Program

Craig Ebert serves as the President of the Climate Action Reserve where he is responsible for ensuring that the organization’s activities meet the highest standards for quality, transparency and environmental integrity. He oversees the organization’s continued leadership and commitment to ensuring offsets are a trusted and powerful economic tool for reducing emissions. In his role, he also leads the organization in identifying and entering into other opportunities that build upon the its knowledge and expertise and further its work under its mission and vision.

During his career, he has helped create the foundations for international, national and state policies to address climate change. He supported U.S. negotiations on international climate change agreements, including negotiations leading up to the creation and signing of the Kyoto Protocol, and helped develop the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) provisions under the protocol. Craig’s work also involved pioneering efforts on carbon accounting principles and methodologies. He served as the technical director of Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, which was adopted by the IPCC as its GHG Inventory Programme, and was a key architect behind the development of the official U.S. national GHG inventory to meet commitments under the UNFCCC.

Prior to joining the Reserve, Craig advised the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) and served at ICF for nearly 34 years.

Linda S. Adams, former Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, serves as the Chair of the Climate Action Reserve Board of Directors.

Previously, Linda served in cabinet-level positions with three governors during her distinguished career with the State of California. Ms. Adams held key positions in both the Executive and Legislative branches during her many years in public service. As Legislative Secretary to Governor Gray Davis, Linda negotiated the passage of California’s clean cars law which is now the national standard.

In 2006, Ms. Adams was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as Secretary of the California Environmental Agency (CalEPA), the first woman to serve in that position. Immediately upon her appointment, she was designated the governor’s lead negotiator on AB 32 (Pavley), California’s ground breaking climate change and clean energy measure. When Governor Jerry Brown was elected in 2010, Linda was asked to continue as Secretary of CalEPA and to assist in the transition.

Ms. Adams most recently was honored to work with the Chugach Alaska Corporation to ensure that Alaska native corporations can participate in California’s carbon market through the development of forest management projects.
Ms. Adams also serves on the boards of the Pacific Forest Trust, the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, and is the founding President of R 20-Regions of Climate Action. Ms. Adams also serves as a Sister on the Planet for Oxfam America.

State Controller Betty T. Yee was elected in November 2014, following two terms of service on the Board of Equalization. As Controller, she continues to serve the Board as its fifth voting member.

Ms. Yee was first elected to the Board of Equalization in 2006 where she represented 21 counties in northern and central California. She was elected to her second four-year term in 2010.

Now serving as the state’s Chief Fiscal Officer, Ms. Yee also chairs the Franchise Tax Board and serves as a member of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) Boards. These two boards have a combined portfolio of nearly $500 billion.

Ms. Yee has over 30 years of experience in public service, specializing in state and local finance and tax policy. Ms. Yee previously served as Chief Deputy Director for Budget with the California Department of Finance where she led the development of the Governor’s Budget, negotiations with the Legislature and key budget stakeholders, and fiscal analyses of legislation on behalf of the Administration. Prior to this, she served in senior staff positions for several fiscal and policy committees in both houses of the California State Legislature.

Ms. Yee currently serves on the board of directors for the Equality California Institute. She is a cofounder of the Asian Pacific Youth Leadership Project, which exposes California high school youth to the public service, public policy, and political arenas.

A native of San Francisco, Ms. Yee received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s degree in Public Administration from Golden Gate University, San Francisco.

Catherine McKenna practiced competition and international trade law in Canada and Indonesia and was senior negotiator with the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in East Timor. She also served as senior advisor on the former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer’s review of Canada’s military justice system. Catherine co-founded Canadian Lawyers Abroad, a charitable organization that works in developing countries and with Indigenous communities in Canada. She served as Executive Director of the Banff Forum, a public policy organization for young leaders. Catherine taught at the Munk School of Global Affairs. Catherine and her husband live in Ottawa with their three children. She was elected on October 19, 2015 and was appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change on November 4, 2015.

Tom Steyer is a business leader and philanthropist who believes we have a moral responsibility to give back and help ensure that every family shares the benefits of economic opportunity, education, and a healthy climate.

In 2010, Tom and his wife, Kat Taylor, pledged to contribute most of their wealth to charitable causes during their lifetimes. That same year, Tom worked to defeat Proposition 23, an attempt by the oil industry to roll back California’s historic plan to reduce pollution and address climate change.

In 2012, Tom led a campaign to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in California schools annually by closing a corporate tax loophole. To date, Proposition 39 has put nearly a billion dollars into California schools and clean energy projects, saving millions of dollars in annual energy costs.

Tom founded a successful California business, which he left to work full-time on non-profit and advocacy efforts. He now serves as President of NextGen Climate, an organization he founded in 2013 to prevent climate disaster and promote prosperity for all Americans. Tom also served as co-chair of Save Lives California, the coalition to prevent teen smoking and fund cancer research.

Tom’s dedication to public service is greatly inspired by his wife, Kat, the co-CEO of Beneficial State Bank in Oakland. They founded this nonprofit community bank in 2007 to provide loans to people and small businesses shut out by the traditional banking system. Unlike most banks, by statute Beneficial State Bank invests any profits back into the community.

Tom and Kat live in San Francisco and have four children.

Edmund G. Brown Jr. was born in San Francisco on April 7, 1938. He graduated from St. Ignatius High School in 1955 and entered Sacred Heart Novitiate, a Jesuit seminary. He later attended the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1961 before earning a J.D. at Yale Law School in 1964.

Brown was elected Trustee for the Los Angeles Community College District in 1969, Secretary of State in 1970 and Governor in 1974 and 1978. As Governor, he helped create millions of jobs, strengthened environmental protections and promoted renewable energy. After his governorship, Brown lectured and traveled widely, practiced law, served as chairman of the state Democratic Party and ran for president.

In 1998, Brown was elected Mayor of Oakland and helped revitalize its downtown and reduce crime, while also founding two high-performing charter schools. Brown was elected California Attorney General in 2006 and worked to protect consumers, pursue mortgage fraud and real estate scams, champion workers’ rights and crack down on violent crime.

Brown was elected to a third gubernatorial term in 2010 and to a historic fourth term in 2014. Since returning to the Governor’s Office, Brown helped eliminate the state’s multi-billion budget deficit, spearheading successful campaigns to provide billions in new funding for California’s schools (Proposition 30) and establish a robust Rainy Day Fund to prepare for the next economic downturn (Proposition 2).

Under Brown, California has cut its unemployment rate in half, expanded health coverage to millions more Californians, and added more than 2 million new jobs, while enacting sweeping public safety, immigration, workers’ compensation, water, pension and economic development reforms. California has also established nation-leading targets to protect the environment and fight climate change, and by 2030 the state will: reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels, generate half of its electricity from renewable sources, double the rate of energy efficiency savings in its buildings and reduce today’s petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to 50 percent.

Brown is married to Anne Gust Brown, who serves as Special Counsel, an unpaid position, in the Office of the Governor.

Diane Wittenberg was a founder of the Climate Action Reserve.  She was the first president of The Climate Registry and California Climate Action Registry.   She was the executive director of the California PEV Collaborative and previously served as Vice President of Edison International.  She is the Chair of the California State Park and Recreation Commission.   California Goes Green, A Path to Climate Leadership, a new book co-authored with Michael R. Peevey, will be published this summer.

Glen Murray was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2010 as the MPP for Toronto Centre. He was re-elected in 2011 and 2014.Murray currently serves as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. He was appointed the Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister of Transportation in February 2013.

He has had a lifetime of activism in urban planning, sustainable development and community health. Murray is a founding member of the Canadian AIDS Society. He was Director of Health Education and HIV Prevention Services at the Village Clinic/9 Circles Community Health Centre in Winnipeg. Murray was also part of the World Health AIDS Service Organization’s working group for the Global Program on AIDS.

He served as mayor of Winnipeg from 1998 to 2004. As Chair of the Big City Mayors’ Caucus, Murray led the successful campaign to transfer the equivalent of five cents per litre of the federal gas tax to municipalities for infrastructure renewal and construction.

In 2004, he moved to Toronto and served as Senior Resident at Massey College and a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Design at the University of Toronto. Murray was a Managing Partner of AuthentiCITY, a Toronto-based urban sustainability consulting and planning firm. He was appointed Chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy by former prime minister Paul Martin in 2005. Murray became president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute in 2007.

He has served on several university, hospital and community boards, including the Expo 2015 Bid Committee and the Toronto District School Board’s Reference Group for Improving Services for Marginalized Students. He has logged more than 5,000 kilometres cycling for Habitat for Humanity to raise money for affordable housing. Murray has won several public service awards, including the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and the Fight for LGBT Justice and Equality award from Egale Canada in 2003.

Murray was born in Montreal, where he earned a diploma from John Abbott College. He then attended Concordia University’s School of Community and Public Affairs for four years, majoring in Urban Studies.

Matt Rodriquez was appointed California Secretary for Environmental Protection by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in July 2011. As Secretary, Matt oversees the activities of the California Air Resources Board, the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, the Department of Toxic Substances Control, the Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the State Water Resources Control Board. As a member of the Governor’s cabinet, he advises the Governor on environmental policy.

In addition to his role leading the office, boards, and departments under CalEPA, the Secretary is a board member of the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission. He is also a council member of the California Ocean Protection Council and the Strategic Growth Council, and chair of the California Environmental Policy Council.

He comes to the Agency with more than 24 years of environmental experience with the California Department of Justice where he served as a Deputy Attorney General from 1987 to 1999. In this capacity, he advised or represented the Attorney General and clients of the Land Law Section of the Attorney General’s Office. His clients included the California Coastal Commission, the State Lands Commission, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. In 1999, he was appointed Senior Assistant Attorney General for the Land Law Section by Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

Former Attorney General Brown selected Matt to be the Chief Assistant Attorney General for the Public Rights Division in 2008. In this capacity he supervised the work of the Land Law, Environment Law, Natural Resources Law, Consumer Law, Civil Rights Enforcement, Antitrust and Corporate Fraud Sections of the Office, among others. Under his supervision, the Attorney General’s Office worked to enforce hazardous waste disposal laws and regulations protecting groundwater from leaking underground storage tanks. He also worked collaboratively with the attorneys in the Environment Section to represent OEHHA in cases brought under Proposition 65. He was responsible for the legal team that defended California’s vehicular greenhouse gas rules against challenges from the auto industry. Most recently, he served as Acting Chief Deputy Attorney General for Attorney General Kamala D. Harris.

Prior to joining the California Department of Justice, Matt was Deputy City Attorney for the City of Hayward from 1985 to 1987, Assistant City Attorney for the City of Livermore from 1983 to 1985, an associate program analyst for the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research from 1981 to 1983, and a graduate student assistant with the California Coastal Commission from 1979 to 1981.

In addition to numerous speaking engagements, he has taught classes on environmental law and resources management for graduate students in regional and environmental planning at U.C. Berkeley.

Matt graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in History, and received his JD from Hasting College of the Law in 1980.

Matt is a longtime resident of the Bay Area.

Debra covers the West Coast for Environment & Energy Publishing. She writes on all aspects of West Coast energy and environmental policy, with a particular focus on California. She has worked for E&E since 2006 and has been in San Francisco since 2008, chronicling such topics as California’s climate change and energy policies, drought, renewable and conventional energy development, endangered species and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland.

Peter Henderson is the San Francisco Bureau Chief at Reuters. He has covered the development of California’s cap-and-trade market and regulation to combat climate change for a decade. He has worked in Moscow, Los Angeles and San Francisco, covering business and politics for Reuters, the global news source.

Mr. Flederbach is the founder, President and CEO of ClimeCo Corporation. ClimeCo has specialized expertise in WCI cap-and-trade programs, Alberta Canada Specified Gas Emitters Rule (SGER), US regional ERC programs, bio-gas to energy project development, voluntary market advisory, transactional services and project financing. Within the Climate Action Reserve, ClimeCo is the largest producer of carbon credits, issuing approximately 13 million credits to-date from a diverse commodity portfolio which includes offsets generated under the Nitric Acid Production protocol and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Ozone Depleting Substance and Agricultural Methane protocols.

Prior to ClimeCo, Bill worked within the international carbon market, holding senior management titles at MGM International and AgCert. Prior to this international carbon experience, Bill was with a private engineering consulting company, OBG, for 16 years, leading their air quality management practice.

Bill holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University and an Executive MBA in Finance and Marketing from the Smeal College at the Pennsylvania State University.

Nico van Aelstyn is a partner at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, an international law firm with seven office across California. Nico is based in San Francisco and has more than 25 years of environmental counseling and litigation experience. His environmental counseling and regulatory compliance practice includes a focus on climate change, including California’s Cap-and-Trade Program, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard program and other aspects of AB 32’s implementation. He has been active in most CARB rulemakings regarding the Cap-and-Trade program, counseled clients regarding compliance, negotiated with CARB and brought writ petitions challenging certain regulations. He handles emission trading contracts; he’s negotiated forest offset project agreements of various kinds representing over $250 million and many millions of offset credits. He’s also represented the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) in the California lawsuits challenging the offsets program and the GHG emission allowance auctions. Nico’s environmental litigation practice also encompasses cost recovery actions, challenges to regulations, administrative enforcement actions, and representation of PRPs and PRP groups at Superfund sites. He has handled matters in state and federal courts across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court and various administrative fora.

Nico is recognized as a leading environmental lawyer by Chambers USA and Super Lawyers.

Mr. Melby is a Director of CBL Markets and the Managing Partner of an independent consultancy where he has advised major energy companies, financial institutions, governmental agencies, and exchanges on energy and environmental markets. Previously, he was the Managing Director of North American Markets for the Green Exchange, an international environmental exchange that was purchased by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Prior to Green Exchange he was the President and CEO of APX, where he oversaw the company’s development as a premier infrastructure platform for all major renewable energy markets in North America and greenhouse gas markets worldwide.

Mr. Melby holds a degree from Brown University and completed the management program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Katie serves as IETA’s Director of North America and Climate Finance. On behalf of IETA’s global multi-sector business membership, Katie leads efforts to inform climate change policy and market design with government and non-government partners across North America. She also manages IETA’s growing international work on innovative instruments and mechanisms, capable of leveraging private capital into climate mitigation and resilience activities. Katie’s a member of the University of Toronto’s Environmental Finance Committee, Ontario Environment Commissioner’s Climate Change Advisory Panel, and the new Climate Advisory Group to Ontario’s Minister of Environment & Climate Change. Prior to joining IETA, Katie was a Senior Associate at ICF International, where she provided strategic climate and energy advisory services to corporate, government, NGO clients and UN agencies. Katie holds a Masters with Distinction in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex.

Glen Murray was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2010 as the MPP for Toronto Centre. He was re-elected in 2011 and 2014.Murray currently serves as Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. He was appointed the Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister of Transportation in February 2013.

He has had a lifetime of activism in urban planning, sustainable development and community health. Murray is a founding member of the Canadian AIDS Society. He was Director of Health Education and HIV Prevention Services at the Village Clinic/9 Circles Community Health Centre in Winnipeg. Murray was also part of the World Health AIDS Service Organization’s working group for the Global Program on AIDS.

He served as mayor of Winnipeg from 1998 to 2004. As Chair of the Big City Mayors’ Caucus, Murray led the successful campaign to transfer the equivalent of five cents per litre of the federal gas tax to municipalities for infrastructure renewal and construction.

In 2004, he moved to Toronto and served as Senior Resident at Massey College and a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Design at the University of Toronto. Murray was a Managing Partner of AuthentiCITY, a Toronto-based urban sustainability consulting and planning firm. He was appointed Chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy by former prime minister Paul Martin in 2005. Murray became president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute in 2007.

He has served on several university, hospital and community boards, including the Expo 2015 Bid Committee and the Toronto District School Board’s Reference Group for Improving Services for Marginalized Students. He has logged more than 5,000 kilometres cycling for Habitat for Humanity to raise money for affordable housing. Murray has won several public service awards, including the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and the Fight for LGBT Justice and Equality award from Egale Canada in 2003.

Murray was born in Montreal, where he earned a diploma from John Abbott College. He then attended Concordia University’s School of Community and Public Affairs for four years, majoring in Urban Studies.

Lisa DeMarco is a senior partner at DeMarco Allan LLP with over two decades of experience in law, regulation, policy, and advocacy relating to energy and climate change. Ms. DeMarco was previously a partner at Macleod Dixon LLP from 2002 to 2012, partner at Norton Rose Canada LLP from 2012 to 2013 and partner at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP from 2013 to 2014. She represents several governments and leading energy clients in a wide variety of natural gas, electricity, pipeline and energy storage matters before various regulatory agencies, including the OEB and the National Energy Board. She has been an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and lectures regularly.

Ms. DeMarco also assists leading Canadian energy companies on domestic and overseas power project development, renewable power projects, alternative fuel projects, cleantech development and finance, energy storage, carbon capture and storage, corporate social responsibility, environmental disclosure, clean energy finance, and sustainable business strategy.

She is ranked by Chambers Global as one of the world’s leading climate change lawyers and regularly attends and advises on related United Nations negotiations. She is ranked and repeatedly recommended by LEXpert, Expert Guide, International Who’s Who, and Chambers Canada as a leading energy (oil, gas and electricity) and environment lawyer. Ms. DeMarco has worked for multilateral development banks and energy companies on deals and projects in India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Argentina, Chile, Ireland, Africa, Mexico, China, Russia, California, Alberta, Ontario, and Québec. She plays an ongoing and active role in the development and drafting of energy and greenhouse gas emissions policy, regulation, and law throughout Canada, and in various countries around the world. She was also lead counsel on all aspects of the successful sale of an Ontario power distribution company. She was an appointed member of Ontario’s Clean Energy Task Force and Climate Action Group.

Ms. DeMarco is a member of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund Investment Committee. She is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario (BSc Hon. – 1990), the University of Toronto (MSc. – 1992), Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (LLB – 1995) and the Vermont Law School (MSEL, summa cum laude – 1995) and is called to the bar in England and Ontario.

Eric Denhoff was appointed Deputy Minister of the Alberta Climate Change Office in September 2016. He was previously involved in leading mediation for the Government of Alberta on land use issues. Mr. Denhoff is the former President and CEO of the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, a national clean energy association.

He has served as Chief Negotiator on Aboriginal negotiations for LNG pipelines for TransCanada Pipelines, as Chief Negotiator for BC Hydro, as Chief Federal Treaty Negotiator for the Government of Canada and served as a Deputy Minister in several portfolios in the Government of British Columbia.

He was born and raised in Saskatchewan and worked for nearly a decade in Alberta. He has significant public and private sector experience in negotiation, financial and human resource management, international trade, natural resources and Aboriginal relations.

Dirk Forrister is President and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). Previously, he was Managing Director at Natsource LLC, the manager of one of the world’s largest carbon funds. Earlier in his career, Mr. Forrister served as Chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force in the Clinton Administration. Prior to that, he was Assistant U.S. Secretary of Energy for Congressional, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs; and legislative counsel to Congressman Jim Cooper. He was also Energy Program Manager at Environmental Defense Fund. Forrister now serves on the Board of Directors of the Verified Carbon Standard and as a member of the Advisory Boards of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the American Carbon Registry.

David serves as Chief Executive Officer of VCS where he oversees all aspects of the organization, including ensuring the financial and operational health of the organization and that the organization’s certification programs meet high quality integrity and transparency standards. In recent years David’s focus has been to expand the scope of VCS, broadening it from an organization dedicated exclusively to certifying carbon reductions to one that also identifies and develops other standards frameworks for a sustainable world. In this vein, David works to ensure that the standards VCS identifies, develops and manages facilitate the flow of capital to enable countries, the private sector and civil society achieve and demonstrate their climate and sustainable development goals. David works closely with the VCS Board to chart the future course of the organization, and spearheads outreach to government, foundation, business and environmental leaders around the world.

A world-renowned expert on climate change, David began his work in this sector when we worked for ICF Consulting in 1994 providing technical advice to Latin American countries developing their GHG inventories and serving on the team that pioneered verification procedures for emission reduction projects. In 1999 David joined the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Mexico as its global climate change advisor overseeing the development of an energy-sector grid emission factor and baseline studies for forest protection efforts. In 2003, David joined EcoSecurities in Oxford (UK) where he led a joint venture to develop landfill gas-to-energy projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). At EcoSecurities David also spearheaded the company’s efforts in the voluntary market, helping to identify key infrastructure and procedural needs that the voluntary carbon market lacked in the early days of its existence.

David holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Princeton University and a Master’s in Public Policy, with concentrations in Environmental Policy and International Development, from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Originally born and raised in Mexico City, David now resides in Bethesda, MD with his wife and two children.

Takashi Hongo analyzes climate change mitigation and adaptation, including emission trading and climate finance, water and low carbon infrastructure and biodiversity and provides advice to Mitsui & Co.. He seeks for market based solutions, combined with diffusion and innovation of technology, and proposes “Game Change” under climate and energy constraints.

Before joining the institute, he worked for the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC, Special Advisor and Head of Environment Finance Engineering Department) and drafted JBIC Environment Guideline and J-MRV Guideline for measurement of GHG emission reduction at projects. He has rich experiences of finance for energy and infrastructure projects.

(Other activities)
Board of Directors for International Emission Trading Association, Advisor for Global Green Growth Institution, Advisor for Global Water Reuse and Recycle Association, Advisor for Innovation LAB for Climate Finance, member of ICAO Global market Base Mechanism Task Force, Expert for TC265 WG6(CO2 EOR) and Project Manager for DIAS (Data Integration and Analysis System) .

He is a member of various committees and study groups for government and local governments in the fields of climate finance, emission trading, water infra, satellite technology, and technology evaluation committee of NEDO technology diffusion program.

He wrote numerous articles too.

Stephanie is currently the Manager of Climate Change Strategy at Delta and is responsible for all things carbon: fuel efficiency, third-party verification of greenhouse gas emissions, voluntary offset purchases, emissions compliance and engaging corporate and individual customers on climate change and sustainability issues. Stephanie has a Masters in International Relations from Hult International Business School, London and a Bachelor of Science in Managerial Economics from the University of California, Davis.

Jordan Godwin is a Senior Journalist covering renewable fuels at Oil Price Information Service (OPIS). Jordan joined OPIS following several years as an price reporter, and later an analyst, covering the renewable fuels industry at Platts. His primary areas of focus have included U.S. ethanol and biodiesel industry policy and pricing trends, global biofuels tradeflows and carbon-reducing fuel policies. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2010 with a degree in Journalism.

As Chief of the Transportation Fuels Branch at the Air Resources Board, Mr. Wade oversees rule development and implementation of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. In prior positions with ARB, Mr. Wade contributed to the inception of California’s cap-and-trade program, authored portions of the 2008 AB 32 Scoping Plan and served as ARB’s deputy director of legislative affairs. His private sector experience includes work in energy policy at a major Californian utility and time with a bioenergy start-up. Sam holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Davis, a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Hawaii, and an M.P.A in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University.

Philip Sheehy, PhD is a Technical Director in ICF’s San Diego office. He leads ICF’s team that provides advisory services at the nexus of transportation and carbon-constrained markets, focusing specifically on low carbon fuels and advanced vehicle technologies. Philip and his team are frequently called upon by government agencies, industry stakeholders, and non-profit organizations to conduct objective evaluations of low carbon transportation policies. His team is particularly active in California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard market, providing environmental commodity forecasting, regulatory impact assessments, fuel pathway support, and administration/verification support.

Nate Taylor is a Project Manager at SoCalGas where he is focused on new business development in the areas of Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs), biogas, and Renewable Natural Gas (RNG). In Nate’s former role at San Diego Gas & Electric he specialized in Energy Efficiency (EE) and Demand Response (DR) for the Emerging Technologies Program, managing the analysis of new and underutilized technologies through assessments, market behavior studies, scaled field placements, technology development support, and business incubation. Previously Nate worked as a Distribution Operations Engineer designing and managing the construction of utility infrastructure. Nate has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, San Diego.

Mike Szabo is a correspondent and co-founder of Carbon Pulse – an online subscription-based service dedicated to providing in-depth news and intelligence about carbon pricing initiatives and climate change policies around the world. Carbon Pulse’s coverage focuses mainly on emissions trading markets and other methods of using taxes and market-based mechanisms to cut greenhouse gas output. Prior to this, Mike worked as an environmental markets correspondent for Thomson Reuters and Point Carbon from 2007 to 2014, and as an analyst for investment banks JP Morgan in London and TD Securities in Toronto before that. He has an MBA from the University of Southampton and an Honours Bachelor of Commerce from McMaster University.

Chris Busch is the Director of Research for Energy Innovation, a policy think tank. He leads the firm’s urban sustainability and California climate policy programs. Chris has engaged in California cap-and-trade program design proceedings since the passage of Assembly Bill 32 in 2006. In 2009, he was named a member of the California EPA’s Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee. Previously, Chris worked for the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Blue-Green Alliance, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental economics and a Master of Public Policy degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jackie Cooley has served as a Senior Market Analyst for ICIS for the past three years where she covers both the California-Quebec and Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon markets. She heads all North American analysis, including policy and regulatory analysis related to the cap-and-trade programs. In addition, she manages ICIS’ proprietary Timing Impact Model for the North American markets, generating mid and longer-term price forecasting. Jackie has also played a key role in enhancing the company’s coverage of the RGGI market and with her expertise, she is currently leading the company’s expansion into the Ontario market.

Jackie holds a B.A. In Government and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard University.

Andre Templeman is the Founder of Alpha Inception, LLC. and the Executive Director for the Carbon Market Compliance Association (“CMCA”), a non-profit association of various carbon compliance entities and market participants.

Andre has an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario and has been working in environmental, energy and related commodity markets since 1999. Andre has also held senior management positions over Western US Electricity & Natural Gas, Texas Electricity and renewable businesses at Macquarie, Goldman Sachs, Duke Energy and Iberdrola Renewables. Andre Templeman has been deeply involved in the Carbon and Renewable Energy markets as they have emerged from a regulatory concept to full-fledged commodity markets in the United States.

Alpha Inception is a leading consulting firm in the area of compliance, cost management and hedging. Alpha Inception provides unique market intelligence and hedging solutions to Private Equity, Hedge Fund, Industrial, Utility and Asset Development communities, advising them on executed transactions and market strategies, including California Cap and Trade, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (“RGGI”) and other renewable and power markets across North America.

More information on Alpha Inception can be found at www.alphainception.com and more information on CMCA can be found at www.carbon-association.org

Sean is responsible for portfolio management, OTC transactions and client advisory services. He was a broker at CantorCO2e, a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, where he specialized in the U.S. carbon market and worked with clients to facilitate structured transactions of carbon offsets from projects involving forestry, livestock management, landfill gas and renewable energy. Prior to CantorCO2e, Sean was one of the first employees of Carbonfund.org, where he worked with such corporations as Dell, Volkswagen, and Orbitz to develop and manage their carbon neutral programs. He also managed the financing and development of the third reforestation project in the world to be validated to the Climate, Community, and Biodiversity Standard (CCBS). Sean has a degree in Business and Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California.

In his role as Executive Director, David is responsible for providing the strategic direction for The Registry and oversees its program, services and staff. He acts as chief liaison with the state and provincial Board members, as well as between states and provinces and their respective federal governments. David is a proven senior executive with experience as COO, CEO and Director on four corporate Boards. In his previous position, David oversaw U.S. business development for Offsetters, a leading carbon management organization, and he also serves as co-director of the Northern California chapter of Environmental Entrepreneurs. Prior to that, David was an entrepreneur in the high tech sector, founding and/or leading innovative internet start-ups. David has an MBA from Oxford University, and has extensive experience across the range of key business functions: strategic planning, vision setting, raising capital, business development, board relations, marketing, and digital product development. He is based in San Francisco.

Louise Bedsworth is the Deputy Director of the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) in the Office of California Governor Edmund G. Brown. Prior to being appointed Deputy Director in 2013, she was a Senior Researcher at OPR. At OPR she leads work on climate change adaptation and resilience, land use and climate change, and other collaborative efforts. Dr. Bedsworth is also a visiting research at the University of California at Davis, where she leads an interdisciplinary, EPA-funded project on preparing for extreme event impacts on air and water quality in California. Before joining OPR in 2011, Dr. Bedsworth was a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, where her work focused on climate change adaptation, local government action on climate change, and transportation. She has also held positions at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Redefining Progress, and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis. She has a B.S. in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources, both from the University of California at Berkeley.

Gary Gero was recently appointed to be the first Chief Sustainability Officer for the County of Los Angeles where his duties include creating a countywide sustainability plan that addresses regional environmental, economic, and social justice issues. Gary previously served for the past 9 years as the President of the Climate Action Reserve, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Los Angeles and operating across North America. He now serves on its Board of Directors. Gary’s career includes nearly 20 years of work in local government, primarily in the City of Los Angeles where he served as Assistant General Manager for the Environmental Affairs Department and at LADWP where he oversaw energy efficiency and renewable programs.

Kyle is a policy analyst at the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS). He has been with BPS since 2003 and works on the Clean Energy team, primarily focused on climate change policies and planning, and energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. Kyle is in charge of both communitywide and City operations emission inventories. Kyle also serves on the core team for the BPS Workplace Excellence Committee, dedicating a portion of his time to Portland’s social equity initiatives. As a policy analyst, Kyle most recently led policy development for Portland’s new Home Energy Score ordinance. This policy, for the first time, requires sellers of single family homes to disclose energy information in real estate listings. Kyle has a BS in Environmental Science from Humboldt State University and an Executive Master of Public Administration from Portland State University.

Debbie Raphael is the Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment and believes that cities can take bold action to address environmental harm. A scientist by training and public servant by profession, Debbie has spent most of her career working in government to ensure that everyone has an equal right to a safe and healthy environment.

At the City of Santa Monica and City of San Francisco, Debbie crafted first-in-the-nation policies on toxics reduction, green building, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), healthy nail salons, and the precautionary principle — a decision-making framework that protects the public from exposure to harm even in the face of scientific uncertainty. In 2011, Governor Edmund G. Brown appointed Debbie as the Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). In her tenure with DTSC, Debbie implemented the state’s groundbreaking Safer Consumer Products Law to better regulate which chemicals can be used in products sold or manufactured in California.

As Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, Debbie sees herself as both a leader and a collaborator around environmental issues. She works in close partnership with other City agencies and community stakeholders to implement San Francisco’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals while advancing policies and programs that are inclusive of diverse communities and build on the city’s innovative and pioneering spirit.

Debbie was appointed by Mayor Edwin M. Lee in 2014 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master’s Degree in Physiological Plant Ecology from UCLA.

Over the past nine years, Brian Turner has served in senior positions in every California state energy agency, including the Public Utilities Commission, the Air Resources Board, and both Governor Brown’s and Governor Schwarzenegger’s Washington DC offices. Most recently, he led the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (version 2.0), a joint project that added the California Natural Resources Agency, Energy Commission, and Independent System Operator to the list.

Ken is the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and serves as Senior Policy Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Chair of the Strategic Growth Council. As the longest tenured OPR Director, Ken has led a broad effort to modernize land use planning through greater transparency; easier access and local application through mapping tools, templates, and streamlined permits; reduced barriers to in-fill development; promotion of transit oriented development; protection of agricultural land and open space; recognition of water constraints; and updated general plan and CEQA guidelines.

Before joining the Governor’s Office, Ken was the Assistant Attorney General heading the environment section of the California Attorney General’s Office, and the co-head of the Office’s global warming unit. From 2000 to 2006, Ken led the California Attorney General’s energy task force, investigating price and supply issues related to California’s energy crisis. California Lawyer named Ken an “Attorney of the Year” in 2004 for his work in energy law, and he received the ABA award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy in 2007 for global warming work.

Ken is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a B.A. in political theory from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Justin Johnson joined MMR in 2016, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience working in federal, state, and municipal government in both the United States and Australia. His long and varied career has garnered the respect of both government and business colleagues around the world.

Immediately prior to joining the firm, Justin was the Secretary of Administration for the State of Vermont. In addition, he has worked for Democratic and Republican Governors in Vermont as Commissioner of Environmental Conservation and Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources.

Justin served on the board of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for seven years and is a valuable and trusted source of information and advice for national and international clients seeking to navigate the regulations and policies related to carbon pricing.

Lenny Hochschild is a Managing Director for Evolution Markets. Mr. Hochschild manages Evolution Markets’ Carbon America ‘s Group, which is the region’s most honored brokerage firm. In addition, Mr. Hochschild is a member of Evolution Markets Executive Management Committee.

Mr. Hochschild assists a broad base of North American and Latin American clients in assessing risk, establishing market strategies, and executing transactions in the global carbon market. He leads one of the market’s largest and most experienced teams of carbon brokers and carbon project originators, which has been at the forefront of carbon market design in the U.S. and a pioneer in carbon trading product development and ground breaking transactions.

Previously, Mr. Hochschild started Evolution Markets’ San Francisco , California office in January 2004, where he provided professional brokerage services to the renewable energy market place inclusive of REC transactions and power purchase agreements.

Mr. Hochschild joins Evolution Markets with extensive experience in commodity trading and brokerage. At American Electric Power, he specialized in deal origination for the company’s coal-fired power plants and negotiation of the company’s biomass and Synfuel contracts. Mr. Hochschild also acted as a domestic and international coal trader for Enron Global Markets and as a base metals and precious metals trader in New York and London .

In 2007, Mr. Hochschild was re-elected to serve until 2009 on the Board of the Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System (WREGIS), which commenced operation in June 2007.

Mr. Hochschild, a native South African, graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester.

Aakash Doshi is a senior commodities strategist for Citi Research in New York. As part of the global commodity research team, he focuses on macro commodities strategy, investor flows, energy/biofuels, gold and agriculture sectors. He also analyzes commodities as an overall asset class and comments on world food price inflation, among other cross-discipline topics related to the market. Prior to joining Citi, he was a special situations analyst at a New York and London-based credit hedge fund, credit derivatives trader at UBS Investment Bank and in asset management sales at Alliance-Bernstein. Aakash began his career on the short-term interest rate trading desk at GMAC. He holds a master’s degree in international finance from Columbia University and is regularly quoted in print and TV media/financial press including Bloomberg, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, CNBC and BNN.

SIMON MUI is a senior scientist at NRDC and directs its advocacy and research on clean vehicles and fuels on the West Coast. Simon has been engaged in administrative, legislative, and campaign engagements around lower carbon fuels, clean vehicles, and carbon programs for over a decade.

Prior to joining NRDC, Simon worked at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington D.C., as part of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality. Simon has also served as a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and as an engineer at a battery start-up in California. He’s a native of California and received his undergraduate degrees from U.C. Berkeley and his master’s and doctorate from MIT.

Josh Bledsoe is counsel in the Environment, Land & Resources Department. His practice focuses on complex infrastructure and development projects, particularly those utilizing renewable or low-carbon technologies. He has broad experience in the permitting, entitlement, environmental review and financing of such projects; and also handles related administrative and judicial challenges.

Mr. Bledsoe has deep experience with California’s climate change law, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (commonly known as “AB 32”) and associated Air Resources Board regulations. He also possesses in-depth knowledge of the California Environmental Quality Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act (and its state and local counterparts throughout California), the Clean Water Act, the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act and the Warren-Alquist Act (including the siting procedures of the California Energy Commission).

Mr. Bledsoe also has experience in the permitting and development of energy projects, both fossil fuel fired and renewable. He has obtained federal, state and local approvals for projects involving intricate air quality issues, crafting innovative solutions to problems associated with the scarcity of required air emission offsets. He also has secured and defended water quality and wetlands permits before both the US Army Corps of Engineers and the State Water Resources Control Board. He also possesses extensive transactional experience, having represented buyers, sellers and lenders in matters involving environmental liabilities related to real estate and business transactions, complicated mergers and acquisitions, and access to capital markets.

Peter has launched several companies that are active today in clean energy and resource efficiency. He is the managing director and co-founder of Clean Energy Advantage Partners which helps corporations make tax advantaged investments in renewable energy projects. He is the founder New Resource Bank, which opened in 2006 as the first green commercial bank in the US and was also a founding director for Ecologic Brands.

Peter was formerly at Credit Suisse and JP Morgan Chase focusing on energy and project finance. He also served on the clean technology advisory board for the California Public Employees Retirement Systems and the California Teachers Retirement Systems. In policy and philanthropy, Peter is the co-founder of the China US Energy Efficiency Alliance and serves as a director for the Christensen Fund, the Bay Area Open Space Council and the Climate Action Reserve.

Peter has a technical background in energy and the environment, serving as engineer for the Chevron Corporation and the California Air Resource Board. He graduated from UC Berkeley Engineering and Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.

Craig Ebert serves as the President of the Climate Action Reserve where he is responsible for ensuring that the organization’s activities meet the highest standards for quality, transparency and environmental integrity. He oversees the organization’s continued leadership and commitment to ensuring offsets are a trusted and powerful economic tool for reducing emissions. In his role, he also leads the organization in identifying and entering into other opportunities that build upon the its knowledge and expertise and further its work under its mission and vision.

During his career, he has helped create the foundations for international, national and state policies to address climate change. He supported U.S. negotiations on international climate change agreements, including negotiations leading up to the creation and signing of the Kyoto Protocol, and helped develop the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) provisions under the protocol. Craig’s work also involved pioneering efforts on carbon accounting principles and methodologies. He served as the technical director of Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, which was adopted by the IPCC as its GHG Inventory Programme, and was a key architect behind the development of the official U.S. national GHG inventory to meet commitments under the UNFCCC.

Prior to joining the Reserve, Craig advised the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) and served at ICF for nearly 34 years.

As Deputy Treasurer for Legislation and Infrastructure Financing for State Treasurer John Chiang, Mr. Gordon’s responsibilities consist of managing and serving as Chair Designate of the California Pollution Control Financing Authority, California Alternative Energy Advanced Transportation Financing Authority, California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, and the California Debt Limit Advisory Committee. He serves as a Board member of the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, the West Coast Exchange, and the California Competes Tax Credit Committee of the Governor’s Office of Business Development.

Immediately prior to joining the Treasury, Mr. Gordon served as Deputy Controller for Environmental Affairs for Controller Chiang, serving as Chair of the State Lands Commission and as a member of the Ocean Protection Council, among other roles. He began his career as an environmental attorney and served as Counsel and Principal Consultant to the California Senate Committee on Environmental Quality for more than 20 years. Mr. Gordon is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of California, Davis where he teaches environmental policy.

Michael Yu is an Assistant Director at the Connecticut Green Bank. As part of the Clean Energy Finance group, he focuses on public private partnerships, financial innovation, and supporting and scaling programmatic growth. He is the lead underwriter of CPACE transactions and manages many of the Connecticut Green Bank’s capital partner relationships. Prior to joining the Connecticut Green Bank, Michael was a leveraged buyout specialist at the Royal Bank of Scotland. He holds a master’s degree in environmental economics and policies from Duke University. His master’s project focused on enabling greater market demand for voluntary REDD+ carbon credits. Michael also has a bachelor’s in finance and accounting from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Christina McCain leads Environmental Defense Fund’s climate change initiatives in Mexico. She works with government and non-government partners in Mexico to develop effective policy design for greenhouse gas mitigation and market-based solutions across sectors, including the forest sector.

Before joining EDF in 2009, Dr. McCain served as a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State in the Office of Ecology and Natural Resource Conservation and the Office of the Science & Technology Adviser to the Secretary. She is a former Science Policy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. McCain’s areas of expertise include climate change policy, carbon markets, tropical forest policy, Latin America, and international trade and environmental policy. She speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese, and earned her Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Miami in 2005, conducting field research in the Central Amazon on the effects of deforestation. She holds a B.S. in Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology from the University of Texas at Austin.

Ken is the Director of the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, and serves as Senior Policy Advisor to Governor Jerry Brown and the Chair of the Strategic Growth Council. As the longest tenured OPR Director, Ken has led a broad effort to modernize land use planning through greater transparency; easier access and local application through mapping tools, templates, and streamlined permits; reduced barriers to in-fill development; promotion of transit oriented development; protection of agricultural land and open space; recognition of water constraints; and updated general plan and CEQA guidelines.

Before joining the Governor’s Office, Ken was the Assistant Attorney General heading the environment section of the California Attorney General’s Office, and the co-head of the Office’s global warming unit. From 2000 to 2006, Ken led the California Attorney General’s energy task force, investigating price and supply issues related to California’s energy crisis. California Lawyer named Ken an “Attorney of the Year” in 2004 for his work in energy law, and he received the ABA award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy in 2007 for global warming work.

Ken is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a B.A. in political theory from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Biochemical Engineer by Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, Mexico (1985).
MS in Holistic Environmental Administration by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte y Centro de Investigación Científica y Educación Superior de Ensenada, Mexico (El COLEF-CICESE, 1996-1998).
PhD Certificate in Educational Sciences by Universidad Iberoamericana Tijuana, Mexico (2002 a 2005).
With experience in environmental management issues since 1994.
Has been worked for Secretaria de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (SEMARNAT Mexico) from 2003 to 2014.
Actually is the Environmental Management Director al Secretaria de Proteccion al Ambiente de Baja California, since 2014 to date.
His experience is in the air pollution, hazardous and urban wastes and vehicles emissions.
Since 2016 are involved in following action on Climate Change Program for Baja California, Mexico.

Debbie Raphael is the Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment and believes that cities can take bold action to address environmental harm. A scientist by training and public servant by profession, Debbie has spent most of her career working in government to ensure that everyone has an equal right to a safe and healthy environment.

At the City of Santa Monica and City of San Francisco, Debbie crafted first-in-the-nation policies on toxics reduction, green building, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), healthy nail salons, and the precautionary principle — a decision-making framework that protects the public from exposure to harm even in the face of scientific uncertainty. In 2011, Governor Edmund G. Brown appointed Debbie as the Director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC). In her tenure with DTSC, Debbie implemented the state’s groundbreaking Safer Consumer Products Law to better regulate which chemicals can be used in products sold or manufactured in California.

As Director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment, Debbie sees herself as both a leader and a collaborator around environmental issues. She works in close partnership with other City agencies and community stakeholders to implement San Francisco’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals while advancing policies and programs that are inclusive of diverse communities and build on the city’s innovative and pioneering spirit.

Debbie was appointed by Mayor Edwin M. Lee in 2014 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master’s Degree in Physiological Plant Ecology from UCLA.

Alberto Tavares has been at the helm of “Development Company of Environmental Services in Acre” (CDSA) since 2013. He is an economist, working on environmental and sustainable development issues with both governmental and non-governmental organizations. For the past 15 years he has managed and implemented projects for environmental conservation, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, payment of ecosystem services, leadership development and multi-institutional governance, and forestry development for communities and businesses based in the Amazon. Mr. Tavares was office coordinator for WWF-Brazil in Acre for 10 years.

Janet Peace is the Senior Vice President of Policy and Business Strategy at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES). She manages much of the center’s policy work and the Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC), the largest U.S.-based association of companies devoted to climate-related policy and corporate strategies. The BELC contains mainly Fortune 500 companies with combined revenues of over $2 trillion and more than 3.5 million employees. Initiatives managed by Dr. Peace include the center’s climate resilience program, the C2ES Solutions Forum and its advocacy and analysis of market-based policy options. The latest report co-authored by Dr. Peace is Weathering the Next Storm, a Closer Look at Business Resilience (Sept. 2015).

Dr. Peace brings more than 25 years and a wide spectrum of experience on environmental issues to her work at C2ES. As a recognized expert on climate policy, she is a past member of the National Research Council’s Roundtable on Climate Change Education and the Council of Canadian Academies on oil sands environmental technologies.

Prior to C2ES, Dr. Peace worked on climate policy in Alberta and taught environmental and natural resource economics at the University of Calgary. She also worked as a resource specialist with the U.S. General Accounting Office and as a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. She holds a Ph.D. and Master of Science in economics and an undergraduate degree in geology.

Tim Duane is Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Stanley Legro Visiting Professor in Environmental Law at the University of San Diego. He was a tenured member of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley (teaching environmental planning and policy) from 1991-2009 as well as on the faculty at Vermont Law School from 2008-2012 and a visiting professor of law at Seattle University School of Law (2012). Prof. Duane holds a J.D. from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, a Ph.D. in Energy and Environmental Planning from the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, and M.S. and A.B. degrees from Stanford. He teaches, consults, and conducts research on a wide range of energy, climate, land use, water, environmental, and natural resources policy, planning, law, and management problems. He has been an independent policy and planning consultant since 1985 and is an expert on “greening the grid” and rural land use. Duane is a licensed attorney and is admitted to all state and federal courts in California as well as the 9th and 10th Circuits in the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Prof. Duane has extensive consulting experience in the electric utility sector, with a client list that includes utilities, independent power producers, environmental advocacy groups, and public agencies. His particular expertise is renewable energy generation regulatory policy. He worked as a generation planning engineer for PG&E in 1980s, testified to the Little Hoover Commission on electricity regulation in the early 1990s, and served as senior policy consultant to the California Public Utilities Commission on electricity restructuring issues in the early 2000s during the California energy crisis (focusing on the environmental assessment of the proposed divestiture of Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s entire hydroelectric generating portfolio). He was a member of the board of directors of SkyFuel, Inc. from 2007-2009 (which successfully raised a $17-million Series B round of financing in 2008 and holds IP in ReflecTech film). He has also served on the board of directors of an affordable housing non-profit (Common Ground Communities) and a leading local environmental organization (the Marin Conservation League).

Prof. Duane is also one of the world’s leading experts on land use and ecosystem management in the west, working with both private land use and public resource management. He is the author of SHAPING THE SIERRA: NATURE, CULTURE, AND CONFLICT IN THE CHANGING WEST (University of California Press, 1999; paperback edition 2000), served as a special consultant to the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project (SNEP) in 1993-1996, and he was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to the California Spotted Owl Federal Advisory Committee in 1997. He has previous experience as an assistant fire dispatcher for the USDA Forest Service, has conducted research on recreational use for the Inyo National Forest, and published on the Quincy Library Group. Prof. Duane has taught environmental law and policy (Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and San Diego), land use law and policy (Berkeley, Vermont, and San Diego); energy policy and politics (Santa Cruz), and renewable energy law and policy (Santa Cruz, Seattle, and China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing). He was on the executive committee of the Environmental Section of the Association of American Law Schools and is currently on the executive committee of the Environmental and Land Use section of the San Diego County Bar Association.

Matthew S. Larson is a partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP and counsels utilities on state and federal aspects of regulation and administrative law. Mr. Larson has worked on matters before public utilities commissions relating to integrated resource planning, rates, transmission and renewable energy infrastructure, and both fossil-fired and renewable energy facilities. In addition, Mr. Larson counsels clients regarding compliance with applicable environmental laws and the intersection of public utility law and environmental law. He previously served as a law clerk for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver, Colorado and the Honorable John L. Kane of the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.

Cara Horowitz is the co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law, where she also co-directs the Environmental Law Clinic. The Emmett Institute was founded as the first law school center in the nation focused on climate change law and policy. Cara teaches at the law school and directs the work of the Emmett Institute to advance innovative research, public policy debate, and legislative reform to address climate change and its devastating effects. Prior to joining UCLA, Cara worked in the private sector and for the Natural Resources Defense Council, where she litigated high-profile cases and advocated domestically and internationally to protect oceans and wildlife. Horowitz is a graduate of Yale College and the UCLA School of Law, from which she graduated first in her class.

Ray Williams is the Director of Long-term Energy Policy in the Energy Policy and Procurement Department at Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Mr. Williams’s current scope includes federal and state greenhouse gas policy, as well as policy matters addressing combined heat and power procurement.

Mr. Williams joined PG&E in 1981. Prior to joining the Energy Procurement Department in 2004, Mr. Williams held a wide variety of positions at PG&E, including electric operations, electric resource planning, corporate planning, regulatory relations, and gas transmission. He has supported PG&E through electric and gas industry restructuring, its bankruptcy as a result of the failure of electric industry restructuring, and in the development of its long-term electric procurement processes.

Mr. Williams holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geography from the Clark University, Worcester MA and a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from Stanford University.

Will Murtha covers carbon markets across the US West Coast and Canada for Argus Media. Based in San Francisco, he writes frequently about California’s cap-and-trade and LCFS programs, as well as Oregon’s Clean Fuels Program. Prior to joining Argus, he worked for The Nature Conservancy and served in both the US Navy and Peace Corps. He is a graduate of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Jim is the Chief of the Program Planning and Management Branch within the California Air Resources Board. In his role, Jim oversees both climate change and transportation fuels related programs. His group implements the Regulation for the Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (MRR), which requires annual reporting for over 700 facilities, as well as verification of MRR reports. Jim also oversees various fuels related programs including the implementation of alternative fuel specifications, development of multimedia evaluations for transportation fuels, and the technical evaluation of fuel-borne verified diesel emission control strategies.

Currently, Jim’s group is developing a comprehensive verification program for the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) to ensure the use of high quality data to substantiate greenhouse gas emission reduction claims, and to enhance the integrity of LCFS credits. For this effort, Jim works closely with the Transportation Fuels Branch staff, who are primarily responsible for implementation of the LCFS.

Philip Sheehy, PhD is a Technical Director in ICF’s San Diego office. He leads ICF’s team that provides advisory services at the nexus of transportation and carbon-constrained markets, focusing specifically on low carbon fuels and advanced vehicle technologies. Philip and his team are frequently called upon by government agencies, industry stakeholders, and non-profit organizations to conduct objective evaluations of low carbon transportation policies. His team is particularly active in California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard market, providing environmental commodity forecasting, regulatory impact assessments, fuel pathway support, and administration/verification support.

Born and raised in Northern California and fascinated by science from an early age, I work to help bridge the worlds of science and governance in order to promote sustainable transportation and energy systems. I started my career as a biomedical engineer before shifting focus to the problems of public policy and climate change. My graduate work focused on Life Cycle Analysis of advanced biofuel systems and I’ve been engaged in alternative fuels research and policy development for several years, as a Science Fellow in the California Legislature and now as an advocate. I hold a B.S. in Biological Systems Engineering from UC Davis, an M.S. in Science, Technology and Public Policy from the Rochester Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Transportation Technology and Policy from the UC Davis.

Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), serves as President pro Tempore of the California State Senate. He is the first Latino elected to the position in over 130 years.

Senator de León is focused on building a more prosperous, equitable, and sustainable economy for the Golden State. He’s working to make college more accessible and affordable, combat climate change while building the clean energy economy, improve retirement security for low-income workers, and support California’s growing diverse communities.

His legislation has created the most ambitious renewable energy goals in the nation, the first-of-its-kind retirement-savings program for low-income workers, and has required a quarter of all cap-and-trade revenue be spent in disadvantage communities.

He has an extensive record on women’s rights, gun-violence prevention, and worker’s rights. He has led the fight in the Legislature to combat homelessness and to provide opportunities and protections to our immigrant residents.

Senator de León served four years in the Assembly before being elected to the Senate in 2010. Before the Legislature, he taught citizenship courses to immigrants and led opposition to 1994’s anti-immigrant Proposition 187. Senator de León credits his immigrant mother as his inspiration to help build a brighter future for generations to come.

Craig Ebert serves as the President of the Climate Action Reserve where he is responsible for ensuring that the organization’s activities meet the highest standards for quality, transparency and environmental integrity. He oversees the organization’s continued leadership and commitment to ensuring offsets are a trusted and powerful economic tool for reducing emissions. In his role, he also leads the organization in identifying and entering into other opportunities that build upon the its knowledge and expertise and further its work under its mission and vision.

During his career, he has helped create the foundations for international, national and state policies to address climate change. He supported U.S. negotiations on international climate change agreements, including negotiations leading up to the creation and signing of the Kyoto Protocol, and helped develop the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) provisions under the protocol. Craig’s work also involved pioneering efforts on carbon accounting principles and methodologies. He served as the technical director of Estimation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, which was adopted by the IPCC as its GHG Inventory Programme, and was a key architect behind the development of the official U.S. national GHG inventory to meet commitments under the UNFCCC.

Prior to joining the Reserve, Craig advised the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) and served at ICF for nearly 34 years.

Rodolfo Lacy is the Under Secretary of Policy and Environmental Planning at SEMARNAT. He is adept at managing air quality, environmental impact and risk, as well as in environmental audits. He has given several lectures at national and international forums on environment, sustainable development, climate change, green growth, air pollution and water.

Mr. Lacy’s career spans over 30 years, in which he has served as a public official on both federal and local levels, consultant and teacher. Previous positions include:

Coordinator of Programs and Projects for Studies on Energy and Environment in the Mario Molina Center.
Executive Director of Special Projects in the College of Environmental Engineers.
Chief of Staff of the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources.
Management Director of the company Environmental Specialists, SA de CV.
General Director of Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution of the Ministry of Environment of the Federal District Department.
General Manager of Environmental Projects in the General Coordination for the Prevention and Control of Pollution in the Federal District Department.
Mr. Lacy has a PhD on Sciences and Environmental Engineering; a M. Sc. on Environmental and Health Management by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); and a bachelor degree in Environmental Engineering from the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City.

As the Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund and a lifelong environmental advocate, Diane develops the organization’s strategy and designs solutions that let nature and people prosper. Diane expanded the scope and ambition of EDF’s strategic plan, and Diane’s expertise and leadership is guided by a strong commitment to scientifically and economically smart solutions that earn the support of people across the political spectrum. Together with EDF President Fred Krupp, Diane guides the organization towards getting results that reward those who innovate in favor of a clean and healthy environment.

Dirk Forrister is President and CEO of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA). Previously, he was Managing Director at Natsource LLC, the manager of one of the world’s largest carbon funds. Earlier in his career, Mr. Forrister served as Chairman of the White House Climate Change Task Force in the Clinton Administration. Prior to that, he was Assistant U.S. Secretary of Energy for Congressional, Public and Intergovernmental Affairs; and legislative counsel to Congressman Jim Cooper. He was also Energy Program Manager at Environmental Defense Fund. Forrister now serves on the Board of Directors of the Verified Carbon Standard and as a member of the Advisory Boards of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the American Carbon Registry.

Jennifer Haverkamp recently concluded her service as Ambassador and Special Representative for Environment and Water Resources in the U.S. Department of State. In 2016 she led the Department’s successful negotiations of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phase down the use of hydrofluorocarbons and the International Civil Aviation Organization’s landmark agreement to control global emissions from international flights. She was also President Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. Previously, Ms. Haverkamp directed Environmental Defense Fund’s International Climate Program and spent nearly a decade as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Environment and Natural Resources in the Executive Office of the President. Prior to that, she held posts at the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice (where her work on the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act earned the Attorney General’s John Marshall award), the Conservation Foundation, and a clerkship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She has taught at George Washington Law School and Johns Hopkins graduate school, and has served on the boards of the Verified Carbon Standard Association and the American Bird Conservancy as well as USTR’s Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee. Ms. Haverkamp earned a B.A. in biology from the College of Wooster (on whose board of trustees she serves), a B.A. and an M.A. in politics and philosophy from Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Tom Toles is the Editorial Cartoonist for The Washington Post, a position he has held since 2002. He is nationally syndicated by Andrews McMeel Syndicate. He previously served as Editorial Cartoonist for The Buffalo News, The Buffalo Courier-Express, The New York Daily News, The New Republic magazine, and US News and World Report.

In 2016 he published a book, co-authored with scientist Michael Mann, The Madhouse Effect, about climate change and climate change denialism. In addition, he has had six collections of his editorial cartoons published. He authored and illustrated a children’s book, My School Is Worse Than Yours. He has drawn a syndicated comic strip, Curious Avenue, and a syndicated comic panel, Randolph Itch, 2am. He graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo (BA, 1973).

Toles has won numerous national cartooning awards, including the Pulitzer Prize 1990, Herblock Cartooning Prize, 2011, National Cartoonists’ Society Best Editorial Cartoons 2003, National Headliner Award 2005, The Week Opinion Award Best Editorial Cartoonist 2005 and 2010, Mencken Award Best Editorial cartoon 1990, Fischetti Cartoon Prize 1986, National Wildlife Federation2009 Conservation Achievement Award, Communications, the Overseas Press Club Thomas Nast Award, 2003, The Wilderness Society Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing, 2006, National Press Club Order of the Owl, 2015.

Mary D. Nichols is Chair of the California Air Resources Board, a post she has held since 2007. She also served as Chair of the Air Resources Board from 1979-1983.

Nichols has devoted her entire career in public and nonprofit service to advocating for the environment and public health. In addition to her work at the Air Board, she has served as Assistant Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air and Radiation program under President Clinton, Secretary for California’s Resources Agency from 1999 to 2003 and Director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her priorities as Chair include moving ahead on the state’s landmark climate change program (AB 32), steering the Board through numerous efforts to curb diesel pollution at ports and continuing to pass regulations aimed at providing cleaner air for Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. She values innovation, partnerships and common-sense approaches to addressing the state’s air issues.

The Board is supported by a professional staff of scientists, engineers, economists, lawyers and policy experts, with an annual operating budget of more than $860 million.

Meg Arnold is Managing Director at Valley Vision, where she leads the firm’s projects in the Clean Economy, as well as in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, in California’s Capital Region as well as the northern San Joaquin Valley. Valley Vision’s Clean Economy work includes the region’s Cleaner Air Partnership a public-private collaboration of thirty years’ duration; a Green Communities project with PG&E that seeks to accelerate local climate action plans into action; and a commercial food waste recycling pilot project with SMUD in anticipation of the implementation of SB 1862 into Tier III producers, among others.

Previously, Meg led and managed the CleanStart program as part of her role as CEO at the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA), a non-profit working to strengthen technology and entrepreneurship across the region; CleanStart specifically champions the growth and success of clean tech companies in the Capital Region.

In addition to working in clean tech innovation, Meg has helped to lead the Capital Region’s overall “innovation economy” in the last 15 years, starting with a role at UC Davis where she supported startup companies spinning out of university research labs, and then as CEO of SARTA until 2014. Under her leadership, SARTA won an Innovation Hub (iHub) designation from the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz), conducted the first comprehensive inventory and mapping of the region’s technology companies, and launched numerous programs to better support technology companies and entrepreneurs.

ANN NOTTHOFF is the California Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in San Francisco where she has worked since 1982. She directs a broad range of initiatives to promote public health and environmental protection. She was a leader of the successful bipartisan campaign to defeat Prop 23 and defend California’s landmark climate law, AB 32 in 2010. She has led NRDC’s efforts to get many of California’s nationally significant environmental laws enacted including: the Marine Life Protection Act (AB 993 in 1999), the Clean Car bill (AB 1493 in 2002), Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32 in 2006 and SB 32, AB 197 in 2016), climate and land use (SB 375 in 2008), the package of water policy reforms in 2009, and the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act (SB 350 in 2015). Ms. Notthoff’s early work focused on coastal and marine management issues. She is a board member on the State Coastal Conservancy and was on the board of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) for over 20 years. She has held appointed positions on several state and federal advisory committees. In 2015, Ms. Notthoff was honored to receive a CLCV Northern California Environmental Leadership Award. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon and a Masters of City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley. She and her husband Dwight Holing live in Orinda and have two adult children.

At Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Chris Benjamin is the Director of Corporate Sustainability and leads a team that works collaboratively to measure, communicate, and elevate PG&E’s sustainability commitment across the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of the business. This includes leading a variety of sustainability reporting, benchmarking, and strategic policy initiatives, including working to build climate resilience. It also includes active engagement with a broad range of stakeholders, including PG&E’s external Sustainability Advisory Council, to guide and strengthen PG&E’s sustainability strategy.

Prior to joining PG&E, Chris was a Vice President at Eastern Research Group and a Policy Associate for the National Recycling Coalition. He received a Masters of Environmental Management from Duke University and a B.A. from Boston College.

Lisa Alexander is vice president, customer solutions and communications for Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), a Sempra Energy regulated California utility. She is responsible for developing new markets; driving clean technologies for commercial, industrial and residential customers; and delivering the information, products and services that meet customers’ energy needs and support state environmental and social policy objectives.

Alexander’s portfolio includes renewable natural gas, near zero emissions transportation, emerging technologies and energy efficiency, conservation and low income assistance programs. Previously at the company, she held increasingly responsible management roles in the areas of commercial and industrial services, customer strategy and new products and services. Prior to joining SoCalGas, Alexander was a partner at a boutique consulting firm that advised energy companies on smart grid technologies and conservation behavior change. She has also held strategic marketing positions at E*TRADE, Ticketmaster and Omnicom companies, and as a consultant, she has advised Fortune 500 companies on growth strategies. She began her career as a management consultant with Accenture. Alexander serves as vice-chairman of the California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition and is on the advisory board of Mobility 21 and the board of directors of TreePeople and NGVAmerica. She holds a bachelor’s degree in political science cum laude from the University of California, San Diego.

Cynthia L. Cory is the Director of Environmental Affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation. She has worked on a wide variety of state and national agricultural issues for the Farm Bureau over the past twenty-one years. Her current focus is air quality and climate change but she also works on biotechnology and invasive species/pest prevention, eradication and control issues. Previously, she worked for several private and public organizations over a ten-year period on short and long-term agronomic research projects throughout Africa. Ms. Cory has a M.S. in International Agricultural Development (emphasis Agronomy/Genetics) and a B.S. in Agronomy.

As Director of Policy for the Climate Action Reserve, Max oversees the development of new emissions reduction project protocols, as well as the maintenance and interpretation of existing protocols. He also leads technical work on the Reserve’s climate finance ratings program, as well as various contracts and grants, and participates in several external stakeholder and advisory groups. His areas of particular focus include grassland, livestock methane, landfill gas, ozone depleting substances, and climate finance. Max has supported the growth, functioning, and integrity of the offset project protocols and registry since 2008, serving in both Policy and Business Development roles. Prior to joining the Reserve, Max has worked for Infinity Wind Power and Pacific Gas & Electric. He received a Master of Environmental Science and Management from the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara, where he focused on Eco-Entrepreneurship and Corporate Environmental Management. His master’s thesis regarding green modular housing received top honors at multiple business plan competitions. Max also has a B.S. in Biology from Davidson College in North Carolina.

David Bunn was appointed Director of the California Department of Conservation on June 18, 2015. Prior to his appointment, David was Associate Director of the International Programs Office of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

David served as Deputy Director of Legislation for the Department of Fish and Game (now the Department of Fish and Wildlife) and he was Principal Consultant and Legislative Director in the office of California State Assemblymember Fred Keeley. He also served as Associate Consultant for the California State Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee, and then years later he directed the development of California’s Wildlife Action Plan.

David was a Project Director and researcher at the One Health Institute in the School of Veterinary Medicine, where his work included directing international research projects and training programs in West and East Africa and in Nepal.

Working in the private sector, David co-founded American Trash Management and served as its field manager. David was Environmental Program Director at the California Public Interest Research Group, and he worked on California agricultural issues as Executive Director at the California Agrarian Action Project.

David earned a PhD in Conservation Ecology, a Masters of Science in International Agricultural Development, and a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Biology from the University of California, Davis.

Rodd leads a team of scientists to guide the Conservancy’s efforts in protecting biodiversity and ecosystem function in working landscapes. Areas of focus include restoration of Sierra forests and high elevation meadows, wildlife-friendly farming and managing for ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes, and rangeland conservation. Rodd has over 20 years’ experience in natural resources conservation and wildlife research. Prior to joining The Nature Conservancy, Rodd served as Director of Bird Conservation for Audubon California, where he oversaw Audubon’s major conservation programs. Rodd received a B.A. in environmental conservation at the University of Colorado, an M.S. in biology at California State University, Long Beach, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis.

Debbie is the Executive Director of the Coalition on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases (C-AGG), a multi-stakeholder forum focused on incentivizing agricultural opportunities to reduce greenhouse gases emissions and enhance sustainability. She is also the Executive Director and a founding member of the International Biochar Initiative (IBI). IBI supports the research, demonstration, and deployment of sustainable biochar production and utilization systems to combat climate change and enhance the global soil resource. Debbie’s work focuses on strategies and solutions for agricultural mitigation of greenhouse gases and agricultural sustainability that mutually benefits the agricultural industry and society.

Debbie previously worked at the White House Council on Environmental Quality as the Director of Legislative Affairs and Agricultural Policy for the White House Climate Change Task Force; in the U.S. Senate, as a Senior Staff on natural resource and agricultural issues for U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey, and in numerous leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She has graduate degrees in human nutrition, chemistry, and communications.

Peter Miller is a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) with over 25 years experience in energy and climate policy. His work is focused on California energy policy, AB32 implementation, GHG emissions accounting and offsets. He is currently a boardmember of the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) and has served on the California Board for Energy Efficiency and on both Independent Review Panels evaluating the Public Interest Energy Research program at the California Energy Commission. Mr. Miller has degrees from Dartmouth College and Reed College. He is married to Anne Schonfield, has two children, and lives in Berkeley.

Kate White was appointed Deputy Secretary of Environmental Policy and Housing Coordination by Governor Brown in September 2013 at the California State Transportation Agency.

Prior to her appointment at the Agency, Kate spent two decades in the sustainable development field, including as Initiative Officer at The San Francisco Foundation’s Great Communities Collaborative, Executive Director of the Urban Land Institute Bay Area District, founding Executive Director of the San Francisco Housing Action Coalition, and founding Co-Director at City CarShare. Kate also worked for Urban Ecology and the National Low Income Housing.

Kate earned a bachelor’s degree in political science at Oberlin College, and Master of Public Administration degree from San Francisco State University.

Jenny Lester Moffitt was appointed Deputy Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture by Governor Brown in January 2015. Prior to joining CDFA, Jenny spent 10 years as Managing Director at her family’s organic walnut farm and processing operation, Dixon Ridge Farms. A proud 5th generation California farmer, Jenny oversaw the company’s day-to-day operations, including sales and marketing, food safety and organic certification.

While working at the farm, Jenny served as a board member for CCOF and on the California Organic Products Advisory Committee, the Food Safety Committee of the Walnut Marketing Board. Jenny was appointed by Governor Brown in January 2012 to serve on the Central Valley Regional Water Board. Jenny is a graduate of Brown University.

Edie Chang was appointed as a Deputy Executive Officer at the California Air Resources Board in the spring of 2013. She is responsible for development and implementation of California’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions including the AB 32 Scoping Plan, the cap-and-trade regulation, and the low carbon fuel standard. She also oversees strategies to reduce emissions from freight transport, the air toxics program, fuels regulations, and stationary source programs. In Edie’s 20 year career with the Air Resources Board, she has worked on a wide variety of projects including implementation of the zero-emission vehicle program, preparation of State Implementation Plans, and diesel incentive programs.

Edie received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. She is a registered Mechanical Engineer in the State of California.

Keali’i Bright is the Deputy Secretary for Climate and Energy at the California Natural Resources Agency where he is responsible for agency related climate adaptation, natural and working land carbon management, energy and oil production and Salton Sea programs. Keali’i brings to this position over a decade of experience in state natural resources and environmental policy development. Prior to this appointment, he served the Brown Administration as the Deputy Secretary for Legislative affairs at the Natural Resources Agency which was preceded by his work for the Legislature as the principle consultant on natural resources, environmental protection, energy, transportation and other issues for the Assembly Budget Committee.

Kleiman is an institutional investment expert with over 25 years’ experience, ranging from portfolio strategy development, to investment structuring, and portfolio projections. Kleiman has served on the Boards of for-profit forestry companies, Green Resources and Matariki Forests. Prior to her time at The Climate Trust, she was a senior team member at FourWinds Capital Management, and formerly worked for Hancock Timber Resource Group.

Ian Monroe is the founding President of Etho Capital, which was named one of the world’s “Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company for pioneering the links between sustainability and market-beating financial performance with the ETHO ETF. Ian is also the Founder of Oroeco, the world’s leading sustainability tracking and gamification platform, with users in over 170 countries. Ian shares his experiences with students as a Lecturer at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on sustainability science and climate change solutions. Among other awards, Ian is an Echoing Green Climate Fellow, an Institutional Investor “Rising Star,” and one of TechRepublic’s top 8 leaders in cleantech. He contributes to climate and energy policy and industry standards through the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials, UNESCO Netexplo, UNEP Finance Initiative, and the U.S. Department of State, drawing from his research at Stanford and experiences working on sustainable technology in over two dozen countries around the world, as well as his family’s small farm in California.

Julian started his career in the re/insurance sector in 1992. He was a producing broker at Marsh focusing on oil and gas business in the Middle East and Africa. He helped lead the development of products and business opportunities within the carbon market for the wider MMC group of companies which included Marsh, Mercer & Putnam. In 2004 he joined GE Insurance Solutions and was a senior underwriting risk manager responsible for the energy and marine portfolio of the Global Markets business. He was a member of the Global Market executive committee and was the FSA approved person for the London legal entity. In 2006 Julian founded Parhelion, a specialist climate risk and finance company who offer an insurance solution for CCO invalidation risk.

Julian has recently developed a risk and finance mechanism on behalf of Power Africa to support private sector geothermal development in East Africa. He launched a global platform on behalf of the G20 to accelerate large scale private sector investment in to climate compatible development. Julian has an MBA from Cranfield School of Management where his dissertation was on Carbon Trading Risk in 2001. He is a Research Associate at Texas A&M University, Geochemical and Environmental Research Group.

Sarah Dougherty focuses on investment to deploy more clean energy and infrastructure. In her 2+ years at NRDC, she has worked on creating the green bank network, local and international work to start new green banks and research on infrastructure finance. Her educational and work backgrounds are in economics and finance, including seven years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. She had shorter stints at the Coalition for Green Capital, C2ES, a small solar EPC firm, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta—focused on asset-backed securities risk analysis. Dougherty has a master’s in economics with a focus in public policy and is based in Washington, D.C.

Nick Kline is a Program Director at the Coalition for Green Capital. Nick oversees CGC’s state-level work developing Green Banks and clean energy financing solutions in the mid-Atlantic and the West. Prior to his work at CGC, Nick has worked at the Connecticut Green Bank, at a utility-scale solar developer, and managed an energy services startup. Nick holds an MBA, MEM, and BA from Yale University.

Mr. Tuchmann is President of US Forest Capital, LLC, an advisory services company based
in Portland, OR. US Forest Capital helps clients: identify, manage and finance natural
resource transactions; create and improve governance structures; and resolve public policy
and communication challenges. In this role, Mr. Tuchmann has helped raise $273 million in
conservation and ecosystem service funding that has conserved 165,000 acres of private
working forestland.

In his previous role as Western Director and Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture, Mr. Tuchmann successfully directed negotiations and implementation of the
$480 million Headwaters Forest Agreement and arranged President Clinton’s Forum
resulting in a $50 million plan for Lake Tahoe. Prior to joining the Department of
Agriculture, Mr. Tuchmann served as the Director of the U.S. Office of Forestry and
Economic Development where he was charged with the development and implementation
of President Clinton’s Northwest Forest Plan for 24 million acres of Federal land and an
associated $1.2 billion economic assistance program.

Mr. Tuchmann has also served as lead staff for the Senate Agriculture Committee where
numerous statutes – including the Forest Legacy, Forest Stewardship, Northern Forest and
Lake Champlain programs — that he developed on behalf of the Chairman were signed into
law. He has also served as Director of Resource Policy for the Society of American
Foresters.

Mr. Tuchmann is a forestry graduate of Northern Arizona University and earned a Masters
degree in natural resource policy from Pennsylvania State University. Mr. Tuchmann has
written and spoken widely on natural resource issues. He has served on the Society of
American Foresters’ Committee on Forest Policy and as an adjunct professor at the
Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College. Mr. Tuchmann currently serves
on the boards of Sustainable Northwest and the Forest Park Conservancy.

Jim Clark is President of North Coast Resource Management (NCRM, Inc.). North Coast Resource Management provides a broad range of environmental services ranging from traditional forestry and land management to conservation based land management. Jim has been practicing forestry since 1992, and has been working on the development of both voluntary and compliance carbon offset projects on the North Coast of California since 2008. North Coast Resource Management has developed nine Improved Forest Management carbon projects across one hundred and thirty thousand acres and brought over ten million carbon offsets to market.

Ms. Pollet-Young is the Director of SCS’s Greenhouse Gas Verification Program. Ms. Pollet-Young has over 20 years of experience in forestry, including forest management, forest ecology research, conservation planning, and carbon offset verification in both tropical and temperate climes. Prior to her tenure at SCS, Ms. Pollet-Young worked for the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Tropical Forest Science where she oversaw a network of forest dynamics plots throughout the tropics, and for The Nature Conservancy of Peru where she developed an ecoregional plan for the conservation of Peruvian montane forests and the bi-national Equatorial Pacific ecoregion in Peru and Ecuador. Ms. Pollet-Young completed a Master of Forest Science from Yale University where she was a Doris Duke Scholar and conducted her Master’s thesis research in Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. Ms. Pollet-Young also graduated with high honors from the University of California, Berkeley with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science, Policy and Management and a minor in forestry. Ms. Pollet-Young is a lead auditor with SCS who has participated in the assessment of over 50 forest carbon offset projects around the globe under the standards of the Climate Action Reserve, the Verified Carbon Standard, the American Carbon Registry, the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, and the California Air Resources Board’ Cap and Trade Program. In addition, Ms. Pollet-Young is a VCS AFOLU expert in Improved Forest Management and Jurisdictional Nested REDD+, as well as a recipient of a CARROT award from the Climate Action Reserve.

John Nickerson is a California Registered Professional Forester with expertise in forest inventory, forest management planning and the development of forest carbon offset projects and protocols. As Vice President, Forestry for the Reserve, John manages the Reserve’s forestry team, works on developing and managing forest protocols, both domestically and internationally. John and his team work independently and in collaboration with other entities to develop new and creative mechanisms to achieve environmental benefits through market-based solutions.

During his 20-year career in the field of forestry, he has helped to develop many of the first carbon projects in California. He has worked with the United States Forest Service in Alaska and California of forest and wildlife inventories. He has developed and conducted many inventory and long-term sustainable management planning efforts for large and small private landowners in California, which have assisted some landowners in obtaining forest certification under the Forest Stewardship Council.

John speaks French and Spanish and once upon a time, as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo, also spoke Swahili. He holds an M.S. in Natural Resources (Forestry) from Humboldt State University and a B.S. in Biology from Principia College.

Kelley is a Senior Associate at the Ecosystem Marketplace initiative, where she has authored flagship annual reports on the State of Private Investment in Conservation and the State of Voluntary Carbon Markets, among other publications. Kelley leads Ecosystem Marketplace’s annual survey of voluntary and forest carbon offsets, and presents regularly on topics including carbon markets and conservation investing. Prior to joining Forest Trends, Kelley interned at the U.S. Embassy Copenhagen, U.S. Department of State and the International Food Policy Research Institute. She graduated with honors from American University with a BA in International Relations, after studying abroad in Denmark, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Australia.

Rachel Tornek is Vice President of Policy and Programs at the Climate Action Reserve, where she is responsible for overseeing its voluntary carbon offset registry, directing the development of new GHG accounting standards, and pursuing opportunities to develop new market-based solutions to climate change. Rachel also leads the Reserve’s work to serve as an offset project registry for the State of California’s cap-and-trade program.

During her career, Rachel has helped develop the policies and strategic vision that have supported the Reserve in becoming the most successful carbon offset registry in North America. She has led the development of numerous GHG accounting standards, advised regulatory programs on the development of carbon offset policies and standards, and managed the development of its globally-recognized climate change policies and programs.

Rachel previously managed technical support and training at the California Climate Action Registry, an organization that helped companies develop and verify GHG emissions inventories. She has worked on climate policy for over a decade.

She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Science and Management from the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara and a B.S. in Ecology, Behavior and Evolution from UC San Diego.

Sean assumed the role of executive director at The Climate Trust in 2013. TCT is a mission-driven nonprofit established in 1997 that manages a $22 million carbon investment fund to deliver offset acquisition programs for utilities, governments, and large businesses. TCT’s specialty is in the forestry, agriculture and livestock sectors working in both the voluntary and compliance markets. Sean has been dedicated to TCT’s latest initiative to prove that environmental performance can be relied on to repay impact investors market rate returns while deepening the level of greenhouse gas reductions. 2016 saw the launch of Climate Trust Capital, a pilot carbon investment fund to demonstrate this thesis.

Sean is a recognized Portland Connector, an Edison Awards and Pivotal Leader nominee, an alumni of the EMERGE Leadership for Sustainability program, a member of the Association of Climate Change officers, a UNITAR Climate Change Diplomacy graduate, an advisor to MIT’s Climate CoLab initiative, and an Observer to the Green Bond Principles. He holds a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Cape Town.

Sean presents frequently on topics that include conservation finance, green building, deep carbon reduction strategies, carbon mechanisms and markets, the future of sustainability, and climate change.

Sean is an avid sailor and can be found on any navigable body of water on his boat with his wife Meredith and son Quinn.

Brian Shillinglaw leads New Forests’ US timberland and environmental market investment strategies. Brian’s expertise includes real asset and environmental market fund management, with a focus on the use of conservation finance techniques in real asset investment. His academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in Social Studies from Harvard University, a JD from Stanford Law School, and a Master of Science from the Interdisciplinary Program on Environment and Resources at Stanford University.

Aaron Schroeder has eleven years of professional experience analyzing, quantifying and auditing greenhouse gas emissions in North America. Prior to forming Brightspot Climate Inc. in 2015, Aaron worked for several years leading a team of fifteen greenhouse gas verification and policy analysts across Canada with ICF International. He provided leadership for this team and led the development of ICF’s standardized verification process, conformant with ISO 14064-3. In 2012, ICF’s verification process was accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

Mr. Schroeder’s hands on experience conducting over 100 greenhouse gas verifications includes numerous engagements for emission reduction projects in beef and dairy management, conservation cropping (zero-tillage) and nitrogen fertilizer management in addition to renewable energy, waste management and industrial energy facilities. He is sought after for his expertise devising strategies to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical implementation of methodologies for quantifying, reporting and verifying.

Mr. Schroeder is originally from rural Saskatchewan where he grew up on his family’s mixed dairy and grain farm. His experience in agriculture is apparent in his work ethic and his knowledge of conventional farming practices.

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATION

B.Sc., Electrical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Canada, 2003
Professional Engineer – Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA)
Greenhouse Gas Verification – ISO 14064-3, Canadian Standards Association, 2012

Henry Hilken is the Director of Planning and Climate Protection at the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The Air District is responsible for assuring clean air in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Mr. Hilken oversees preparation of regional air quality plans, transportation and land use programs, climate protection activities, amendments to Air District regulations, air quality modeling analyses, preparation of emission inventories, and the Community Air Risk Evaluation program. Mr. Hilken has a Masters of City Planning from UC Berkeley and has worked at the Air District since 1988.

Alex Jackson is the Legal Director for the California Climate Project at NRDC. He works on strengthening climate law and policy in California by defending and implementing clean energy programs developed under California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006. Additionally, he advocates for statewide strategies to improve energy efficiency in front of the state’s Public Utilities Commission, Air Resources Board, and legislature. Jackson holds a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Policy, History, and Government from Cornell University and a JD from the University of California, Berkeley. He is based in San Francisco.

Tim has worked in the energy field for 36 years — 2 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 8 years at Southern California Edison, 19 years at the California Energy Commission, and the last 7 years at the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Tim is the Program Manager for State Regulatory Affairs at SMUD, handling interactions between SMUD and California agencies such as the California Energy Commission and the California Air Resources Board. At the Energy Commission, Tim was Technical Director of the Renewable Energy Program and Advisor to Energy Commissioner Jacqueline Pfannenstiel, as well as working in the energy forecasting and energy efficiency areas. Tim graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1979 with a B.S in Social Science.

Jean-Philippe Brisson is a leading environmental lawyer who has more than 15 years of experience advising oil and gas, industrial and financial institution clients on a wide range of energy and environmental matters globally.

Profile
Mr. Brisson is a partner in Latham’s Environmental, Land and Resources Department and Co-chair of its Air Quality and Climate Change Practice. He is ranked by Chambers USA and Chambers Global for his work in this area and is a recipient of a 2012 Burton Award for Legal Achievement and a Climate Action Reserve CARROT Award.

Experience
Mr. Brisson represents several large emitters and commodities market makers in connection with structured offset and allowance transactions and compliance and enforcement issues under AB32. He is part of the team at Latham & Watkins that represents industry in connection with the offset litigation under AB32 and he has participated on behalf of clients in the preparation of a number of industry standard agreements for the sale and purchase of environmental commodities. He was previously Vice President in Goldman Sachs’ Global Commodities business where he helped establish Goldman’s US carbon trading desk and worked on a number of private equity transactions

Education
LL.M., International Environmental Law, George Washington University Law School, 1998, highest honors
LL.B./B.C.L., McGill University, 1996

Bar Qualifications
New York, Quebec

Languages
English, French

Recognition Highlights
Jean-Philippe Brisson is an esteemed environmental law expert with a wealth of experience in renewables and carbon finance. A market observer says: “He’s a strong transactional lawyer with lots of good experience in the US.” He co-chairs the firm’s climate change department out of the New York office. – Chambers Global 2014

“From a transactional standpoint” Jean-Philippe Brisson “is right up there and is very experienced,” according to market sources. Clients praise him as being “very responsive” and “very enthusiastic.” – Chambers USA 2014

Jon Costantino was the original Climate Change Planning Manager for the California Air Resources Board’s Office of Climate Change and he oversaw the first publication of the AB 32 Scoping Plan in 2008. He also currently sits on the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board as a governor’s appointee.

Prior to founding Tradesman Advisors, Inc. Jon managed a diverse portfolio of clients at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLC. As AB 32 climate change manager he saw the program through its infancy. In that role, he developed internationally followed policies and implemented programs with billion-dollar implications for California’s largest industries. Jon was also the lead legislative analyst at ARB, where he made technical and policy recommendations on both state and federal legislation. During his years covering California’s Capitol, Jon gained rare insights about California’s biggest industries, including water, agriculture, construction, energy and all aspects of transportation fuels.

An insider-agency perspective and technical expertise make Jon a highly sought-after source of information and opinion by mainstream and industry-specific media. With more than 26 years of experience in the environmental field, Jon is a recognized authority on climate change regulation and he has commented on TV and radio on the topic of AB 32 and climate change policies. Jon’s approaches to problems include developing solution-oriented policy and regulatory positions, conveying them through clear communications, and using real world experiences and relationships established by being on the ground and in the mix.

Christina Reichert is a policy counsel for the Climate and Energy Program at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, where she works on the Clean Power Plan. Christina also serves as a vice chair for the Environmental, Energy, and Natural Resources Committee for the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyer Division.

Prior to joining Duke, Christina was the law fellow at Oceana under a project-based fellowship from the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. During law school, Christina interned for Judge Norma L. Shapiro of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and was on the editorial board for RegBlog and the University of Pennsylvania’s Journal of Constitutional Law.

Christina is a member of the Florida Bar and an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and the University of South Florida, where she studied anthropology and psychology.

A partner at Latham & Watkins, LLP, Bob Wyman splits his time between the Los Angeles and Washington, DC offices. He heads up the National Climate Coalition and the California Climate Coalition, diverse business coalitions whose members include public and private enterprises in the energy and manufacturing sectors.

Mr. Wyman recently represented a broad group of power plants, refiners, financiers, emission credit firms and trade associations as interveners on behalf of the State of California in support of California’s AB32 offset program against litigation brought by the Citizens Climate Lobby and Our Children’s Earth. He has represented individual companies and business associations in federal and state court in a wide variety of actions brought under the Clean Air Act and state environmental statutes.

Mr. Wyman has contributed to the design of several federal and state market-based environmental programs, including the South Coast Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM), the federal emissions averaging program for recreational marine engines, fuel cell incentive programs, forward-crediting cleantech strategies, the clean air investment fund and the clean air communities program, among others. He is currently a Member of the US EPA Clean Air Act Advisory Committee on which he previously served for over 18 years.

In 2011 Mr. Wyman was recognized as one of the three most influential US energy and environmental attorneys of the previous decade by the National Law Journal. He is ranked in Chambers Band 1 for both California Environmental Law and US Climate Law. He is a member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers. Mr. Wyman graduated from Princeton University with honors in 1976 and from the University of Virginia Law School in 1980. In 1980-81 he clerked for US District Court Judge Robert J. Kelleher.

Ann Carlson is the Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law, and the inaugural Faculty Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. She is also on the faculty of the UCLA Institute of the Environment.

Professor Carlson is one of the country’s leading scholars of climate change law and policy. She is co-author (with Daniel Farber ) of a leading casebook, Environmental Law (8th ed.) and numerous articles on climate change and air pollution. She is the co-editor of a forthcoming Cambridge University Press book, The Future of U.S. Energy Policy: Lessons from the Clean Air Act. She has served on a National Academy of Sciences panel, America’s Climate Choices: Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change and an American Academy of Arts and Sciences committee, America’s Energy Future. Carlson is also a frequent commentator and speaker on environmental issues and she blogs at Legal Planet (http://legalplanet.wordpress.com).

Professor Carlson is the 2011 recipient of the University’s Eby Award for the Art of Teaching and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as the 2006 recipient of the Law School’s Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching. Carlson received her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and her B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She served as the law school’s academic associate dean from 2004-2006, and as Vice Dean for Faculty Recruitment and Intellectual Life from 2013-2015.

David Weiskopf is an Attorney and Policy Development Manager for NextGen Climate America. His work combines technical and legal analysis in support of policy advocacy across issues related to climate change, clean energy, and ending our dependence on fossil fuels.

David’s diverse background in law, science, and philosophy helps David to engage stakeholders and complex issues from multiple perspectives. He specializes in developing innovative approaches to resolving conflicts that prioritize both social equity and environmental integrity.

David is a member of the CA and IL State Bars.

Craig Segall is Assistant Chief Counsel of the California Air Resources Board, with responsibility for many of the Board’s climate and clean air programs. Craig’s staff works on issues related to California’s vehicle program, stationary source emissions, the Clean Power Plan, short-lived climate pollutants, electricity-related matters, and oil and gas sector emissions, among others. Craig has received a Gold Superior Achievement Award for his state service. Craig was previously a staff attorney for the Sierra Club, where he received one of the Club’s highest awards for service, and was involved in defending and supporting many of the Obama Administration’s environmental priorities. Earlier, Craig clerked for Judge Marsha Berzon of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and graduated Order of the Coif from Stanford Law School. Craig’s undergraduate degree is in biology, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Chicago.

Teresa Lang is a Senior Policy Manager at the Climate Action Reserve, the premier carbon offset registry for the North American carbon market. As Senior Policy Manager, Teresa manages the development of new emissions reduction project protocols, while also assisting with maintenance and implementation of existing protocols, both for the voluntary and compliance offset markets. Teresa specializes in the Reserve’s agricultural protocols and is currently managing the Reserve’s expansion of its Nitrogen Management Project Protocol, as well as the adaptation of agricultural protocols (five total) for use in Ontario and Quebec’s offset programs in Canada.

Teresa also currently serves on the Board of Directors for Paso Pacífico, a non-profit focused on ecosystem conservation in Central America, where she was also worked immediately prior to joining the Reserve. Teresa also previously worked for the Clinton Global Initiative, where she helped corporate and nonprofit industry leaders develop new climate change and energy projects. Teresa completed her Master’s degree in International Affairs at Columbia University, concentrating in Environmental Policy Studies, and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Political Economy from the University of California at Berkeley.

Joshua Strauss is a land-use carbon specialist whose primary responsibilities consist of the sourcing, analysis, and development of forest and grassland carbon offset projects. Joshua manages Blue Source’s forest and grassland project implementation team, overseeing all aspects of project development, from initial contracting to the ultimate issuance of offset credits. Throughout this process Joshua liaises with clients, directs Blue Source’s technical staff, supervises third party contractors, and coordinates with carbon registry administrators. Joshua is experienced in forest mensuration and geospatial analysis, has a degree accredited by the Society of American Foresters, and has passed the CA Air Resources Board’s Forest Verifier examination. A Doris Duke Conservation Fellow and Tinker Foundation Grant recipient, Joshua holds a BA from the University of California Santa Barbara and Master’s degrees in Forestry and Environmental Management from Duke University.

Charlie is a spatial ecologist and director of the Ucross High Plains Stewardship Initiative, a research center housed within the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The Initiative hosts a dynamic team of staff, students, and faculty, united by a passion for the American west and large landscape management. Charlie leads a team of spatial analysts designing remote-sensing applications to better understand large-scale implications of land management – from invasive species detection to streamlined monitoring of rangeland productivity over long time series. Of particular interest to the carbon world, Charlie has been part of a Yale team of faculty and doctoral students working on innovative, low-cost techniques for mapping soil-carbon at fine-scales, using in-situ soil measurements, remote sensing, and machine learning algorithms. Charlie also works with students and dozens of western partners to provide experiential learning opportunities that get undergraduate and graduate students out of the classroom to research, implement, and engage on pressing environmental issues. Charlie holds a BS from Middlebury College, and an MS in wildlife biology from the University of Vermont.

Leveraging 20 years of experience and a proven track record in the financial services industry, Ms. Durschinger founded Terra Global Capital in 2006 to promote results-based approaches to community-led forest and land-use emission reductions programs. Ms Durschinger is recognized as a pioneer and innovator in alignment of development values and financially viable approaches to sustainable landscape management. Terra is now the leader in forest and land-use emission reductions program development, GHG analytics and finance, providing technical expertise and investment capital to their global client base of governments, NGOs, and private companies in a collaborative and participatory manner. Prior to Terra, Ms. Durschinger held senior management positions in the areas of derivatives trading, investment management, algorithmic trading, risk management, and securities lending. She is a member of the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) AFOLU Steering Committee, REDD+ Social & Environmental Standards Committee, VCS JNR Permanence Work Group, Coalition on Agricultural Greenhouse (C-AGG) Advisory Committee and W+ Standard Advisory Council. Ms. Durschinger and her family make small production olive oil on their farm in Mendocino County. Among her previous employers are JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Barclays Global Investors and Charles Schwab.

Wendy James is CEO of The Better World Group, Inc., with offices in Burbank, Silicon Valley and Sacramento. The company has been a recognized leader in political and environmental strategy, communications, policy and coalition management for more than 15 years.

BWG directs several statewide campaigns focused on implementation of major California clean energy, climate and transportation policies. The company managed outreach activities for the successful “No on 23” statewide ballot measure campaign to save AB32 and directs outreach for the region’s Clean Transportation Funding from the Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee, awarding an estimated $30 million bi-annually. Wendy is a trustee of the California State Parks Foundation and serves on the Board of Advisors for the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California-Davis.

In March 2014, the Climate Action Reserve presented Wendy with the Mary D. Nichols Climate Action Champion Award, which recognizes outstanding leadership and commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Among her other accolades, Wendy was honored by State Sen. Carol Liu who presented her with the Women Mean Business Award for Environment and Energy Efficiency in 2014, by CLCV in 2011 with an Environmental Leadership Award, recognized by the Coalition for Clean Air in 2009 with a Ralph B. Perry III Lifetime Achievement Award, and named Small Business Woman of the Year for California’s 20th Senate District and 43rd and 44th Assembly Districts in 2006.

Ashley Conrad-Saydah, the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Deputy Secretary for Climate Policy, was appointed by Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in April 2012. She works with multiple agencies and stakeholders to achieve the State’s ambitious climate goals and implement climate mitigation strategies throughout the State’s communities, ecosystems and industries. Prior to joining CalEPA, Ms. Conrad-Saydah served as California’s Renewable Energy Program Manager for the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, beginning her tenure as a Presidential Management Fellow. Ms. Conrad-Saydah earned her master’s degree from the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara and undergraduate degree in ecology from Princeton University.

Adam serves as Southern California Edison’s resident expert on state and federal climate policy – including Cap-and-Trade, and post-2020 climate policy. In this role Adam works with regulatory agencies and stakeholders to find policy solutions that achieve climate goals and continue to provide safe, reliable, and affordable electric service to Southern California. Before coming to Edison, Adam held positions with the United Nations Environment Programme, UC Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. In 2016, Adam was selected as an Emerging Leader in Energy and Environmental Policy by the Atlantic Council and Ecologic Institute. Adam did his undergraduate work at UC Berkeley, and received a M.Sc. in Society & Environmental Policy from the University of Oxford.

Alvaro S. Sanchez is an urban planner with extensive experience crafting, implementing and evaluating strategies that leverage private and public investments to deliver community benefits to impacted communities. Alvaro is The Greenlining Institute’s Director of Environmental Equity. He leads a team that develops policies to improve public health and environmental quality for low-income communities and communities of color while bringing “green” dollars to these communities.

Alvaro is the organizational lead overseeing the implementation of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, SB 535 (De Leon, 2012), and AB 1550 (Gomez, 2016). He also oversees Greenlining’s work on Transformative Climate Communities, California’s comprehensive and scalable approach to greenhouse gas reduction that advance local climate action in disadvantaged communities through an integrated, community-based approach. For over a decade Alvaro has worked on economic development and land use issues throughout California and worked on leveraging stormwater and green infrastructure investments nationally to catalyze economic development in impacted communities.

Colleen Callahan is deputy director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. In this role we she works closely with both civic partners and center colleagues to advance the center’s research, events, communications, and overall impact. In addition, she directs the UCLA Leaders in Sustainability Graduate Certificate Program and teaches its core course. Previously, Colleen was manager of air quality policy for the American Lung Association. She has also conducted research and outreach for the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College, as well as Adi Liberman and Associates, a public and government affairs practice specializing in environmental policy. She is a founding board member of the Los Angeles Sustainability Collaborative, where she directs research programs and partnerships.

Colleen holds a M.A. in Urban Planning from UCLA. The Council of University Transportation Centers presented her with the national Neville A. Parker Award for her master’s capstone project. She was also awarded the Switzer Environmental Fellowship and the UCLA Department Award for Service to the Community. She holds a B.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy, Phi Beta Kappa, from Occidental College.

Dan holds a Ph.D. in Forest Ecology from Yale University. He has worked in the Amazon for 30 years studying the effects of climate change, policy, and land use on Amazon forests, and was the Founding President of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM). A world authority on REDD and low-emission rural development (LED-R), he was previously Senior Scientist at Woods Hole Research Center, and the Chief Program Officer of Environmental Conservation at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Dan is co-founder of Aliança da Terra, and was a founding board member of the Round Table for Responsible Soy (RTRS). Today he serves on the Board of Directors of Forest Trends, the Steering Committee of the Solidaridad Farmer Support Program, and the Science Committee of the Brazilian state of Acre’s REDD program. He has also served on the REDD Offset Working Group of California, the External Advisory Group of the World Bank Forest Section, and was a Lead Author of the IPCC 5th Annual Assessment report. He has published more than 140 scientific articles and three books.

Alberto Tavares has been at the helm of “Development Company of Environmental Services in Acre” (CDSA) since 2013. He is an economist, working on environmental and sustainable development issues with both governmental and non-governmental organizations. For the past 15 years he has managed and implemented projects for environmental conservation, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, payment of ecosystem services, leadership development and multi-institutional governance, and forestry development for communities and businesses based in the Amazon. Mr. Tavares was office coordinator for WWF-Brazil in Acre for 10 years.

Anthropologist Steve Schwartzman lived with the Panará tribe in Mato Grosso, Brazil for a year and a half in the early 1980s and learned their unwritten language. He subsequently defended his PhD thesis on the group at the University of Chicago. Dr. Schwartzman worked closely with the emerging Amazon rubber tappers’ movement in the western Amazon starting in 1985, and twice brought rubber tapper leader Chico Mendes to the United States. Since 1991, Dr. Schwartzman has worked with the Panará people, and NGO partner the Instituto Socioambiental, to help the Panará in their successful effort to recover 495,000 hectares of their traditional territory and ensure its legal recognition and protection.

Since 2002, Dr. Schwartzman has worked with grassroots groups and NGOs for the creation of a reserve mosaic in the Terra do Meio region of the Amazon state of Pará. Between 2004 and 2008 the Brazilian government, in response to civil society advocacy, created ~8 million ha. of new parks and extractive reserves in the lawless frontier region. This established a continuous corridor of indigenous lands and conservation units of 26 million ha. in the Xingu river basin, the largest tropical forest reserves corridor in the world. Dr. Schwartzman leads EDF’s work with a consortium of Brazilian NGOs, grassroots organizations, government agencies and indigenous and traditional communities to implement and protect the reserves.

Dr. Schwartzman also initiated EDF’s efforts to create large-scale incentives for tropical countries to reduce their deforestation through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and in the emerging US emissions control regime, with Brazilian and other international partners. He leads EDF’s international work on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation in Developing Countries.

EDUCATION
2002 – 2010 University of Colorado at Boulder: Ph.D. in Anthropology
2000 – 2002 University of Colorado at Boulder: M.A. in Anthropology
1992 – 1995 School for International Training: M.A. in Sustainable Development
1986 – 1990 University of Notre Dame: B.A. in American Studies and French

FIELDWORK/RESEARCH
6/09 – 7/09 Ethnographic Fieldwork; Bahia, Sao Paulo, and Brasilia, Brazil
6/08 – 8/08 Completed ethnographic research on social and environmental movements in Brazil.
2/07 – 5/07 Methods included informal interviews, semi-structured interviews, questionnaires,
1/06 – 7/07 focus groups, and participant observation with family farmers, environmentalists,
quilombolas and nativos in the South of Bahia, Brazil. Worked with and mentored two
research assistants and trained community leaders in computer skills.
6/03 – 8/03 Ethnographic Fieldwork; Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia, Brazil
Used semi-structured interviews and participant observation for a pilot study of research
opportunities in Brazil on conservation, development, and social movements.
10/02 Ethnographic Fieldwork; Washington, D.C.
Conducted semi-structured interviews with transnational environmental NGOs working
with conservation, development, and land reform issues in Brazil.

RELATED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
4/11 – 7/11 Independent Consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank Educational
Project, in collaboration with CONSTRAT; Washington, D.C.
Produced 100 curriculum units for elementary and high school students focusing on
quilombola people and quilombo communities in Brazil as part of a collaboration with
the Brazilian Ministry of Education and an interdisciplinary team producing material for
national educational portals of Latin American countries.
4/04 – 9/05 Alliance Funds Coordinator, Global Greengrants Fund; Boulder, CO
Conceptualized and worked with local activists to start grant-making and capacity
building funds serving grassroots socio-environmental groups in Brazil, Mexico, and
Southeast Asia.
1/02 – 6/03 Consultant, Ambiental Amazônia; Manaus, Brazil
Conducted an ecotourism development project for the state of Amazônas, Brazil.
10/01 – 5/03 Associate, Domani LLC; Denver, CO
Served as a planning consultant for the Prairie Gateway Tourism Project.
10/00 – 4/01 Project Associate, EDAW; Denver, CO
Developed environmental education and outreach for Commerce City Municipal Project.
8/96 –10/00 Senior Associate, Eco Tourism International; Denver, CO
Conducted feasibility planning for an ecotourism project in Belize.
10/97 – 10/99 Natural Resource Planner, City of Boulder Open Space Department;
Boulder, CO
Engaged in public outreach and conservation planning for land management agency with
30,000 acres of public land.
4/97 – 10/97 Education & Outreach Specialist, City of Boulder Open Space Department;
Boulder CO
Developed, implemented, and evaluated outreach and public participation opportunities
for natural resource planning projects.
8/96 – 4/97 Environmental Education Coordinator, City of Boulder Open Space Department;
Boulder, CO
Managed all aspects of the Open Space environmental education program.
1/94 – 5/95 Ecotourism Consultant, The Minntica Company; San Jose, Costa Rica
Conducted feasibility and market study for ecotourism development in Costa Rica.
4/93 – 12/93 Research Associate, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia;
Manaus, Brazil
Worked with the Office of International Cooperation on ecotourism development,
environmental education, and inter-institutional scientific collaboration arrangements.
2/94 – 3/96 Program Coordinator, The American Forum for Global Education; New York, NY
Designed and implemented interdisciplinary educational projects on sustainability and
global education for schools and community organizations throughout New York City.

Chelsea Sexton started selling cars at age 17 to put herself through college, but soon found her passion for electric vehicles (and her lead foot) as part of the General Motors EV1 program. In the two decades since, she has amassed unparalleled expertise in the electric transportation ecosystem, including market strategy, stakeholder engagement, retail processes, public policy, infrastructure, and communications.

Chelsea led the initial creation of the Automotive X PRIZE, which has since awarded $10 million to winning teams and inspired similar prize efforts to leverage talent and investment to catalyze efficient transportation solutions.

As a Senior Advisor to VantagePoint Capital Partners’ Cleantech practice, she helped guide the firm’s transportation-related investment priorities, most notably an early stake in Tesla Motors.

Chelsea’s diverse adventures have also included advising Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Tesla, Chevrolet, Google, Best Buy, Edison Electric Institute, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, California Energy Commission, and many others. On the non-profit side, she co-founded Plug In America, the largest consumer-oriented electric drive advocacy group in the U.S., and remained its Executive Director for several years.

Chelsea has been featured in a handful of books, TV shows, and films, including National Geographic’s Years of Living Dangerously and the critically-acclaimed Sony Pictures Classics film, Who Killed the Electric Car?, and she was a Consulting Producer on the follow-up, Revenge of the Electric Car. She is quoted frequently in a variety of media outlets, and occasionally writes for one of them when a topic gets under her skin.

Joel is an advocate for low-carbon technologies and a frequent speaker and writer on topics relating to electric vehicles, clean energy, water policy and climate policy. He is focused on continuing to build Plug In America as the leading independent voice for electric vehicles in the United States. Prior to joining Plug In America, he served as vice president for business development at the Climate Action Reserve, the state-chartered nonprofit that runs North America’s largest carbon offset registry. He has an MBA from UC Berkeley and an MA in international economics from the Johns Hopkins University. He drives a Nissan LEAF and mostly charges at home on a Clipper Creek HCS-50 Level 2 charging station.

Abigail Tinker leads Pacific Gas & Electric’s Vehicle Grid Integration (VGI) strategy & pilots as part of the Grid Integration & Innovation team. She has been working to advance green technologies in the utility sector for over 10 years including roles in strategic and data analysis to enable increasing utility-scale renewables, distributed generation, demand response, and electric vehicles. Abigail is also passionate about the impact bike transportation can have on reducing carbon emissions, she currently serves on the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Strategic Plan Committee. Abigail attended Wellesley College then received an MA in Climate and Society from Columbia University and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

As Senior Program Manager, Robert Lee helps manage and implement the Reserve’s reporting, verification, and accreditation programs. He also has a leading role in maintaining and updating the Reserve’s programmatic rules and its registry software and systems. Robert acts as the Protocol Implementation Lead for the Reserve’s forest protocol, acting as the point person for all project and protocol related guidance inquiries from project developers and verifiers.

Prior to joining the Reserve, Robert has researched insurance mechanisms for REDD programs for the Nicholas, and interned at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation as an Environmental Impact Analyst, reviewing international development projects for their environmental impacts. Robert has a Master of Environmental Management degree from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, where he concentrated in Environmental Economics and Policy. He also received a Certificate of International Development from Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy. Robert earned his Bachelor of Science in Operations Research from Columbia University with a minor in Economics. He has additional work experience in the financial sector, having spent time as an intern at Merrill Lynch and Soros Fund Management.

​Ben Saltsman is an associate in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He currently practices with the firm’s Real Estate Department.

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Mr. Saltsman served as a senior advisor to a Los Angeles County Supervisor for nearly 15 years. In that role, Mr. Saltsman was responsible for planning and land-use issues, helping property owners navigate the County planning process, and coordinating policies and programs with developers, homeowner groups, environmental organizations, and various state and local governmental entities. He also oversaw, among other agencies, the Local Agency Formation Commission, the Community Development Commission and the Los Angeles County Housing Authority. In this role, Mr. Saltsman coordinated the successful entitlement and approval of major private sector and public sector development projects, including: a major campus master plan, a specific plan for a Los Angeles movie studio and entertainment complex, funding and entitlements for more than one thousand affordable housing units throughout Los Angeles County, the acquisition of thousands of acres of publicly owned open space, and the certification of a local coastal program by the California Coastal Commission.

Mr. Saltsman earned his law degree in 2014 from Loyola Law School, where he graduated summa cum laude and Order of the Coif. He graduated with highest honors in 2007 from the University of Southern California with a Master of Planning degree, and from UCLA in 2002, where he was awarded magna cum laude honors and was Phi Beta Kappa. He has also lectured at academic and professional forums and written a nationally award winning paper on best practices in the land use entitlement process.

Mr. Saltsman is admitted to practice law in the State of California.

EDUCATION

Loyola Marymount University – 2014 – Juris Doctor
University of Southern California – 2007 – Master of Planning
University of California – Los Angeles – 2002 – Bachelor of Arts

Mark brings more than 20 years of experience working with utilities, developers, and large corporations to implement renewable energy and other emissions reduction projects. With a background primarily in strategy and finance, Mark is responsible for overseeing the company’s product portfolio, including risk management and mitigation; for structuring and negotiating financing for new projects, including tax credit and environmental commodity monetization; and for overseeing the company’s own finance and administration activities. Prior to joining TerraPass (now Origin Climate) in 2008, Mark was Vice President of Delphos International, Ltd., a financial advisory and investment firm focused on renewable energy and other infrastructure projects worldwide, where he raised more than $2 billion for such projects. Previous positions include Director of Strategic Investments for Telcordia Technologies and Manager of Strategy for Lucent Technologies. Mark has a bachelor’s degree in Finance from The American University and an MBA from Columbia University.

Julian started his career in the re/insurance sector in 1992. He was a producing broker at Marsh focusing on oil and gas business in the Middle East and Africa. He helped lead the development of products and business opportunities within the carbon market for the wider MMC group of companies which included Marsh, Mercer & Putnam. In 2004 he joined GE Insurance Solutions and was a senior underwriting risk manager responsible for the energy and marine portfolio of the Global Markets business. He was a member of the Global Market executive committee and was the FSA approved person for the London legal entity. In 2006 Julian founded Parhelion, a specialist climate risk and finance company who offer an insurance solution for CCO invalidation risk.

Julian has recently developed a risk and finance mechanism on behalf of Power Africa to support private sector geothermal development in East Africa. He launched a global platform on behalf of the G20 to accelerate large scale private sector investment in to climate compatible development. Julian has an MBA from Cranfield School of Management where his dissertation was on Carbon Trading Risk in 2001. He is a Research Associate at Texas A&M University, Geochemical and Environmental Research Group.