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

President

I. 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.

Secretary

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

As a lifelong equity investor and former Registered Investment Advisor, Richard Jaskiel employs both fundamental and technical analysis in building portfolios.  He has owned and operated a Portland small business and was a project manager in both technical and economic development arenas.  He has a BA from Reed College, and has pursued subsequent coursework in mathematics, computer science, accounting and technical writing.

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.

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. 

Traci Pashley has more than 13 years of experience as a structural engineer in renewable energy. She has worked as an engineering consultant and small-business owner, devoted to promoting clean energy from renewable sources. She currently works for Vestas Americas as Manager of Engineering and Technical Support for Vestas’ North American fleet of more than 8,500 wind turbines. She holds a degree in mathematics from Linfield College and a degree in civil engineering from Portland State University.