Founder
Marc Rappaport has been involved in renewable energy for over forty years. He served as the founding president and a charter member of the Oregon Solar Energy Association in 1971. In 1972, he invented the geothermal-solar hybrid system, for which he was later awarded the basic patent. During the same period, Marc engineered and developed the business plan for what is now Biomass One, L.P. This 30 mW biomass plant in Medford, Oregon has been in commercial operation for the past 26 years. He served as a founder, general partner and managing partner of this project which remains a very profitable operation. As a result of his pioneering works, he now holds the honor of being the only American asked to present at the Sustainability of the Planet conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
Board of Directors
PresidentI. David Reingold has a
bachelors from Dartmouth College and a PhD from the University of Oregon.
He taught organic chemistry at Haverford, Middlebury, Lewis & Clark, and
Juniata Colleges, and recently retired to Portland. He has served as a
national officer in the Council on Undergraduate Research and as a local officer
in three different sections of the American Chemical Society. Dave's website.
Sandra Foltz is now retired from the field of education and social services in the
Portland area. She has served on the boards of the Guadalajara Sister
City Association and the Clackamas Service Center. Her educational background
includes a bachelors in Psychology from the University of Oregon and a degree
in Education from Portland State University. Her background training has also
included fundraising, sales and grant writing. She has run her own skincare
business for the past 24 years. She also has a passion for clean energy and the
environment, travel, the outdoors, music and sports.
Treasurer
Director of Communications Michelle Yockelson has a varied educational background, beginning with a Certificate of Advanced
Mastery in Arts and Communications from South Eugene High School in Eugene,
Oregon. She pursued her undergraduate education at Juniata College in
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where she designed her own Bachelors of Arts program
in Peace and Politics. In 2017, she graduated with a JD, a Graduate
Certificate in Civil and Human Rights Law, and a Certificate in Public Policy
Mediation from Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She is passionate about healing the world and encouraging individuals and
communities to embrace an ethos of social obligation. She has
participated in the development of civic engagement and community legal
education programming in 8 countries, most recently in Myanmar. She has
returned to her home state of Oregon and is excited to be a part of the
Renewable Energy Scholarship Foundation.
J.
Thomas Ranken is President & CEO of the CleanTech
Alliance. Under his leadership, membership has grown by a factor of eight
to 300 companies, research institutions, and other organizations.
Prior to joining the Alliance, Tom co-founded and was CEO of VizX Labs, a
cloud-based bioinformatics company. Earlier, he led a team that turned around
and doubled the size of Axio Research. He directed public affairs at the
state’s largest biotechnology company, Immunex, and was President of the
Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association.
Tom spent fourteen years as a Trustee of Harborview Medical Center including
serving as Board President. He has served on the Boards of VizX Labs, Axio
Research, the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association (Chair),
the Technology Alliance, the Washington News Council (Treasurer), the
University Sunrise Rotary Club (President), Council of State Bioscience
Associations (Chair), Seattle Mental Health (Chair), Crisis Clinic, Magnolia
UCC (Moderator), and others. Tom has an MBA from the University of Washington
and a BA in economics from the University of Virginia. His MBA thesis was “U.S.
Petroleum Dependence and Energy Alternatives.”
Kal Lambert’s occupation is evaluating and creating IP related to renewable energy and remediation of climate-change driven environmental damage. He is registered with the US Patent Office and has assisted startups in renewable fuel processing, biomass energy extraction, combustion energetics and microfluidics. He is also presently associated with Impact Hub and with Blue Forge, a coalition of Seattle engineers working on a “medical device” for ocean carbon therapy. He worked for six years in industry as a chemical engineer and has done biofuel process research, including lipid extraction, transesterification, decarboxylative ammonification and hydrogen generation from alcohols. He is a graduate of the University of California at Irvine in biology, has an advanced degree in environmental microbiology, did his first two undergrad years in the School of Architecture at the University of Oregon, and is an alumnus of WBBA.
 Erica Valli is a transactional attorney with experience in
the renewables sector. As a native Oregonian, she returned to Portland a few
years ago and has been working for Stoel Rives LLP, participating in its
Environment and Natural Resources practice. Prior to that she lived and worked
in London for over ten years. She has a degree from UC-San Diego and studied at
the London School of Economics before attending law school in the UK.
Selection Committee
Mike Grainey was Director of the Oregon
Department of Energy between 2002 and 2009, and led the State’s efforts to
become one of the leading states in energy efficiency, sustainability, and
renewable energy. He was Renewable Energy Advisor of the Oregon Business
Development Department between 2009 and 2014 where he promoted clean technology
jobs and recruited renewable energy manufacturers, and is currently Principal
of Michael W. Grainey Consulting, working on clean energy project finance and
development, sustainability, energy policy and climate change.
 Jeff
Hammarlund is an adjunct associate
professor and senior research fellow at Portland State University. He has served as an advisor to Presidents,
Senators, and other national leaders on the smart grid and renewable energy,
and played a major role in creating and securing federal funding for the Pacific
Northwest Center of Excellence for Clean Energy. Previous positions include serving as a
senior policy analyst and manager at a major Northwest utility trade
association (Public Power Council), professional staff member with the US Senate
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (where he had lead staff
responsibility for renewable energy issues), policy analyst at the US
Department of Energy, senior manager and policy advisor at Southern California
Edison, and senior manager at several major energy consulting firms.
Kal Lambert (see above)
Bill Lemon has over 25 years in the
energy industry starting with Pacific Gas and Electric where he was a key
contributor to the financial evaluation of the full spectrum of electric
generation technologies, current and emerging. He was later recruited by
ConneXt (now part of by Alliance Data Systems), a provider of information
technology products for the energy sector, where, as the Senior Product Manager
he led their efforts to identify the key technical and business implications of
deregulation on energy IT. Most recently, as Senior Vice-President at
Source Capital Group, he leads fundraising efforts for a variety of Cleantech
businesses from start-ups to large renewable energy projects.
Vijay Kumar is an intellectual property attorney at Fortem IP, where he works with emerging and international companies to protect their most valuable technology. Vijay focuses his practice on patent prosecution, strategic development of patent portfolios, freedom to operate analyses, and patent-related due diligence. Vijay has particular experience with technologies in the clean tech and energy sectors, including hydrogen production and storage, battery systems, carbon capture, chemical processing, biomass conversion, solar power and other alternative energies. Vijay previously worked as an attorney at Perkins Coie in Seattle, and prior to law school worked in the energy sector at a global industrial gas company in various engineering roles within operations, design and commissioning.
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