Brian has over 30 years of experience in the energy efficiency and renewable energy fields. His recent efforts have included developing program offerings for emerging technologies, assessing deep energy retrofit opportunities, and determining actual energy code compliance rates. ERS has a focus on emerging technologies for the commercial/industrial sector and recently won an AEE Renewable Energy Project of the Year award for a solar thermal absorption chiller installed at the Steinway Piano manufacturing facility.

Harvey Michaels teaches energy efficiency with focus on strategy innovation, and directs the MIT Energy Efficiency Strategy Project, which includes business/policy studies of utility, community, and smart grid-enabled efficiency deployment models. Harvey also participates in the MIT Energy Initiative and the Campus Energy Task Force, and serves as an advisor to the Massachusetts utilities on community energy programs. From 1997 to 2007, Harvey led Nexus Energy Software (now Aclara Software) which builds utility efficiency and customer service Web sites, as well as Meter Data Management systems. Before founding Nexus, Harvey was president of XENERGY (now part of DNV/KEMA Consulting and Con Edison Solutions), which specialized in efficiency resource studies and analysis systems.

Hale Powell, MS, CEM, is the principal of HPowell Energy Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in energy efficiency programs and technologies. He has 30 years of experience working as a utility staffer, installation contractor or consultant with efficiency programs developed by regulated utilities in Massachusetts and throughout the US. Immediately prior to starting HPowell Energy Associates, Mr. Powell worked for National Grid for 10 years evaluating and implementing energy efficiency programs, particularly in the business sector. Currently, he is the statewide commercial/industrial coordinator of the Massachusetts Technology Assessment Committee (MTAC), a collaboration of all eight gas and electric utilities in Massachusetts. MTAC’s primary objective is to provide a statewide forum through which utilities and program administrators can assess newly emerging commercial/industrial technologies for possible inclusion in the state’s ratepayer-funded incentive programs.

Tilak Subrahmanian is responsible for the Energy Efficiency business for all of Northeast Utilities. Over the last couple of years, he has been leading the effort to put in place the internal and external infrastructure in pursuit of the aggressive goals in Massachusetts. These include partnerships with large corporations/institutions, such as MIT, to dramatically reduce their energy use; as well as putting in place financing mechanisms, in conjunction with the Massachusetts Banks Association and over forty MA-based lenders, to support customer investments in Energy Efficiency. Tilak’s background is in Corporate Strategy and New Business Ventures – primarily focused on driving profitable growth. He has launched and run new business ventures for several companies. He worked for Arthur D. Little and for Thomson Reuters. Tilak has an MBA from the University of Michigan, an M.S. Engineering from University of Washington, and B.Tech Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Mary Sutter is a Vice President of Energy Evaluation at Opinion Dynamics. With nearly two decades of experience evaluating energy efficiency programs, Ms. Sutter is a gifted evaluator, with knowledge of timeworn as well as cutting-edge methodologies and research tools. She brings breadth of knowledge in evaluation techniques, drawing on methodologies and techniques used in other evaluation industries to inform the design, development, and analysis of energy efficiency and renewable evaluations for Opinion Dynamics. Over the past two decades, Ms. Sutter has managed, performed, and served as a technical advisor to multiple energy efficiency program evaluations throughout the nation and has facilitated public workshops. She is one of the few evaluation researchers in energy efficiency who has command of both process and impact evaluation research. Ms. Sutter typically grounds her evaluation activities in program theory and logic to developing performance metrics for a wide variety of process, impact, and engineering studies in the residential, nonresidential, and agricultural sectors. Ms. Sutter holds master’s degrees in both adult education (from the University of Missouri) and engineering (from the University of Colorado). She was among the first in the nation to obtain a certificate in program evaluation and quantitative evaluation from The Evaluation Institute at George Washington University.